Features

SACRAMENTO – A state audit revealed California’s Office of Criminal Justice Planning failed to properly keep track of domestic violence grant recipient’s and evaluate the effectiveness of their programs. 

Ordered by a joint Senate committee in February and released earlier this week, the report accuses the state agency of wasting $2.1 million on evaluations that were of “uneven quality, content and usefulness,” and ignoring 700 quarterly progress reports from domestic violence shelters. 

OCJP, the primary focus of the auditor’s investigation, is a grant-making agency with responsibility for $23 million awarded to 85 domestic violence agencies throughout California. 

The agency’s interim executive director, Allan Sawyer, said Friday many of the criticisms are valid and pointed out that having shelters compete for grant money was a disastrous way to handle the funding. 

“These are institutions in their communities,” he said. “You can’t build up a domestic violence shelter and then, two years later, say, ’Someone wrote a better grant application, so your services are no longer needed.’ It’s ridiculous.” 

Sawyer said many of the audit’s other criticisms of OCJP had already been identified by his staff and remedied.