OJP, the grant making arm of the Department of Justice (DOJ), provides grants to various organizations, including state and local governments, universities, and private foundations, that are intended to develop the nation’s capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice, and assist crime victims. OJP’s assistant attorney general is responsible for overall management and oversight of OJP through setting policy and ensuring that OJP policies and programs reflect the priorities of the president, the attorney general, and the Congress. The assistant attorney general promotes coordination among OJP’s five bureaus—including BJA, NIJ, and OJJDP—as well as its seven program offices, including VAWO, the Executive Office for Weed and Seed (EOWS), and the Drug Courts Program Office. OJP bureaus and program offices award two types of grants: formula and discretionary. Formula grants are awarded to state governments, which then make subawards to state and local units of government. Discretionary grants can be awarded on a competitive and non- competitive basis directly to states, local units of government, Indian tribes and tribal organizations, individuals, educational institutions, private nonprofit organizations, and private commercial organizations. Bureaus and program offices, like BJA, VAWO, and OJJDP are, together with OJP’s Office of the Comptroller, responsible for monitoring OJP’s discretionary grants to ensure that they are being implemented as intended, responsive to grant goals and objectives, and compliant with statutory regulations and other policy guidelines. NIJ is OJP’s principal research and development agency and awards grants for the research and evaluation of many of OJP’s grant programs. OJJDP also funds research and evaluation efforts associated with the juvenile justice system. Between fiscal years 1990 and 2000, OJP’s budget grew, in constant fiscal year 2000 dollars, by 323 percent, from about $916 million in fiscal year 1990 to nearly $3.9 billion in fiscal year 2000. The monitoring of grant activities is a key management tool to help ensure that funds awarded to grantees are being properly spent. Over the last few years, we and others, including OJP, have identified various grant monitoring problems among OJP’s bureaus and offices. OJP has begun to work with its bureaus and offices to address these problems, but it is too early to tell whether its efforts will be enough to resolve many of the issues identified. Since 1996, we have testified and issued reports that document grant monitoring problems among some of OJP’s bureaus and offices. In November 2001, in response to a request by Senators Sessions and Grassley, we reported that grant files for discretionary grants awarded by VAWO and under BJA’s Byrne Program often lacked the documentation necessary to ensure that required monitoring activities occurred. In October 2001, at the request of Congressman Schaffer, we cited similar problems with the monitoring of OJJDP discretionary grants—problems consistent with the lack of OJJDP monitoring documentation we reported in May 1996. For example, our review of grant files for a representative sample of OJJDP, BJA Byrne, and VAWO discretionary grants active in all of fiscal years 1999 and/or 2000 showed the following: BJA and VAWO grant files did not always contain requisite grant monitoring plans, whereas OJJDP grant files generally did. When monitoring plans were in the files, grant managers from the three organizations did not consistently document their monitoring activities, such as site visits, according to the monitoring plans they developed. A substantial number of OJJDP, BJA Byrne, and VAWO grant files did not contain progress and financial reports sufficient to cover the entire grant period, contrary to OJP guidelines. Furthermore, Byrne and VAWO grantee progress and financial reports were often submitted late by grantees. These reports are an important management tool to help managers and grant monitors determine if grantees are meeting program objectives and financial commitments. BJA Byrne, VAWO, and OJJDP grant files did not always contain the required closeout documents—key documents by which OJP ensures that, among other things, the final accounting of federal funds have been received. We concluded that neither OJP, OJJDP, BJA, VAWO, nor GAO can determine the level of monitoring performed by grant managers as required by OJP and the comptroller general’s internal control standards, which call for documentation of all transactions and other significant events to ensure that management directives are being carried out. We recommended that OJJDP, BJA, and VAWO review why documentation problems occurred and take steps to improve their documentation of grant monitoring. We also recommended that OJP (1) study and recommend ways to establish an approach to systematically test or review grant files to ensure consistent documentation across OJP and (2) explore ways to electronically compile and maintain documentation of monitoring activities to facilitate more consistent documentation, more accessible management oversight, and sound performance measurement. Also, in 1999, our report on the management of the Weed and Seed Program showed similar results. Among other things, EOWS did not always ensure that local Weed and Seed sites met critical requirements— almost one half of 177 sites funded in fiscal year 1998 had not submitted all of the required progress reports. Furthermore, while EOWS was to conduct site visits at all Weed and Seed sites, EOWS monitors did not always document the results of these visits. We concluded that EOWS lacked adequate management controls over its grant monitoring process and recommended that EOWS improve program monitoring to ensure that sites meet grant requirements for submitting progress reports and EOWS document site visits. Our work has also shown that others, including OJP itself and the DOJ Office of the Inspector General, have identified problems with grant monitoring. Our November 2001 report discussed that, in 1996, an OJP- wide working group reported on various aspects of the grant process, including grant administration and monitoring. Among other things, the working group found that grant monitoring was not standardized in OJP; given available resources, monitoring plans were overly ambitious, resulting in failure to achieve the level of monitoring articulated; and an OJP-wide tracking system was needed to facilitate control of the monitoring process. The working group recommended that OJP establish another working group to develop detailed operating procedures, giving special attention to grant monitoring. Almost 4 years later, in February 2000, an independent contractor delivered a report to OJP containing similar findings. The report stated that OJP lacked consistent procedures and practices for performing grant management functions, including grant monitoring, across the agency. For example, the contractor found that (1) no formal guidance had been provided grant managers about how stringent or flexible they should be with grantees in enforcing deadlines, due dates, and other grant requirements and (2) grant files were often not complete or reliable. The contractor recommended that, among other things, OJP develop an agencywide, coordinated and integrated monitoring strategy; standardize procedures for conducting site visits and other monitoring activities; and mandate the timeliness and filing of monitoring reports. Finally, the DOJ Office of the Inspector General has identified and reported on OJP-wide monitoring problems and has identified grant management as one of the 10 major management challenges facing DOJ. In December 2000, the inspector general stated that DOJ’s multibillion-dollar grant programs are a high risk for fraud, given the amount of money involved and the tens-of-thousands of grantees. Among other things, the inspector general said that past reviews determined that many grantees did not submit the required progress and financial reports and that program officials’ on-site reviews did not consistently address all grant conditions. We reported in November 2001 that OJP had begun to work with bureaus and offices to resolve some of the problems it and others have identified, but it was too early to tell how effective these efforts will be in resolving these issues. In its Fiscal Year 2000 Performance Report and Fiscal Year 2002 Performance Plan developed under the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, OJP established a goal to achieve the effective management of grants. Among other things, DOJ plans to achieve this goal by continued progress toward full implementation of a new grant management system as a way of standardizing and streamlining the grant process. According to the performance report and performance plan, the grant management system will assist OJP in setting priorities for program monitoring and facilitate timely program and financial reports from grantees. At the time of our review, the new system covered grants for some organizations up to the award stage. Since then, OJP has created a chief information officer position charged with planning and implementing an agency-side grant management system. According to the assistant attorney general, the new system is envisioned to produce reports in response to informational requests, provide information pertaining to grantees and all resources provided by OJP, and maintain information from the opening to the closing of a grant award. Although the assistant attorney general said that OJP will consider the comptroller general’s internal control standards in taking these steps, it is unclear whether the new system will include the full range and scope of monitoring activities. We also reported that OJP had been working on two other key efforts. One of these initiatives, “Operation Closeout,” was a pilot project announced in February 2000 by OJP’s Working Group on Grant Administration that was to, among other things, accelerate the grant closeout process through revising closeout guidelines and elevating the importance of the closeout function as a required procedure in the administration of grants. By November 2000, OJP reported that this operation closed out 4,136 outstanding grants over a 6-month period, resulting in over $30 million in deobligated funds. As of September 2001, OJP had plans to initiate another closeout operation based on the success of the pilot. Another OJP initiative involved the issuance of new OJP-wide guidance for grant administration, including grant monitoring.