Gwinnett County plans to rescind acceptance of $3.6 million in federal grant funds because of onerous reporting requirements.
Most of the money hasn’t been spent, and the county will only have to repay $37,468, according to county grants manager Shannon Candler.
Gwinnett plans to voluntarily repay and rescind the money, and hasn’t been contacted by federal agencies about its compliance, Candler said.
Candler created an Excel spreadsheet to track conditions on Gwinnett’s 218 grants. A coworker, using the tracker, noticed several where the county failed to meet federal requirements attached to the money.
Maria Woods, Gwinnett’s chief financial officer, said the grants the county plans to rescind and return require Gwinnett to develop and report on an equal opportunity plan that would track things like recruitment, hiring, promotions and discipline by race, sex and national origin.
Woods said the county is an equal opportunity employer, but tracking and reporting the data to comply with the grant requirement would “significantly change the way we conduct business.”
“We don’t have the capacity,” she said.
Woods added that the work would be cost prohibitive, though neither she nor Candler knew what the costs would be.
County commissioners voted 4-1 not to take the money. County Commissioner Ben Ku, who dissented, said he thought the county should be doing everything possible to adhere to federal guidelines.
“I think we should be able to provide that data,” he said. “I think we’re collecting that data.”
Woods said the county had the money to replace the three grants that will be returned. The largest, $3.1 million for the county police department, is from the Department of Justice’s National Crime Statistics Exchange grant program.
That money was earmarked for equipment as part of a $23 million switch to the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System. The equipment hasn’t been purchased.
Woods said the county had originally designated local tax dollars for the project before receiving the grant, and would use that money.
That one-time grant award prompted the reporting requirement, though Candler said she learned the county had been required to track its equal opportunity statistics — but not report them — when it received a $499,254 Justice Assistance Grant for the police department. There’s a $500,000 threshold for reporting. That money will also be rescinded.
Woods said that grant pays for training and community events, which will continue to be funded by the department.
The third grant, for $61,797, paid for a volunteer coordinator for Gwinnett’s Court Appointed Special Advocate program. That money, for the juvenile court, came from the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council’s Victims of Crime Act. The county will have to fund that program.
Information required for previous grants totaling $1.04 million also weren’t properly reported, but Candler said she doesn’t expect the county to have to repay that money because they have been closed and audited with no findings.
Candler said she will continue to track county grants to make sure Gwinnett complies with requirements. The county will no longer submit applications for the grant funds being rescinded, she said.
“We want to do it right,” she said. “We’re not going to accept money if we’re not going to do it right.”
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