Audit finds problems with Oklahomaâ€™s Office of Juvenile Affairsâ€™ federal contracts

Friday, April 23rd 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A state Auditor and Inspector's investigation found problems with the way the Office of Juvenile Affairs handled three federal contracts with the Oklahoma Sheriffs Association.

The contracts under the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grant, totaling $611,894, involved a program of alternatives to fines and incarceration for juvenile offenders.

The contracts were awarded from 1999 to 2002 and involved a program of alternatives to fines and incarceration for juvenile offenders.

"At this point in time, we were unable to determine if anything occurred that was criminal," state Auditor Jeff McMahan said. "However, Drew Edmondson's office asked us to go back in and look into some other areas of concern that were brought to our attention during the course of our audit which could possibly be criminal, if in fact it occurred."

The juvenile affairs office incorrectly considered the sheriffs association a sole-source vendor, the report concluded. There also was a lack of accountability for advanced funds and funding started three months before contracts were signed, the report stated.

"As far as accountability, it's one of the worst I've seen," McMahan said. "There are so many hands in the pot."

The largest contract, for $398,000, required the sheriffs association to provide "accountability-based" sanctions for juvenile offenders by training local agencies for graduated-sanction programs.

A contract for $98,000 required the association to evaluate the progress and effectiveness of such programs. The third, for $115,000, was for a similar purpose but covered a different time period.

The audit also questioned the participation in a golf tournament of the juvenile affairs executive director and other employees.

Tom Gruber, first assistant attorney general, wouldn't say Thursday why the office requested the audit.

"In general, somebody approaches us, we have some documentation sent to us, we have something of that kind that is sent our way that we look at and then make the decision that we want to have an investigative audit," he said.

The audit also looked at a conference held in 2002 at the University of Central Oklahoma.

The audit report indicated the state's Juvenile Crime Enforcement Coalition hired the sheriffs association to stage the conference.

The sheriffs association did not meet the requirements to be a sole-source vendor for this contract, the report found.

Juvenile affairs ultimately told the sheriffs association to stop planning the conference, and the agency executed an interagency agreement with UCO two days before the conference's start to go ahead and have the event.

OJA spokeswoman Rhonda Burgess said the agency is conducting a thorough review of the report's findings, but she noted that some problems have been addressed.

"OJA does agree that corrective action is warranted with regard to some of the findings," Burgess said. "However, with respect to a majority of these findings, correction has already occurred."