[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 2291, REAUTHORIZATION OF THE DRUG FREE COMMUNITIES ACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
H.R. 2291
TO EXTEND THE AUTHORIZATION OF THE DRUG-FREE COMMUNITIES SUPPORT
PROGRAM FOR AN ADDITIONAL 5 YEARS, TO AUTHORIZE A NATIONAL COMMUNITY
ANTIDRUG COALITION INSTITUTE, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
__________
JUNE 28, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-65
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
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79-781 WASHINGTON : 2002
___________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JIM TURNER, Texas
DOUG OSE, California THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia ------ ------
DAVE WELDON, Florida
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Christopher Donesa, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Nicholas Coleman, Professional Staff Member
Conn Carroll, Clerk
Tony Haywood, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on June 28, 2001.................................... 1
Text of H.R. 2291................................................ 6
Statement of:
Dean, Arthur T., Major General, U.S. Army, retired, chairman
and CEO, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America;
Honorable Michael Kramer, judge, Noble County Superior
Court, Indiana, chair of Drug-Free Noble County and member
of the Advisory Board of CADCA; and Lawrence Couch, program
manager, Montgomery County Partnership, Maryland........... 78
Levin, Hon. Sander, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Michigan.......................................... 35
Portman, Hon. Rob, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Ohio.............................................. 27
Vereen, Donald M., Jr., M.D., M.P.H., Deputy Director, Office
of National Drug Control Policy; and John J. Wilson, Acting
Director, OJJDP, Department of Justice..................... 48
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Couch, Lawrence, program manager, Montgomery County
Partnership, Maryland, prepared statement of............... 94
Dean, Arthur T., Major General, U.S. Army, retired, chairman
and CEO, Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America:
Information concerning selected outcomes................. 98
Information concerning Lessons From the Field............ 102
Prepared statement of.................................... 81
Kramer, Honorable Michael, judge, Noble County Superior
Court, Indiana, chair of Drug-Free Noble County and member
of the Advisory Board of CADCA, prepared statement of...... 88
Portman, Hon. Rob, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Ohio, prepared statement of....................... 31
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 3
Vereen, Donald M., Jr., M.D., M.P.H., Deputy Director, Office
of National Drug Control Policy, prepared statement of..... 51
Wilson, John J., Acting Director, OJJDP, Department of
Justice, prepared statement of............................. 59
H.R. 2291, REAUTHORIZATION OF THE DRUG FREE COMMUNITIES ACT
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Gilman and Cummings.
Staff present: Christopher Donesa, staff director and chief
counsel; Nicholas Coleman, professional staff member; Conn
Carroll, clerk; Chris Barkley, intern; Tony Haywood, minority
counsel; Lorran Garrison, minority staff assistant; and Peter
Anthony, minority intern.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order. Good
morning and thank you all for coming.
This morning the subcommittee will consider reauthorization
of the Drug Free Communities Act, particularly H.R. 2291, which
was introduced by Congressman Portman last week. The Drug Free
Communities Act is one of the pillars of our national demand
reduction strategy and a priority for President Bush. This
program also enjoys broad-based and bipartisan national
support. It is intended to drive Federal assistance for
prevention and treatment programs directly to the communities
where it can do the most good to help parents and neighbors to
keep children away from illegal drugs.
Since its enactment in 1997, the program has a proven
record of success, and I am glad to have the opportunity to
consider and strongly support its reauthorization in this
subcommittee. From Nome, AK, and Kauai, HI, to Kendallville,
IN, and Montgomery County, MD, we have seen how Drug Free
Communities Coalitions can make a difference in individual
cities, towns and counties across America. The program now
assists 307 communities in 49 States, all of which are funded
primarily by private sector, State and local dollars. I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses about the many success
stories which have come from the program.
I want to thank Congressman Portman and Congressman Levin
for their bipartisan leadership on this legislation along with
Senator Grassley and Senator Biden.
The bill recognizes the administration's priority to
increase overall funding for the program in fiscal 2002 from
$43.5 million to $50.6 million and steadily increases the
programs authorization to $75 million in fiscal 2007. It also
addresses an issue which has been of some concern by allowing
previous grantees to compete anew for program support after 5
years. H.R. 2291 also envisions improvements to the program by
allowing supplementary grants for leading coalitions to mentor
new coalitions in their area and the creation of a National
Community Anti-Drug Coalition Institute which would provide
technical assistance to coalitions in expanding the program to
new communities.
While I strongly support this legislation, I also want to
ensure that any reauthorization bill reported by this
subcommittee reflects the original goal of the program to move
Federal assistance directly to the communities who are doing
the work.
I look forward to further testimony and explanation from
today's witnesses with respect to the proposal to more than
double the statutory cap on administrative expenses for the
program from the current 3 percent to 8 percent, about which I
have some concern. In the outyears of the program, this
increase in administrative costs potentially represents grants
to 35 additional communities.
I would also like the subcommittee to be satisfied that in
the course of laudable efforts to expand and improve the
program we do not inadvertently create or fund duplicative
Federal efforts. In particular, I hope to hear from witnesses
how the program will reconcile multiple entities who would have
such tasks as technical assistance and training to local
coalitions, including the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention at the Justice Department, the new
mentoring coalitions and the proposed new Institute.
We have excellent witnesses with us today to discuss the
overall track record and benefit to the Drug Free Communities
Program as well as the proposed legislation.
Our first panel consists of Congressman Rob Portman from
Ohio and Congressman Sander Levin from Michigan, who worked
tirelessly to create this program and have carefully nurtured
it over the years to the success that it is today.
On our second panel we have Dr. Donald Vereen, Deputy
Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Mr.
John Wilson, Acting Director of the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention at the Justice Department.
On our third panel we will welcome true leaders of the
community coalition movement, including General Arthur Dean,
the chairman and CEO of the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of
America; my friend Judge Michael Kramer from Noble County, IN,
in my district, whose coalition won a national award from
CADCA; and Mr. Lawrence Couch, the program manager for the
Montgomery County partnership in Congressman Cummings' home
State of Maryland. We look forward to your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder and the text
of H.R. 2991 follow:]
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Mr. Souder. Now I would like to yield to Congressman
Cummings for an opening statement.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Today's hearing offers a welcome opportunity to review one
of the most successful and least controversial initiatives in
our national war on drugs. At a time when much of our Nation's
anti-drug policy seems caught in political cross hairs, the
Drug Free Communities Program enjoys broad bipartisan support.
I am proud to say that I have been a strong supporter of
the DFCA since its enactment, and I have strongly supported
increases in the funding for many programs in subsequent years.
I am just as proud to be an original cosponsor of the
reauthorizing bill before us today.
This year, H.R. 2291's primary authors, Congressman Portman
and Congressman Sander Levin, deserve congratulations for their
committed work in putting together a bill that will sustain the
near universal support the Drug Free Communities Program has
enjoyed since its inception. The Bush administration, too,
deserves credit for recognizing the value of this program by
accommodating in its fiscal year 2002 budget request increased
funding levels that are set forth in H.R. 2291.
The 5-year reauthorization and increased funding levels
provided in H.R. 2291 are designed to breathe additional life
into an already vital and small-scale program that attacks the
problems of substance abuse where it resides, namely, in our
communities and especially among our youth. Moreover, in
addition to continuing congressional commitment to assisting
the concerted grassroots efforts of communities to address
their substance abuse problems at their source, the bill
contains several new provisions that make it responsive to both
the needs of struggling coalitions and the desire of thriving
coalitions to pass on the benefits of their experience.
I must say, Mr. Chairman, that I am most impressed by this.
Because in the Baltimore city limits, which is--I guess I
represent about 55 or 60 percent of Baltimore city, I would
imagine you would have probably somewhere between 75 and 150
organizations that could use these funds and could use them
effectively and efficiently.
A reasonable increase in the program's administrative cost
cap, new supplemental mentor grants, expanded eligibility for
coalitions that have completed their 5-year funding cycle and
the newly proposed National Community Anti-Drug Coalition
Institute would not only increase ONDCPs' and the OJJDPs'
ability to serve Community Anti-Drug Coalitions but also
empower coalitions further to help themselves and each other.
Just this past week I visited three organizations in my
district who have anti-drug efforts going on, and one of the
things that was clear was that it would have been very helpful
if they had some other organizations that had been successful
to mentor them and to provide them with advice. It's not a
question of whether people have the will. The question is
whether or not we can equip them with the information and the
resources to do the things that they want to do.
People want to take back their communities. They want their
communities to be the best that they can be. They want their
property values to go up. They want their children not to be
involved in drugs. The question is whether we will provide the
resources and whether we will provide the information so that
they can be most effective.
Although I understand that there are a couple of aspects of
the legislation that have raised some concern, I know, more
importantly, Mr. Chairman, that you strongly support the Drug
Free Communities Program as I do. Thus, it is my hope that the
witnesses will address your concerns satisfactorily today, Mr.
Chairman, and that, in any event, we will be able to proceed to
a markup on this important legislation in the very, very, near
future.
I thank all of the witnesses for appearing before the
subcommittee today, and I look forward to hearing from you all.
And I want to thank everybody in the room, in case we don't get
a chance to thank you, for doing what you do every day to lift
up our Nation and to attack this very, very serious problem
that we have in so many communities throughout the country.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Before proceeding, I would like to take care of a couple of
procedural matters.
First, I'd like unanimous consent that all Members have 5
legislative days to submit written statements and questions for
the hearing record; that any answers to written questions
provided by the witnesses also be included in the record.
Without objection, it's so ordered.
Second, I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits,
documents and other materials referred to by Members and the
witnesses may be included in the hearing record and that all
Members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
I would like to welcome our first panel, Congressman Rob
Portman and Congressman Sander Levin. It's a pleasure to have
you both here.
Following standard committee practice, we recognize your
oaths of office and will not swear you in as other witnesses to
the panel are sworn in.
Congressman Portman, you are recognized for your opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROB PORTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF OHIO
Mr. Portman. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for agreeing
to move this legislation on an expedited basis and having a
hearing today.
I think there are a number of opportunities you are going
to have on the additional panels to get into the issues, but
Sandy Levin and I would love to have the opportunity to have
some questions, and I will try to keep my statement relatively
brief.
I'll start by saying that we appreciate your support and
Mr. Cummings' support over the years. In 1997, we started this
project together with your input, both of you, and with your
support. We think it has been very successful, and we're here
to try to reauthorize it now and improve on it.
The whole notion of this program is to provide a Federal
grant program directly to communities to encourage them to put
together a comprehensive, long-term approach involving all
segments of the community and to do it in a way that can be
measured. And very significantly, of course, it's a 100 percent
matching grant program, so every Federal dollar leverages
tremendous nonFederal resources.
We have so far been able to give these grants out to 307
community coalitions in 49 States, D.C., Puerto Rico and the
Virgin Islands. So it's been broad based. And again we think we
have had some great successes out there in creating more
coalitions as well as rewarding those doing a good job
encouraging them to do more.
Now this was a new approach. We had not tried this
previously. It involves the Federal Government directly and
local coalitions; and we did it because, frankly, many of us
were frustrated with what we saw as a war on drugs that was not
successful in getting at the demand reduction side. And
effective prevention and education at the local level we
thought worked, and we wanted to encourage it.
We have found that coalitions are successful because they
are focused on the individual communities. They devise specific
strategies that work in very specific communities, and that
means usually in a neighborhood often defined by a school
district. I think that's the level at which we think we're
going to find the most success and where we believe this has
worked well.
Also, these coalitions have to involve sort of all of the
players that influence the decision of a young person, and
that's law enforcement, and that's the faith community, and
that's our schools and parents and teachers and business
community. That we thought was a new approach in terms of the
Federal Government encouraging and being involved and again one
that we believe works very well.
Congressman Levin and I have witnessed first hand how these
community coalitions work. We both in our districts have active
community coalitions. We've gotten very involved in them, and
we are believers, and we think there ought to be a continued
support network here from the Federal level.
When we were all down at the White House hearing President
Bush announced John Walters as his nominee for NADP, he
stressed that the best way to reduce the supply on drugs he
thought was to reduce the demand for drugs in this country. And
as you recall he went on to specifically mention the Drug Free
Communities Act as a way to do that. So we're pleased to see
that kind of support from the administration.
As Mr. Cummings has mentioned in the budget, we in greater
Cincinnati have seen a lot of success with our coalitions. Let
me give you just a few things we have done.
We have trained over 6,000 parents. It was very intense. My
wife and I went through that training. The courses they work in
the sense of getting parents engaged in their kids' lives and
ultimately sending those parents out as Ambassadors in the
community to get other people engaged in talking to kids about
the dangers of drugs, understanding, identifying what the
problems are and having more informed parents and other
caregivers, which is obviously crucial to getting at this
problem in Cincinnati as well as around the country.
There's also been a lot of partnering with the local
media--TV, radio and so on. In our case, over $1.2 million has
been provided through public service ads in the last year
alone. This is all leveraging what the Drug Free Communities
Act can do.
We believe also that these coalitions have engaged members
of the community who have not been previously involved. I
mentioned specifically the business community, and in
Cincinnati we have certainly done that, brought the business
community in in ways never before seen. We have got over 100
new drug-free workplaces in our area, for instance, in the last
few years.
The faith community. In some communities, the faith
community is more involved than in others, but in many
communities the religious community is less involved today than
they may have been back in the 1980's. This was the case in our
area, and we've seen a redoubling of effort there. We have
spearheaded the Faith Community Initiative, which trained over
100 local congregations to implement substance abuse prevention
programs in their churches, mosques, synagogues; and that's
very exciting to me. We're adding value, and I think you are
seeing that around the country.
We have also, Mr. Chairman, made it a point, Mr. Levin and
I, not to make this just a bipartisan effort which we have
worked hard to do but also make it bicameral and make,
hopefully, all of our jobs easier. We have worked closely with
Senator Grassley and Senator Biden to come up with identical
legislation in each body, at least as we introduced it, to not
only get this through the House but hopefully get it through
the Senate and get it to the President's desk to be signed with
the least amount of difference between the Senate and the House
legislation. It provides reauthorization through the year 2007.
It also authorizes, as you know, a new Anti-Drug Coalition
Institute to help provide education, training and technical
assistance to coalitions which is something we have identified
over the last several years as a need. This Institute will also
be helpful in developing and disseminating evaluation and
testing mechanisms to assist coalitions in measuring and
assessing their performance.
I said at the outset that's one of the unusual aspects of
this legislation from 1997, that we really wanted to be sure we
were measuring our results; and this Institute would be very
helpful in providing technical assistance to coalitions to be
sure we're doing that.
Ultimately, Mr. Chairman, as you know, the goal here is to
get as much bang for the buck out of the Federal dollar and not
to spend money on administrative costs and overhead; and I
think we have been true to that and been tough on that. We want
to send the most dollars we can directly to the communities,
with a minimal amount being spent on administrative expenses.
Although there is an increase here from the 3 percent cap
we established in 1997, I am pleased that the bill does cap
administrative costs at what I think is a modest level that
apparently ONDCP, OJJDP and the Advisory Commission of the drug
communities have all agreed on.
The Advisory Commission, by the way, is made up largely of
people representing coalitions around the country, so they have
a pretty good feel for what is needed I think at the
administrative level.
We can talk more about this later. I think you may have
some questions. I'd love to talk about it.
But the notion is just to be sure we have the people
available to monitor what is going on with these grantees
around the country. The mentoring we can talk about later. I
don't want to get into a lot of detail on that.
But what this does is it allows more mature coalitions to
help other coalitions get off the ground. The statement from
the Institute we can talk about later. But I think it makes
good sense to provide some funding, and it is very limited
here, less than 5 percent, as you know, for the mentoring side
of it to be able to let more mature coalitions pass on their
know-how to others.
We also have a new provision here that you can't apply for
a second round of grants unless you are willing to increase
your own match. So it goes from, you know, 100 percent to 125
after a 5-year period, which I think is a nice innovation of
this legislation; and it's trying to respond to the need of not
having coalitions get too reliant on the Federal side but to
force them to look more into local and other nonFederal
sources.
Finally, I just want to thank you again, both of you, for
all your help and, Mr. Chairman, for your willingness to
schedule this hearing so speedily after the introduction of the
bill and to work with us to try to get this to the President
get it signed into the law to be able to continue this good
program.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Rob Portman follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Congressman Levin.
STATEMENT OF HON. SANDER LEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
Mr. Levin. Thank you very, very much. Rob and I are pleased
and proud to be here. We're proud parents of quite a few
children, each of us, and, in my case, grandchildren. We're
most proud of them. But in terms of legislative children, if
you want to call it that, I think we're very proud parents and
glad that you are also parents of this program and so many
other people are who are in this room and not in this room
today.
My interest in this originated with, No. 1, the urgency of
the issue. Hello, Mr. Gilman. I just saw it first hand, how the
problem had exploded, even beyond that of my children's
generation; and it was serious enough then compared to when I
was a kid. It was also, though, originated because of what I
saw was going on in the local communities, and in that case,
really, one community more than others, Troy, the city of Troy,
and the leader then was Mary Ann Salberg, who is now chair of
the Advisory Committee.
It's been sustained by what I've seen happen in the local
communities in the ensuing years, the blossoming of involvement
and interest at the grassroots and how that is an essential
ingredient in the battle to gain control of drugs and their
effects.
So in a sense, I think that is all that needs to be said
except to talk about the future. So let me comment on just a
few points.
First of all, the mentoring provision in the Institute, in
your statement, Mr. Chairman, you raise questions about that,
and let me just say how I see it. Mentoring, it's been so
valuable to have experienced organizations work with other
communities. There was money that came through this program,
and Rob and I have talked about it, that went to a community to
mentor other communities, and it's really been invaluable.
One of the problems we have in a free society--it's even
more so in a nonfree society--but in our wonderful,
rambunctious society of the United States is replication. We
have successes, but it's hard to spread the word and the
experience, and I think that's the value of our nurturing more
mentoring.
The Institute, as I see it, takes the experience more
nationally, more globally and tries to help us learn from those
experiences and spread the word even more broadly than can be
done by mentoring, which after all, has some geographical
limits and also helps with the evaluation and assessment of
success and failure. Because, like any program, there are
failures as well as successes; and I think the Institute can be
very, very helpful in analyzing and assessing local experience
on a national basis. So I believe, in addition to the expanded
reauthorization amounts which are important, because the demand
here has been, I think, gratifying, we didn't create it. We
didn't go out and spawn these applications. They kind of poured
in because of local need.
Last, in terms of the question of the cap, other witnesses
perhaps can address this more effectively than I. I know that
an issue arose before, and I think legitimately so, and a
report was issued after considerable inquiry, and I would urge
that we use that comprehensive report as a base for a
continuation.
So I close with this, to congratulate you who are so
interested in this, who now have such major responsibilities
for nurturing this infant that is now more than crawling, it is
more than walking, it's kind of running; and I guess we have to
make sure it has an effective adolescence.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Gilman, would you like to make a statement?
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This seems to be drug day. We started off earlier today
with the Colombia Plan. We're going into another hearing very
shortly on the Andean Ridge.
I want to welcome our two good colleagues who are here
today and giving us the best of their thinking on a very
important measure, Mr. Portman and Mr. Levin. We want to thank
you for your continued support of what we should be doing in
communities.
You know, when I was in the State legislature many years
ago, it was Governor Rockefeller then who had drug-free
community programs and put a lot of money into it and was very
successful. But over the years, as the drug problem waned
temporarily, it sort of faded out in the distance, and I am
pleased that you are doing the DFCA program.
Let me just say this to both of you. This program I think
is a major component of our national demand reduction strategy;
and over the last 5 years, through its program of distributing
grants to our communities, the DFCA has demonstrated itself to
be a resounding success. We can put billions of dollars into
our drug war in eradication at its source, in interdicting and
distribution and providing the kind of enforcement when it
reaches our shorelines to try to put away the drug traffickers
and then to do some things about prevention in educating our
young people and then treating those who are victims. But the
most important of all of these efforts I think are right in our
own communities; and unless our communities are involved and
unless we can convince the parents, the teachers, the schools,
the churches, the synagogues, all of them to become involved,
all of those billions of dollars go down the drain because
we're not doing enough in demand reduction.
I think your program is an excellent program. I think the
success is due in part to the nature of the grant recipients,
various anti-drug coalitions; and I think these coalitions are
community groups containing representatives of our young
people, our parents, our private industry, our media and
President, law enforcement and health care professionals,
religious and civic leaders working together to provide a
cohesive anti-drug message and strategy.
The DFCA reauthorization for an additional 5 years is
something I fully support, and I hope our committee will fully
support. I know our chairman is vitally interested in it. It
increases overall funding levels. Prior awardees would be able
to apply for new grants and, in addition, to be eligible for
mentoring grants in order to help new coalitions with their
initial startup efforts, which I think is significant.
Mr. Chairman, the threat posed by illicit drugs is, you and
I both know, is one of the more crucial national security
threats facing our Nation; and we can't emphasize that enough.
Several presidents have also labeled it a national security
threat. And while some opponents have argued we spend too much
on combating drugs, I can't conceive why they would say that.
Those opponents ignore the extensive costs of drug use on our
society if we were to add up all of the problems--the loss of
youth, the loss of productivity, of health care, of all the
other aspects that go into the drug problem.
In addition to costs associated with supply and demand
reduction, drug use costs billions each year, when we add up
all of those expenses. Moreover, it's also the intangible costs
in terms of broken families and destroyed lives, destroyed
minds.
Our children are on the front lines of the drug war, the
primary target of both the drug producers and the sellers. The
DFCA has a proven track record of success in reducing demand
for drugs among our younger population. Given that today's
adolescents are potentially the addicts of tomorrow, I
wholeheartedly support extending and expanding this important
Federal program.
Just one question, if I may, Mr. Chairman. What is the cost
of the reauthorization?
Mr. Portman. Mr. Gilman thank, you for your statement,
first, and for never taking your eye off the ball.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you.
Mr. Portman. Because from the days of Nelson Rockefeller
until today's very different problems and faces, whether it's
Ecstasy or new issues in the Andean Ridge, you, Mr. Rangel and
others have kept your eye on the ball; and when the public's
interest has waned--as you said, when we started this program,
for instance, there had been a doubling of teen drug use in the
previous 10 years. We knew that. And that's because we took our
eye off of the ball. So you have been out there ever since I've
been here in Congress and I know well before, doing that.
We have for funding in 2002 proposed, as you know, $50.6
million. Then it goes to $60 million in 2003, $70 million in
2004, same in 2005, up to $75 million in 2006 and 2007. We had
$40 million go out in 2001. So it's a slight increase over
time. And, as Sandy said, that's really in response to the
knowledge we have that there is a tremendous increase in
demand.
For instance, we'll have about 408 we think--and we will
hear from Don Vereen and others later, but--coalitions that we
awarded grants this year, as opposed to 307 last year. So it is
a slight increase in funding over time, and it's consistent
with the administration's budget as well.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Portman. I think when you
consider what we're spending on defense, this is minuscule and
well spent, and I certainly urge full consideration for this by
our committee. Thank you.
Mr. Portman. Thank you.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. First, let me say how much we appreciate both
your efforts.
Congressman Portman has been pushing our leadership into
doing some prevention things and worked with our leadership to
develop this legislation. I worked with Congressman Levin back
when I was the Republican staff director on the Children and
Family Committee in earlier lives of ours, and I know his
commitment to children and families has been from the time he
first came to Congress.
I want to ask a couple of tough questions just to get your
reaction to this. One of the problems with the traditional part
of the drug war is, for example, we hear when we put money into
Colombia that we don't see the results that we want. Part of
the problem with the results--we did this as we went through
the drug-free schools program, too, and really never did come
up with a fair way to monitor the results. And the demand
reduction programs seem to be similarly measured like the
results in the other parts of eradication and so on. In other
words, they're process oriented, that we hear how many people
went to the program, how many people who were in the program
didn't have the problem.
But should there be some sort of a measurement like we
demand from police departments? They ask this fundamental
question: If you get a community anti-drug grant, did your drug
use go down in your community or did it go up? Should we see an
actual community change in the abuse of drugs? For example,
Ecstasy is up from 3 percent to 8 percent in the last 2 years
among high school students. Should that be equally true in
places where they have the coalitions as where they don't?
Mr. Levin. Should I tackle that first?
I did not bring with me the materials put out by the
various coalitions, but, Mr. Chairman, the more effective ones
ask that question. Now, it isn't always easy, as you know, to
obtain data by community. But I think it's fair enough to ask
communities--and I do--how's it going? What has the impact
been?
My only caution on this is to remember the difficulty of
obtaining data per community. Also, we have to keep in mind the
question, what would it have been without these programs?
But let me say that--and they're handing me for Troy--I
didn't bring it. I now have it. So Troy--I'll just read the one
paragraph, OK? And I want to mention that we encourage
communities to do as Troy is doing.
Where there's a problem, for example, of a spread in the
use of Ecstasy or any other drug, I think community coalitions
should be working on this, and they should be able to--at least
they should try to assess the impact. So I'll just read you the
one paragraph, OK? This is the Troy Community Coalition.
There was a significant decline of students in Troy
indicating that they have smoked cigarettes--this was on
cigarettes--in their lifetime in grades 8, 10, 12 by 39, 20 and
24 percent from 1998 to 2000. These declines are far greater
than the national average.
Then if I might just read one more paragraph, because I
think it's relevant here.
Troy students in the eighth grade increased their
disapproval of their friends smoking marijuana from 77 percent
in 1998 to 83 percent in 2000.
Also, there's a figure here about Troy eighth graders first
trying marijuana, and they drop from 7 percent to under 5
percent in the couple of years where there was an emphasis on
this. And then there's further data.
So I think you have a salient question, and I think that we
should be encouraging that as one of the tools of evaluation.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Portman.
Mr. Portman. Mr. Chairman, I couldn't agree with you more.
Sandy's talked about some of the information that we have
been able to garner over the years, but, in fact, the substance
abuse prevention does work. But this has been one of my great
frustrations in this field generally, and you and I have talked
about it, which is the lack of good measurement on the
prevention side.
We tried to do something new with this act back in 1997, as
you know, which was to put in place some evaluation
requirements that had never been in previous grant
requirements, whether it was from the Federal Government or the
State government, including CSAP or HHS and so on; and it's
very difficult to do.
But one of the reasons--and we're going to get to this in a
second--where we want to increase the administrative cap
somewhat is to be able to be sure that we are giving the
coalitions better feedback on the evaluation that we're
requiring from them as to how their program is working so that
they can improve. Because one of the complaints we got from the
community coalitions is there's not enough sort of help from
Washington in telling them what we're doing with their
evaluation and how they could then take their program and make
it better.
Then, second, is this institute. The notion in the
Institute is best practices, basically. That is to say what is
working and what is not working, taking the best out in the
community in terms of performance measurement and spreading it.
As you know, in our coalition we focus religiously on this;
and some would say too much. I don't think too much. But we did
our survey late last year. 47,000 students--which is almost a
census; that's more than most of the big national surveys
have--47,000 students, and we asked all the questions we
possibly could that relate to the national surveys to be able
to benchmark to see how we were doing compared to the
nationals, including Monitoring the Future and the PRIDE
survey.
We also benchmarked as best we could every previous survey
that had been done in our community, and there hasn't been one
done in 2\1/2\ years. But every 2 years previous to that there
had been one done in the public schools. Then there had been
the PRIDE survey and now again in the suburbs and so on, and
what we have come up we think is a template for the rest of the
country.
Again, every survey has got to be a little different
because you want to try to benchmark back to your previous
surveys in your area. But we're providing that as best we can
to other people; and we'd love to, frankly, have the folks at
ONDCP and OJJDP do more in terms of spreading the word as to
how you can measure your results better.
We measure absolutely everything. We have parent training.
We give the parents a survey they have to get back to us on our
approaches to different chemicals. We have the athletic
directors and coaches come for the seminar. We then measure the
performance of the seminar. But then 3 months out, 6 months out
we ask them whether they are putting something in place; and we
are getting great results. You know, 60 some percent of them
are putting something new in place in their schools.
So I agree with your question. Your premise is there's not
enough testing, I think, in your question. I agree with you,
and we have got to figure out a way to do it without
overburdening coalitions with a lot of paperwork and red tape.
I think one way to do it is to have this Institute because I
think the Institute can provide some more of that technical
help so they know how to evaluate their individual programs and
then to come up with some sense of how they are comparing their
community to communities that don't have coalitions.
I would just say, our own community, we had the highest
drug use ever in Cincinnati when we started our thing in 1994.
Then our latest survey shows that, for the first time in 10
years, we've got a reduction in hard drugs, leveling off of
marijuana use after dramatic increases, you know, every year
from the previous decade. We've got a slight uptick in alcohol;
and I think in smoking we are about level, maybe a little bit
up.
But we feel like, as compared to other communities that
don't have this coalition effort, that we have done better; and
that's based on Monitoring the Future and PRIDE surveys and so
on and certainly as compared to our past. So all I can tell you
is I truly believe substance abuse works.
We have got some other data here that CADCA has provided to
me this morning, which I will be happy to provide to the
subcommittee with your permission. But it shows, for instance,
that in 1999, 10 percent of teens saw marijuana users as
popular and it was 19 percent in 1997 and 17 percent in 1998.
Now some of this is the Drug Free Media Act, some of it is just
the American public getting reengaged with this issue. It has
been said, you know, we kind of lost track of it. But I think
these community coalitions deserve some credit for what we have
seen in the last 3 or 4 years.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, I was just sitting here listening and, right
now--I mean, I look at the list of--and I want to make this
statement so you can get where I'm coming from.
I was looking at Maryland and what is happening in
Maryland. Montgomery County, which is our richest county, and
all due respect, they got their grant. They got a grant.
Baltimore City has not, which has the worst problem in the
country with regard to that, in the country. Now, I don't know
whether that's Baltimore City's fault, and I'm not here arguing
over whether Baltimore City should have gotten it or not. I am
sort of going at the aim of the program generally.
I think the thing I like about this program is that it does
go into the communities. Because one of the things that I've
noticed since being in the Congress, gentlemen, is that there
are a lot of people who make a lot of money off of the ills of
society, and the people who are ill never get well. And I've
seen it over and over and over again.
I am beginning to look at some of the grants that come into
Baltimore, research grants. There has been a lot of research.
But then, after the research is over, the community is still in
bad shape, and there's nothing to sustain anything. There's
nothing even put in operation so that you even have something
to sustain.
So that is what I like about this program, and I'm trying
to--and so I had to set that up to get to where I'm going to.
When I look at the mentoring program and this institute, I
think these are very, very important things, very important,
because one of the things that all of us--and I tell my
constituents constantly, if you want to know something the
Republicans and Democrats agree on, this one thing, that our
tax dollars--that your tax dollars will be spent effectively
and efficiently, whatever the purposes are.
So I guess I like the idea of organizations that have been
doing it and have been effective to then take that and take it
somewhere else, because I'm telling you probably from what I've
seen in my neighborhoods, neighborhoods get more respect--I
mean, in other words, if somebody is trying to accomplish
something, like a neighborhood association wants to accomplish
something, like getting guys off the corner selling drugs, they
will listen to somebody who has done it, who looks like them,
who has a similar situation, and they talk the same talk. They
will listen to them.
When it comes to the super experts, that is a whole other
thing. So I think this is good. I think it is good for us to
try to figure out how we can do this mentoring thing.
The institute situation, as I think--I mean, as I
understand it--is a good idea, because I think a lot of people,
like I said in my opening statement, they really want to do
something. They just don't know what to do. And as you all were
talking and I started looking at all the material in front of
us, I realized we have got different kinds of problems. I mean,
in Michigan you've got--I don't know what Detroit is, but I
know you've got Detroit, and you've got rural areas.
You've got urban areas. The problems that I face in
Baltimore City are things like the committee organizations who
are tired of people selling drugs on their corners and tired of
seeing their young people go down the tubes and tired of seeing
their property values go down. I mean, big time. I mean, I live
in a neighborhood where if you bought a house for $100,000 20
years ago and put in $100,000 in improvements over, say, 10
years, 10, 20 years, you can't even sell it for what you bought
it for because of drugs. That is serious.
So I guess what I'm saying to you is that--and then one of
the things that kind of bothers me, it seems like the same
organizations get the same--as I understand it, get the grants
over and over again. Now, some people may say, well, that is
because they want to continue and sustain what they are doing.
I think that is important, but at the same time, I think the
way they should be proceeding is the way that eventually they
sort of get weaned off of this government support so that other
organizations can have the benefit of the same thing, and going
back to what I said about the organizations that come in and
get rich off the ills of society, I don't want them to become
so used to getting this money that they don't do all of those
things that are self-sustaining. In other words, I believe in
training people to control their own situations.
Now, if government has to come in and put some dollars in
to help them do some things that are really, really necessary
for government to do, that is fine, but at the rate we're
going, I think we'll have maybe--I think you said 307 that
we've already helped. You know, I don't know how many of these
have duplicated over and over again, but believe me as I said
just now, I would imagine that in my city, we've got--we can
put--I can easily put together 100--at least 75 coalitions,
easy, easy, and--all of whom are suffering greatly, and all of
whom have a will, but they don't have a way, because they just
don't know what to do.
So, you know, I just point that out for the future
witnesses that will come up, too, that, I mean, it is just
something we need to give consideration to. I'm not trying to
say that this legislation is supposed to be the cure for
everything, but I just want us to kind of look, say, 10 years
from now and say, OK, what are we doing to really, truly
empower people so that they build into the process and even in
their application process, how they will, you know, eventually
get to a point where they really don't need us. That is all.
You might want to comment on that.
Mr. Levin. Well, just--you said it so well, I should say
nothing. Just a couple quick comments.
I think it is so important that all of us here heard your
statement, and I would think that one of the purposes of the
Institute, for example, would be to implement that spirit. And
I believe there has been sensitivity in the offices in terms of
the applications. There is always a problem with any grant
program that the applicants that need it the most, perhaps, are
sometimes the least equipped to get in line. And we have to be
sensitive to that.
Second, quickly, one of the most useful meetings we had, we
brought together all the coalitions, the suburbs--and I
represent suburbs near Detroit and next to Detroit--and
representatives of the city, including Congressman Conyers, and
we had a really marvelous discussion about the coalition
experience and how we could learn from each other, because
there really isn't an urban-suburban line, a rigid line when it
comes to these issues.
So, Mr. Cummings, I believe deeply that Mr. Portman and I
share your feelings; and that helped to inspire us in the first
place, that kind of feeling. And from my experience working
with the people who are now seated behind us, I think they've
tried to implement this program consistent with your sentiments
and you'll inspire us to do even better.
Mr. Portman. Just briefly, Mr. Chairman, I am glad to hear
that my buddy, Mr. Cummings, doesn't think this program is
going to solve all of our problems. But we think it can solve
some of them, and you have been a big part of how this thing
was put together originally, and now you're the ranking member
on the subcommittee. You wanted to be a ranking member because
you have a lot of passion on this issue, and now you can do
even more. But I think part of the answer is what Sandy says,
that you only can give so much direction through legislation,
and then you've got to let the people administer the program.
We've tried to put in the report language and in the
statute enough direction to give people a sense of what we're
about; but we're about exactly what you're suggesting, and you
know that, and that's basically being sure that this is going
to communities that need it the most.
Now, the communities do have to have some resources, and I
mean that in the broadest sense, to be able to put together a
group that can handle the Federal money in the way we want it
handled, and that includes the assessment. We have a baseline
requirement they have to give us, and the assessment stuff we
talked, and Mr. Souder talked, about.
And we also made it clear we want to wean people off this
program. This is not about having the same money go to the same
program that's more and more successful and can attract,
therefore, other resources. It is just to move the money then
to the next one. That is why there is the cutoff. You have to
reapply after 5 years.
And even when you reapply under this new one, you have got
to come up with 125 percent match, not 100 percent match. In a
way, it is punishing success, you could say, but in another
way, it's doing exactly what you're saying.
This is very limited money. I mean, we've got a--what,
maybe an $18 billion war on drugs budget, depending on what you
add into the war on drugs, and we're talking here about
somewhere between $40 and $75 million. So it is a relatively
small piece of the pie, but it can have, I think, enormous
impact if it is used right, as you say.
And I think they have done a pretty good job of spreading
it. The challenge is--I think Sandy put it well--some of the
communities that need it most are least equipped to handle the
Federal program, because we do have some accountability and
stuff in here that is very important to us as--you know,
accountability for the Federal Government, if used right, the
assessment that the chairman talked about, and that is where
the mentoring would help.
The mentoring is very limited; you know, it's less than 5
percent of the funds. You've got to apply separately for it.
Most coalitions won't apply for it; some will. Maybe Detroit
will, maybe Cincinnati can now; and that probably helps.
I mean, we do a lot of work in our little coalition with
these communities that don't really have the resources. Again,
broadly speaking, there is a community group, but it may not
have enough volunteerism, enough help to be able to kind of get
this thing off on its right feet and to be able to do the
assessments and have any kind of reporting back and so on.
So that is part of the answer. It's part of why the
advisory committee that you're going to hear from later, I
believe, came up with the idea of this mentoring idea of having
coalitions that are successful. As you say, people are going to
relate more to a neighborhood coalition, to maybe share some
similarities, rather than the super experts coming in from
Washington telling them what to do.
That is part of the answer, but it is a tough, tough
problem, and I think every coalition needs to be more focused
on it; and we need, as legislators, to direct the good folks
behind us as to what our goal is here as best we can.
Mr. Cummings. I just want to make it real clear--and thank
you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence--that I really believe
in this. I think that of all the things that I've been a part
of since I've been here, this is probably within the top three,
no doubt about it, because I think we--you know, when I look at
the pain that I see children experience, and if there is
something that we can do to avoid that pain, this is the kind
of thing that we've got to do. And so I didn't want you to get
the impression that I--you know, I just want to make sure that
we are, again, going back to that effective and efficient use
of our dollars. And I'm sure the panelists who will come up
behind you all will talk about that in a little bit.
But thank you.
Mr. Levin. Thank you. Thank you for your work.
Mr. Souder. I want to thank you again for your leadership.
This is an unusual subcommittee that's authorizing in an
oversight, and so we have to ask tough oversight questions.
Even though we're enthusiastic about the authorizing, we didn't
ask you questions about the money because we all agree it needs
more money. We need to fight in the appropriating process to
make sure it's there, just like we have in other prevention
programs.
But I am going to continue to ask some questions about the
overhead question, because it isn't just the 3 to 8 percent. If
you take the 5 percent for mentoring and the Institute, which
is 3 percent of next year's budget, that is an increase from 3
to 16 percent in one swallow, and that 3 to 16 percent
difference is 100 coalitions, or one-third of what we've done
in the whole course of the bill.
There is a natural tendency for any kind of program to
proliferate its overhead and argue that, well, we could be more
effective. There's no question that this needs to increase the
overhead. They can't work at 3. We actually started higher and
went down to 3. There is no question that there's merit to
mentoring in the Institute. The question is, how much do we do
at what time, because it makes the whole program vulnerable
when you have an over-five-times increase in overhead, two-and-
a-half in the one department.
And the extra problem that we have to work with here is,
all three are saying that technical assistance and helping in
grant requests and monitoring, in other words, the mission
statement, with the exception of the mentoring, particularly
the Institute and OJJDP, are telling us the same mission. So
that's one of the things we are going to sort out in the
hearing today, because if one can do one thing and another,
another, that's another matter. But if they both say they're
doing the same thing, we have an oversight obligation to
address it.
I also am concerned, and one of our dilemmas in addition to
the paperwork and the accountability question, is the
entrepreneurial and empowerment component that was part of this
program. To the degree we try to replicate and have everybody
do the same thing, you have less ownership because, to some
degree, the success of this is the local pride. Even if it
isn't an ideal model, it is theirs. And so much of this is the
motivational function, and this is another balance between
saying, here is what we need in accountability and here is what
we need in empowerment and entrepreneurship.
And then last, possibly one distinctive difference that
could be from the traditional grant application that goes
through the current system and the Institute and even the
mentoring is to look at a different phase, which Congressman
Cummings is addressing. Right now, the process comes in as far
as who has the proposals that meet the standards and what are
the best proposals.
One of the things the Institute or the government could do
if we're going to put more into overhead is identify the
highest-risk communities and how to get them into the process,
much like what we're trying to do in the faith-based initiative
with the technical assistance. Because it is one thing to say
who can apply for faith-based; it is another thing to say, how
can we go and help those groups that have no idea how the
government process works, that don't have an attorney, that
don't have a CPA, that don't know how to do it. How can we get
them the assistance to do it?
Did you want to comment?
Mr. Levin. I think, Mr. Portman, they want to hear from
somebody else, so we should go. I would think that when the
panels start, they will address the question, for example, for
high-risk areas and how that has been taken into account in
evaluating the grant applications. I believe there has been
sensitivity to need within a community but also between
communities.
And also they will talk about the Institute and whether it
is--I think it is a separate authorization, how you--mentoring,
I don't think, is part of overhead.
And last, replication doesn't mean identical programs.
Replication, if it has effectiveness built into it, is going to
be different, but take the best threads of a program and weave
it into that community's needs. That is, anyway, what I mean by
replication.
So good luck. Mr. Portman probably will close it, with the
panel. This is such a marvelous program, and you two have been
so important--and Mr. Cummings's feelings about this as one of
his top three, I think says a lot about the challenge before
us--and we are proud to be working with the two of you and
others. This is quiet work, but in the end, I think, may have
more impact than some of the programs that have much higher
profile. This is maybe below some radar screens, but this is
where much of the action really is.
Mr. Cummings. But that is just one--I'm sorry.
Mr. Portman. First of all, my partner, Sandy, has put it
well, and I won't try to add to what he said about the
importance of the program. Let me just touch briefly, though,
on your four points and then let you talk to the real experts.
This 8 percent figure is a compromise figure between ONDCP,
OJJDP, the Senate, Sandy and me; and I don't want to speak for
Sandy on this, but we, I think, have come to realize that 3
percent is too low. We were pretty tough initially, and
frankly, we knew we were being pretty tough. We wanted to err
on the side of getting the money to the communities, and we had
a lot of pleas over the past 4 years as this program has become
implemented to do more, and we held firm, feeling again that we
really wanted to push on getting the money out and not creating
a new bureaucracy. I think we feel as though, with these
additional coalitions and the need for more oversight, it's
important.
Let me give you this just quickly. There are seven program
managers now, as you know, that oversee an average of 44
coalitions each, and if we increase, like we'd like to, with
the same percentage, we're told that we're going to have about
20 more grants on each portfolio. So each one will have 60-plus
coalitions to oversee.
And again, we were involved with some of these coalitions.
We see what happens. Some coalitions need help more than
others, but my concern is that we need to ramp that up a little
bit to be sure we have the right oversight and we're getting
the right technical assistance out. And so we're believers now
in that.
Maybe 8 percent is not a magic number. Maybe there is
another number somewhere between 3 and 8 percent, but we know
there's a need to raise that cap somewhat more, and we still
keep a pretty good cap in place. Again, compared to any other
Federal program, it's still stingy.
The second issue is the Institute and the mentoring, and I
think Sandy has said it well: The mentoring is not supposed to
be overhead. I'm thinking how we would use it or how Detroit
would use it. We already do a mini-grant program that we get
from other sources to local neighborhood coalitions, and we
give them a couple thousand bucks a year to help them get
started, just to get a computer or just to get, you know,
literally a rental space for an office so they can set
something up to have some kind of continuity and some kind of
organization. Sometimes they use it for materials, literally,
to hand to the parents.
So I don't think it is going to be so much overhead. It
won't create more overhead for us if we were to get it in
Cincinnati. What it will create is the ability to get money
right out to these other coalitions and to monitor what they're
doing. But--there will be some overhead in there, but it is not
a--it shouldn't be viewed as the same thing as the 8 percent, I
don't believe.
The Institute, Sandy said there may be a separate
authorization here. I'm not sure quite how that's going to
work, but apparently it will be not out of these program funds.
And it's--the idea of the Institute--there may be an overlap
with OJJDP; and I hope the chairman will get into that and the
ranking member, because I think it is important to understand
the differences there. That would be my concern, that there not
be overlap between the two. We need to be sure we have that
fully vetted before we enact this legislation.
Mentoring is not the same thing as overhead, because it is
what we talked about earlier, the best practices and technical
assistance and so on. We know there is a need for that and that
will help to expand the number of coalitions.
I couldn't agree with you more on entrepreneurship. That's
a big part of this. I think Sandy is right. I'm just thinking
about our own experience, when we have sort of gone from
neighborhood to neighborhood trying to put models together.
Everyone is different. In some neighborhoods, heroin is a
bigger issue, for instance. In other neighborhoods,
methamphetamine labs are starting to come up. Other
neighborhoods have Ecstasy, and these Rave parties are a
problem. And some already have a pretty good school-based
program, for instance. Others have nothing in schools.
So everyone is going to be a little different, and they
should be. And that ownership is key to this. I mean, all of
this is about leveraging local funds but also local spirit and
entrepreneurship. So I see that as a potential problem, but I
think if it is done right, it is not; because it needs to be
part of--the whole purpose of this is to make sure it fits with
the local community.
We talked about that in our testimony. We talked about it
in 1997. That's the whole focus of this.
The high-risk neighborhoods, I agree with Sandy. You ought
to talk to the experts who have looked at these. They do take
that into account, I'm told.
And finally, the faith-based side, as you know, we spent a
lot of time on faith-based. Mr. Souder was the person who
pushed us on that in 1997. We were doing some pretty pioneering
work then. Now it's become a lot more commonplace, but we made
sure that we did not step across the establishment clause line,
and we were very careful not to do that. On the other hand, we
all made it very clear in the legislation, there is important
language that the faith community should be ``encouraged,'' not
just ``can be involved,'' but should be ``encouraged to be
involved.'' We didn't require it. And we talked about doing
that, as you recall.
There may be ways we can strengthen that, and I certainly
would be very open to that, but the faith-based groups are
doing a great job out there, particularly on treatment. And
many of the prevention groups work with them. But the real
potential is prevention, to get these faith-based communities
as engaged in prevention as many are in treatment.
I think you could have obviously a captive audience often
on a Sunday or a Saturday, but more than that, just using those
incredible networks they have to get the prevention message out
is a huge potential for an increased prevention and education
message.
And so if we can do more of that, I'd love to work with you
on that.
Mr. Souder. And I want to make it clear that I don't think
overhead is evil. Overhead is what it takes to administer a
program. You have to fill out the forms. And so the question
is, how much of a change does an individual program need?
Because mentoring is not traditional overhead, but it is still
money that is not going to the grantees.
And so we have to look at it and say, in fact, we're
increasing the management and technical assistance, and is that
much overhead justified? It may, in fact, be because of the
needs of the community.
But to give you an illustration on the case load, in the
maximum dollar a year, 2006 and 2007, to do the current case
load would only take a 5, not an 8. To reduce it to 35, it
would take a 5.5. To reduce it to 25, like the very beginning
of the program, would take a 6.7. So we need to kind of look at
those statistics, and it may be that we can do more in the
program and be more effective with a little more overhead. But
when you have that big a jump, you have an obligation to
analyze it, and that is what my point was.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Levin. Good segue to your next point.
Mr. Cummings. Just as you leave, gentlemen, I too want to
thank you all for what you have done and what you will continue
to do. But there is just one other thing I want to add, Mr.
Levin.
You know, you talked about the benefits of the program, but
there is another benefit and that is, it empowers communities.
It helps people to see what they can do in neighborhoods. And I
don't know what we can do--I don't know how we can put a value
on that when you have so many people who would become so
cynical about, you know, making any change in their communities
and whatever. But this kind of thing helps them know that they
can make a difference; and that hopefully spreads into other
areas beyond drug abuse and things of this nature.
Thank you all.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much for coming.
Would the witnesses on the second panel please come
forward? You have got a good taste of what are likely to be
some of our next questions.
From the administration, we welcome Dr. Donald Vereen,
Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy;
Mr. John Wilson, Acting Director of the Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Department of Justice. If
you could remain standing as you come to the table, because as
an oversight committee, it is our standard practice that our
witnesses need to testify under oath. If the witnesses will
rise and raise their right hands, I'll administer our oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that the witnesses have
both answered in the affirmative. We will now recognize the
witnesses for their opening statements, and I'd like to thank
you again for being here today and working out your schedules
to do so. We ask our witnesses to limit their opening
statements to 5 minutes and include any fuller statements that
they may wish to make for the record.
Dr. Vereen, do you have an opening statement?
STATEMENTS OF DONALD M. VEREEN, JR., M.D., M.P.H., DEPUTY
DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY; AND JOHN J.
WILSON, ACTING DIRECTOR, OJJDP, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Dr. Vereen. Good morning and thank you, Chairman Souder and
Ranking Member Cummings and the distinguished members of the
subcommittee, for this opportunity to testify today about the
Drug-Free Communities Program. I've prepared an extensive
written statement. At this time, I'd like to submit that for
the record.
I serve as a Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy. I am a public health--with a public health
background, covering the biology of the brain through the
behavior of individuals and, most importantly, the health and
functioning of our communities. I am a father, and the dangers
of drugs are a threat to my own children and the Drug-Free
Communities Program is there for all of our children.
There are a couple of acknowledgments I want--it's
important to make this morning. There will be two grantees, the
Honorable Michael Kramer and Mr. Lawrence Couch in the third
panel. I do want to draw attention to an advisory commission
member, Henry Lozano of Big Bear, CA, and also a great
prevention leader, Judy Cushing of the Oregon Partnership, who
is also here.
For more than 3 years, Congress gave ONDCP the
responsibility for this fine program. While we are unusual in
that we're a policy shop, Drug-Free Communities have given us a
unique window to the communities in America. Not a day goes by
that we do not hear from citizens of places such as Perrysburg,
OH, Morgan County, IN, or the Nez Perce Tribe of Lapwai, ID. We
receive calls with questions about emerging drugs, requests for
help in designing new strategies, and even a few calls from
parents who are discovering the risks of substance abuse for
the first time.
This feedback loop between America's communities and our
Nation's principal policy office on drugs provides much added
value for all of us. This program specifically addresses our
goal to educate and enable America's youth to reject drugs.
There are specific objectives in our congressionally mandated
performance measures of effectiveness that this program is
addressing.
Our drug-free communities are our front lines on our--in
this fight against drugs. Our work as a policy office is
greatly enriched by the program. The coalitions' work to reduce
substance abuse among our youth may strengthen collaborations
among organizations and agencies that are both private and in
the public sector and wouldn't normally naturally come
together. They also serve as a catalyst for increased citizen
participation in our effort to combat drugs. That is critically
important.
We have a wonderful advisory committee that the Congress
created, which includes 11 active members who we collaborate
with in some form or another almost on a daily basis. They were
the ones who came up with the observation that mentoring needed
to happen, and a part of where we are with this reauthorization
is taking that into account.
Although some of my colleagues on this panel may give
examples of coalitions that are having a significant impact on
our communities, I've got to tell you about at least one.
Perrysburg Area Substance Abuse Prevention Partners is a 14-
year-old community coalition in Perrysburg, OH, which has never
had any kind of State or Federal grant before being awarded a
Drug-Free Communities grant in 1999. This community of 25,000
has wisely leveraged their Federal support and greatly expanded
the work of their coalition. They have developed a
sophisticated Web site, where anyone can read about their
underage drinking initiative; a community action lifeline; and
a host of other initiatives, strategies and opportunities for
citizen involvement. This work comprises the front lines,
again.
I refer you to the chart at the far wall. This gives you a
snapshot picture. I can't list all of the community coalitions,
but the story I just told you is 1 of 307 community coalitions,
and this number will grow to more than 600 by September 2002.
A new round of applications for our fiscal year 2001 were
just received by OJJDP. Closing was this past Monday, and we
received nearly 400 applications. With such an increase in the
participation and interest this year, we expect to be able to
announce between 140 to 150 new grants in September.
The President's budget includes $50.6 million to expand the
Drug-Free Communities Program for fiscal year 2002. That is an
increase of almost $11 million. Congress is wise to continue to
lead the Nation in this drug prevention initiative as it works
to reauthorize this program, and we support the introduction of
H.R. 2291. The bill will continue to ensure that communities
leverage grant dollars they receive by matching grant funds
with non-Federal support, including both monetary and in-kind
contributions.
The bill also provides for additional support via a
National Community Coalition Institute. A couple of words about
that. The Institute is there for two reasons. It is there to
focus in on and to generate the specific research findings that
these community coalitions need to not only improve in what
they are doing, but to help create new coalitions. In much the
same way that we have a National Institutes of Health to do
research, it is still a lot of heavy lifting to apply that
research where it actually belongs.
In the case of--or to give the example of SAMHSA, if we
focus on mental health, substance abuse and alcoholism
research, a tremendous amount of work is needed to translate
that research into action. More on that in the question-and-
answer period.
Our partners include OJJDP. We would not be able to
administer this grant program without OJJDP. We have important
partners in the private sector. CADCA, the Community Antidrug
Coalitions of America. They function under the leadership of
General Art Dean, and they will inspire us with their own
testimony. But we model this program after the local
communities that they organized.
We also are the focusers of research and science. It is
very important to understand that this is not just a fly by-
night idea. Public health-based research, specific research,
makes it very clear that this is the way to go in terms of
focusing resources.
We also need to take the investment that we have made in
places like the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National
Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse and benefit from that
investment by being able to apply that knowledge directly into
communities so that the leaders and the members of these
coalitions can apply it appropriately.
So we thank the committee for this opportunity to offer our
support for this very important legislation on behalf of the
President, and as you know, he has committed his administration
in an all-out effort to reduce drug abuse, and community
coalitions will be in the vanguard of that effort. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Vereen follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Chairman Souder and Ranking Member
Cummings. The Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention--oh, sorry. Thank you. Welcome----
Mr. Souder. It is still not working. Could you maybe switch
to the other mic?
Mr. Wilson. We welcome the opportunity to discuss our role
in the Drug-Free Communities Program with you. Since 1998,
ONDCP and OJJDP have shared an important mission to develop and
administer a successful Drug-Free Communities Program. We have
forged a strong and productive partnership. I am always
impressed by the tenacity, innovation and dedication of the
broad-based community coalitions that this program supports.
In the area of delinquency prevention, we have learned
about the power of communities who come together to make
investment in children, to make a commitment to programming and
have ownership of the programs. And with the increases in
arrests of juveniles for drugs, we see our participation in
this program as vital to our statutory responsibility to help
prevent kids from getting into delinquent conduct and
eventually getting into our criminal justice system.
Since 1999, OJJDP and ONDCP had explored ways to remedy the
fact that the effectiveness of the Drug-Free Communities
Program is being endangered by a lack of program support funds.
My written testimony details this problem and makes, I believe,
a strong case that an adequate level of program support funds
is critical to the long-term success of this outstanding
program.
Since the program's inception in fiscal year 1998 with the
award of 93 coalition grants, we have grown to 307 grants in
fiscal year 2000 and expect, as Dr. Vereen said, to add over
140 new coalition grants this year. This is nearly a fivefold
increase, yet the program support dollars, which were designed
to support both ONDCP and OJJDP program administration,
training and technical assistance and evaluation, have only
increased from $1 million to $1.2 million since the program
began.
One result is that OJJDP's Drug-Free Communities Program
staffing level has remained at seven professional staff and one
clerical staff this year because of the lack of any available
administrative funds to hire additional staff to manage the
program.
Simply stated, the current law does not allow an increase
in administrative, or what I call ``program support funds''
commensurate with the continuing expansion of the program. Our
program managers who are responsible for Drug-Free Communities
Program implementation are currently carrying an average of 44
grants, compared with the average work load of 26 grants for
Office of Justice programs and OJJDP discretionary program
staff.
This high number limits their ability to monitor existing
grants; package, award and administer new grants; and provide
program-related technical assistance. We strongly believe that
the bill's 8 percent program support fund cap provides an
appropriate balance between direct coalition funding and
efficient processing, award and administration.
It will also allow us to support program evaluation to meet
training and technical assistance needs--not us, but the
program--and also cover those grant processing administrative
costs, some of which are currently being absorbed by OJJDP, but
for which funds may not be available in the future. Absent
enhanced funding support, the ratio of grants to program
managers following the award of fiscal 2001 funds is projected
to reach 66 grants.
Our program managers provide critical support in the areas
of management and operations, program development and provision
of cutting-edge information on substance abuse prevention
efforts. Many fledgling coalitions rely on the guidance of
their program manager and seek it regularly. Given the nature
of the program and its expansion, this need for programmatic
support will not diminish. In fact, it will increase greatly.
Program managers also reach out to communities that are
interested in applying for funds. This year our program staff
in partnership with ONDCP and others conducted seven applicant
workshops designed to enhance the understanding of the Federal
application process, grant writing and to explain how the Drug-
Free Communities Program could support their coalition. And we
held one of these workshops in the Baltimore area, and I am
hopeful that this does pay off in a coalition just being
successful in the Baltimore City or the Baltimore--or Baltimore
County area.
In addition, the program team, in conjunction with our
juvenile justice clearinghouse, developed and implemented a
comprehensive outreach plan to communicate this funding
opportunity to the field. It has been a big success in reaching
tribes, rural communities and new coalitions. As Dr. Vereen
mentioned, this week we received 361 applications in response
to the fiscal year 2001 solicitation, compared to 228 in fiscal
year 2000. Subtracting the 94 new coalitions funded last year,
this means that at least 227 new coalitions have applied for a
fiscal year 2001 award.
Another critical factor in investing in adequate staffing
levels is to protect taxpayer funds. Our program managers are a
critical resource and liaison to grantees who are attempting to
navigate the Federal grant process. Program managers help
facilitate clearance of the grantee's budget, conduct proactive
grant monitoring to ensure that the grantee is in compliance
with all Federal requirements, ensure that the grantee is
making progress and achieving coalition goals, and protect
against waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement.
In sum, an investment in program support will pay great
dividends for community drug coalitions and will help us
achieve our common goal to strengthen community coalition
efforts to reduce substance abuse among youth. The Drug-Free
Communities Program brochure that we use shows rows of homes
with each house having its own foundation. This program, too,
must have a solid foundation in order to flourish and continue
meet both your expectations for a quality program and the
dreams of the American people for drug-free communities.
Increasing the program support cap to 8 percent will provide
this foundation, reduce program vulnerability and protect both
the Federal investment and the matching investment that
communities and their coalitions are making to the Drug-Free
Communities Program.
I also want to assure you that ONDCP very carefully looks
at our budget every year and asks a lot of questions about it.
I also think it's important to remember that the 8 percent is a
cap, not an automatic amount of money. And certainly all of
that money does not come and should not come to our office,
only what we can clearly justify as being in the best interest
of the program.
We at OJJDP are honored to serve as ONDCP's partner in this
historic effort, and I would like to thank the committee for
giving me the opportunity today to discuss this critical aspect
of the Drug-Free Communities Program and to answer any
questions you might have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. And I have a number of questions,
and let me say at the outset--we'll probably do a couple of
rounds that--once again, don't take any of my questions about
overhead as critical of the employees who are doing this,
because we always yell about overhead and costs, and then the
next thing--I know when we first did this in northeast Indiana,
one of the first things--Noble County got a grant. So
immediately we're asking Noble County to come down and talk to
the other counties, which would be basically called
``mentoring.'' The next thing you know, we're hollering at the
government wanting somebody to come in and give some
guidelines.
So I do it just like everybody else does it, but the plain
truth of the matter is, we have a fiduciary responsibility here
to make sure that we are staying tight with this, because the
truth is that if 100 groups, in effect, have it transferred
into one form or another of administrative overhead and then
don't get a grant, that means some communities in my district
and Congressman Cummings' and elsewhere are not going to get a
grant because we decided to move that money over.
It is also a natural tendency of a bureaucracy and your
advisory groups to say, yes, now that they have the knowledge,
they would like to be mentors. Now that they are included, they
would like to continue their grants. It is a natural
bureaucratic thing that occurs in everything, and there's merit
to it, but it's a tough tradeoff.
My first question is on the 8 percent, which I understand
is a cap, not a guarantee. There was--we were given an estimate
that went to the Senate Appropriations Committee from ONDCP,
that 1.5. Is that estimate still pretty valid as far as what--
you haven't changed any of those numbers, the 4.5 for OJJDP,
1.5 for independent evaluation, 1.5 for technical--that the
independent evaluation percentage then would be going up as the
grants go up?
Why would you need the dollars to go up for independent
evaluation that amount? I guess the total budget is doubling.
Dr. Vereen. A general way to respond to that question is
the character of the coalitions is changing. As was presented
earlier, the first to line up to apply for these moneys and the
folks who were the most successful were the mature coalitions.
There were already coalitions out there.
What has happened over time is that there are only a finite
number of those. The work it takes--and I made this point in my
oral statement. The work it takes to pull together parts of a
community that normally don't necessarily talk to each other--
--
Mr. Souder. But is that the independent evaluation? In
other words, there is 1.5 percent in the budget, an independent
evaluation by Caliber Associates. Is that--that, in effect,
goes from an amount of $40 million to a substantially different
amount. And the independent evaluation is not how difficult is
the setup; it is to evaluate.
And then also in the--my understanding from Mr. Wilson's
testimony is that part of the goal of the independent Institute
is to provide on-hand--you know, this is what we learned, here
is the evaluation of how we did it. And I'm trying to figure
out why so much money--I am not against evaluation, but I don't
want to see a duplication--and also why it needs to go up
proportionately.
Dr. Vereen. Yes. When you talk about evaluation, there is
evaluation at many different levels.
There must be evaluation to make sure that there is
compliance with government performance, related to government
performance.
There is evaluation on how the coalition itself is
functioning. They have to be able to generate a baseline of
drug use in their community. They have to demonstrate that they
are actually making progress on that. That is different in
every community. These communities are--most--almost all of
them are not set up to do that. That takes a lot of technical
assistance to get up and going, and then we must evaluate that
to make sure that the information we are getting from them is
true.
Mr. Souder. And how do you view that technical assistance
as different from the mentoring technical assistance and the
independent Institute's technical assistance?
Dr. Vereen. OK. The Institute is a way of focusing research
that specifically is relevant to the coalitions. Knight has
done a lot of research. Other groups have done research, but
often it isn't focused enough specifically for the communities.
Representative Cummings talked about the experts. Yeah,
they do this work out there, but it has to be able to be
applied. The example that I gave earlier was our National
Institutes of Health. They churn out great research and great
research findings, but it is a huge challenge to apply that.
One of the reasons I work at ONDCP as a doctor, as a
researcher, is to do that. It is a very difficult job, and
sometimes it is expensive.
Mr. Souder. Now, I am not against the research and I am not
against applied research, but I have also watched how women's
infant care, Food Stamps, and a lot of the Head Start, all of a
sudden all say their primary mission is nutrition, and in fact
they start to drift from their--nutrition education I should
say. And all of a sudden rather than having one--somebody
focused on nutrition education and the others focused on
delivery of services that they were originally targeted to do,
it becomes almost a bureaucratic overhead where you have people
employed doing the same thing for the same mothers, when the
dollars could have actually been helping them. And that is what
I am trying to sort.
I understand the difference in evaluation directly of the
grant, and I understand the difference of mentoring, of how to
be more effective and using the information that comes from the
research to apply it. I don't see quite yet the difference
between the mentoring that's applying it and the institute
that's applying it, and I don't quite see the difference in the
technical assistance you're applying and the technical
assistance that's coming from the mentoring and the institute.
Dr. Vereen. Let me offer this in addition. These--some of
the research that helps us to guide community coalitions comes
from a longstanding set of studies that looked at successful
communities. What we culled from looking at all of these
successful communities were a series of principles, and we're
trying to apply those principles, those research-based
principles.
Mr. Souder. That's in the Institute's----
Dr. Vereen. Yes.
Mr. Souder [continuing]. Guidelines that they're going to
do that, not this.
Dr. Vereen. No. But these newer coalitions, first of all--
--
Mr. Souder. That's the Institute--I mean, the statement we
have from the Institute has exactly the same purpose you just
described.
Dr. Vereen. What the coalitions actually do themselves,
they have to use resources to actually do that, to actually
implement that. When a suburban coalition, for example, reaches
out to an urban--a neighboring urban coalition or a neighboring
rural coalition, they actually have to generate up a team to
actually carry that out.
Mr. Souder. In the mentoring?
Dr. Vereen. In the mentoring, yes.
Mr. Souder. That's the third one.
Dr. Vereen. And I am trying to make the distinction that
these things--they flow together. The real challenge here is
coordinating. I understand--we understand what you're trying to
say in terms of separating this out and making sure that there
isn't a duplication; but the real challenge is coordinating all
of these pieces, and at the same time being able to be
accountable. We have to come back to report to you every year
on how successful we've been in being able to apply that
knowledge.
Mr. Souder. Even in between?
Dr. Vereen. Yes, and even in between.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm
confused. But let me try get unconfused here.
You have the--and my confusion is coming with regard to
the--why the increase. I'm not knocking the increase, I'm sure
it's justified, but I'm just trying to figure out how we get
from 3 to 8. Am I right, 3 to 8?
In the process of applying--and I have been trying to make
up, make my own little lists of why I would think it would go
up. In the process of applying, first of all, you're getting
more applications. Is that calling for more people?
I'm starting at the beginning process now. Does that call
for more man-hours, woman-hours?
Dr. Vereen. I'll say, not necessarily. I'm trying to make
the point that the work in generating the coalitions, that's
taking more work.
Mr. Cummings. OK. Well, let me just--I want to come to the
process, because this is--in other words, I'm starting at the
application process.
Dr. Vereen. OK.
Mr. Cummings. So people send in these applications--did you
want to say something? I'm sorry.
People send in the applications. Are you saying that
although there are more applications, it does not necessarily
take a lot more person-power----
Dr. Vereen. If they were all----
Mr. Cummings [continuing]. To evaluate them?
Dr. Vereen. If they were all the same, then it would be
easier to manage, but certainly at some point you would reach a
threshold where you would need more personnel. And John can----
Mr. Wilson. Yeah. Our administrative budget is made up of
the grant managers and support staff and financial staff, but
it also includes the cost of processing the application as part
of the competition.
We use a peer review process and, naturally, if you are
reviewing more applications, it is going to cost more money to
implement that peer review process. And, of course, as the
number of actually funded coalitions grows, if you keep the
numbers of grants assigned to each program manager at a
reasonable level, you're going to be spending more money to
support more program managers; and you're also going to need
more money to support travel, to go out and visit coalitions
which is part of the monitoring responsibility.
So, yes, the more applications, the more costs in
processing; and the more projects that are funded, the greater
the costs to administer the programs, of course.
Mr. Cummings. Now, during that evaluation process, do you--
I mean, is there--in other words, if you've got a--some little
groups from, say, from my district, and their applications are
not--say, like, they're not as sophisticated as people who have
been doing this for 50 years, is there something, Doctor, that
you do? I'm not asking you to do it. I'm just trying to make
sure that I am clear on this cost thing.
Is there something that you do to, say, you know, maybe you
didn't do something right here and just--I mean, is that a part
of the process?
Dr. Vereen. Yeah. We call it technical assistance.
Mr. Cummings. OK. So then you've got this technical
assistance piece. So that's more, because your pool of
applicants is becoming broader?
Dr. Vereen. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. So then you've got a little increase there,
too?
Dr. Vereen. And we want that to happen. We want to go into
those kinds of communities.
Mr. Cummings. OK--yes?
Mr. Wilson. A couple things: First of all, in response to
your earlier question, 20 percent of the scoring of an
application depends upon demonstrating the need for the program
in the community. So the extent to which a community has a
serious drug problem, for example, certainly is something that
is taken into account by the experts who are rating these
applications.
I think that the peer reviewers are sophisticated enough
that they can see through a glossy, well-packaged application
and see the substance of what the community coalition stands
for and what it has accomplished and what its goals and
objectives are.
So I don't think that really in my experience--and I've
been with this program for 27 years, with the juvenile justice
program--that applications get funded simply because they know
how to write applications better than other people. There is a
certain amount of that, and it is a skill. We do debrief
applicants. We tell them what the major deficiencies were in
their proposal, and we encourage applicants who are
unsuccessful to come back the next time, address those
deficiencies and reapply for funding.
Dr. Vereen. And provide the technical assistance for them
to reapply.
Mr. Cummings. OK. All right. That is where I got confused,
for them to reapply. OK.
Dr. Vereen. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. So I guess that's increased a bit, too. The
more applications you have--I guess it's the more rejects you
have, the more advice you give for future reference?
Mr. Wilson. Correct.
Mr. Cummings. All right.
Now, then after that, you have some awardees, and you
monitor their situation, and because you're going to have more
awardees and a lot more work, that is the big piece. Is that
it?
Mr. Wilson. Right.
Mr. Cummings. That is where most of your top overhead comes
in?
Mr. Wilson. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. OK.
Mr. Wilson. Yes. And, you know, overseeing grants is not a
clerical function. The program managers at OJJDP are high-level
Federal employees. They're GS-12s and 13s who have a great deal
of background information, know the drug prevention field, know
how this program operates and are able to give really solid
advice to the coalitions. They work with them very closely,
steering them to resources.
And I think one of the things that our program managers
will do under the reauthorization legislation, and the
challenge for all of us, will be to coordinate the delivery of
services and resources. So if someone has a need that they've
identified in their coalition, we need to know what the
resource is out there to steer them to, whether it is a
mentoring coalition, whether it is the Institute, because they
need some help with evaluating their program, or whatever the
resource is, it's the job of our program manager to be able to
steer that grantee to the right resource that meets their needs
in the most cost-effective way.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Well, we are going to run into a problem here.
We have 10 minutes left in the vote; there are three votes. We
have to be out of the room at 1:30 and I want to make sure the
next panel gets in. So if I can ask you a couple of quick
questions here. Then when we come back, then Congressman
Cummings has a few more. Then we'll ask you some written
questions, and we'll continue to work with you as we work on
the bill.
But I wanted to clarify a couple of things, and it's
important we have this in the record, too, that this question
of currently operating, Mr. Wilson, at 44 grants approximately
per case--per program manager; and you've proposed, I think it
is 25--could you explain maybe how you've arrived at that and
how is this program like other programs?
In other words, that is apparently a pretty standard thing
in the department. Is there anything that makes this program
easier or harder? And supposedly we've made it at 35. How hard
has this become inside the department?
Mr. Wilson. Well, 26 is the average for individuals who
monitor discretionary grants in the overall Office of Justice
programs which--we're talking there about a $3.7 billion
program that's primarily grants, so it's a pretty broad
average. I think that 26 would be the standard that we would
work toward. I have no reason to believe that we'll ever get
there. If we can come close to it, then, again, I--as I
mentioned, I believe that the grantees under this program will
be better served.
I think, yes, that there are some economies of scale in
terms of people's increased expertise over time, over the fact
that the programs have a lot of similarities, and I think that
helps. But, again, that is the standard that we'll probably
never meet. But as close as we can come to 26, I think the
program will benefit from that.
Mr. Souder. Do you believe the Institute would take some of
the pressures off in technical assistance?
Mr. Wilson. Yeah. The way I look at the Institute in the
legislation, that--the answer to your question is yes, to a
certain extent. The Institute will be able to provide the
research, the best practices, some hands-on assistance to
coalitions, and how to better evaluate the success of their
program. And these are needs that exist right now in the
program.
To the extent to which we as program managers provide
technical assistance it's really technical assistance on the
nuts and bolts of Federal grant management and the effective
expenditure of funds, which I don't think would be duplicative
of what the Institute would be doing.
Mr. Souder. So you don't see the mentoring group or the
Institute as giving technical advice on how to do grants or
apply for grants or filling out the grants?
Mr. Wilson. I think the Institute would be a partner with
us in getting that kind of information out to coalitions all
around the country, yes. But I don't think it would be
duplicative. It would be a collaborative venture.
Mr. Souder. The--how do you see the--in other words, let's
say--we are all sensitive here in Congress because we are
adding new parts to our districts, so our districts are
changing; so all of a sudden I have 200,000 people in my
district who I haven't represented before, and they don't have
any coalitions. For instance, Elkhart, Warsaw, and so on. Now,
say they're interested in it. Are they going to be approached
by--because Dr. Vereen said one of the things that costs money
is you go out and do advance in talking to coalitions. They're
going to get technical assistance from OJJDP. The CADCA and
other groups are likely to be promoting it. The mentoring
groups would come in and talk to them. And the Institute partly
has this as a goal. Is that not correct? And so am I going to
be more confused or less confused if I am in Elkhart?
Mr. Wilson. I don't think you will be more confused. We
coordinate now with ONDCP, with CADCA, in the delivery of
information to coalitions around the country or communities
that are interested in forming coalitions about how to do that
and how to successfully apply for funding under this program.
So, again, right now it's a collaborative effort, and with the
addition of an Institute, they would become part of that
collaboration and getting that information out into communities
around the country. OK. Thank you. I'm going to run over to
vote. I apologize. But this is what we're actually elected to
do. With that the subcommittee stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Cummings [presiding]. You know, in the elevator up I
was just asking the chairman, you know, I said, what can we do
to give them some incentive for keeping the costs down, and I
won't tell you what his answer was. But I'm just wondering, I
mean, I guess when you see the movement from 3 to 8, that is
substantial. And one of you said, and emphasized, that this was
a cap, and I understand that. And I remember Mr. Portman saying
that we were very conservative before when we established the 3
percent.
And I was just wondering, do you feel like you've been
pretty effective with the 3 percent? Or you think it's a--you
just haven't--in other words, I'm going back to what Mr.
Portman said, and I know we are now talking about expanding and
the program getting bigger, but I'm just saying, do you feel
like you did a pretty good job with the 3 percent, Mr. Wilson?
Mr. Wilson. OK. If I can answer that, the 3 percent cap, or
basically keeping it at $1.2 million, it hasn't actually been
reduced to 3 percent, because both NADP funds and other OJJDP
funds have been used to support the program; so that, for
example, in 2001 we're spending really about 6.5 percent,
including funds that have been made available to the program
from other fund sources. ONDCP admin money, our drug prevention
fund money supports the capped training and technical
assistance piece of the program.
Mr. Cummings. Is that all of what would now be considered
as a part of the overhead, the 8 percent? Are you following me?
Mr. Wilson. Yes. And, yes, it would. So the difference
between what we effectively are spending which is about 6.5
percent this year, that 1\1/2\ percent would be kind of the
amount of money that we would need to get up to full staffing
levels on the program management side. So that's where we're
suffering right now. I think it's because we're still funding
the evaluation. We're still doing the peer review, and
providing support for the evaluation and the training and
technical assistance from the caps from other fund sources. So
the 8 percent really would allow us to bring the program
management up to--not to the level of 26 grants, but certainly
at a more manageable level. So that's what we--it's not really
going from 3 percent to 8 percent in reality, because in fact
we're putting in other resources to bring it well up, much
closer to the 8 percent level now.
Mr. Cummings. So you're still working--now, let me make
sure I understand how the budget stuff works. So you're obeying
the law and staying under the 3 percent, right? Just hang with
me. But then you're tacking on this other 3.5 that's coming
from other places. So technically you're still within the 3
percent.
Mr. Wilson. Correct.
Mr. Cummings. Now, that's where I want to get to. So that
other 3.5 percent is money that probably should be used for
something else. Is that reasonable?
Mr. Wilson. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. And so something is going lacking.
Mr. Wilson. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Some things. So you'll be able to then spend
that 3.5 percent for things that it's supposed to be spent for,
and then we'll come up to the 8 percent.
Mr. Wilson. Correct.
Mr. Cummings. OK, let me ask you this. Can you tell me
exactly how this Institute is--just give me just a thumbnail,
simple, step-by-step, how the Institute will work from a
logistical standpoint. I mean, if I was just some layperson
calling into the office 6 months from now and I said, ``Well,
how does that Institute work? I heard you got an Institute, how
does it work, how can that help my community,'' what would you
say?
Dr. Vereen. There are two basic areas. The first is best
practices. How do coalitions actually work? What are the
ingredients of a coalition? I want to form a coalition; what
are the active ingredients?
And the other thing the Institute has to be able to do is
to teach the coalition, to provide the information to the
coalition on how to evaluate and assess the coalition. They
have to be able to assess themselves. That's a requirement for
the grant. So those are two--they're all based on research.
They're very technical. And General Dean will explain this as
well.
Mr. Cummings. Well somebody's not gotten a grant, and they
call in and they just heard that you got a--it's a community
association, it's a group, a coalition. They have not--they may
have applied, say, for example, because I think this is going
to happen. Hang with me now. They may have applied. You may
have given them some wonderful advice about how to do it the
next time. They say, look, Doctor, we love all that. You know,
thank you for your advice. But we've got people dying in our
streets right now, and I've got a group of people who really
want to do something and want to do it now.
How does this Institute that you've established help me, if
at all?
Dr. Vereen. It's a repository of information. And I want to
make one important point here. When a coalition applies, they
actually have to demonstrate that they've been in existence and
can function for 6 months before they're eligible. OK. In order
to get to that point, they need mentoring, which comes best
from another coalition, somebody who's been there to get them
to the point for them to apply.
Then in order for them to interface with the government,
there's the application process, the reporting requirements,
all those things that we try to minimize. That's what OJJDP
does. But the information which we're still gathering on what
are the active ingredients of a coalition, what makes them
work--and we want to require those of every new coalition that
comes along--lives in the Institute; and we're still generating
some of that information that gets fed back directly into the
coalitions that are now coming on line.
Mr. Cummings. Maybe you missed my question. And let me
just--I've just got to ask it one more time and thank you for
what you did say.
Dr. Vereen. OK.
Mr. Cummings. I'm saying if there's--and maybe you did
answer it. If there's an organization which doesn't make it, I
mean and they just need some help.
Dr. Vereen. We tell them how and why they didn't make it.
OJJDP will do that.
Mr. Cummings. Got that. But they've got a coalition.
They're saying well, we didn't get the money. But you talk
about best practices. Is there something that we can do? Do you
have something? You're the Federal Government. Can you help us,
through your Institute, can you help us.
Mr. Wilson. Yes. That would be----
Mr. Cummings. Because I'm telling you that's going to
happen.
Mr. Wilson. We would have the capacity to do that through
this Institute that we don't have now.
Mr. Cummings. OK. That's why I'm asking. So in other words,
you could tell them some things that they could possibly do,
maybe send them some brochures or something. Let me tell you
why I'm asking that. Because that's what I'm doing in my
district right now, trying to find out what other groups have
done. And I'm trying to pull together a book to hand to my
community associations because most of my associations will
never, probably, not unless--not in the next 10 or 15 years,
get into, you know, it's just too much competition.
I mean some of them will, but some of them won't. So I'm
putting together a little book. It talks about Federal grants.
It's going to talk about best practices basically from
community association to community association; and then,
hopefully, they'll be able to look at that and say, well here's
an idea. We can have people like a community on patrol kind of
thing and I'll be able to refer them to the Mt. Vernon
community that did it.
So all I'm asking you, again I'm trying to stretch these
dollars and help people be self-sufficient; and I just wanted
to know how that would work, had you given it any consideration
because you've got a lot of people who are desperate for help.
And I'm just saying if you already have the kind of tools there
to help people who have qualified for grants, maybe some of
that same information would be helpful to people who may not
have--not that they didn't qualify, maybe they just didn't make
it because you've got so much competition. And I would hate to
lose their vigor and their excitement, you know, particularly
if there's something that we've got available. OK? Thank you.
Mr. Souder. I want to thank you for your testimony, and
we'll continue to work with you on the numbers as we move to
the markup in a rapid fashion after break. Part of the problem
here, coming from a business background is that we're barely
covering the variable costs and we're not doing the fixed and
mixed which is why you're having to take some of the dollars
from other parts.
And one of the things that we need to work through is that,
in fact, if we expand and cover a higher percentage of the cost
rather than having you take it from the admin budget that
you're given for your agency, that means that this program, in
effect, gets a reduction of the funds going to the grass roots
and doesn't get part of the admin budget. But that's a typical
thing we do in Congress. We keep piling new programs in, don't
increase the admin budget.
The question is, why should just this program bear that.
Shouldn't we be increasing then the admin budget in other
programs rather than having it be just in this budget. That's
really a more technical part of the question, because we
obviously fund the admin budget. This isn't coming--in other
words, the 3.5 that came out of juvenile justice isn't coming
out of programs. It's predominantly coming out of the admin.
And that's because we add new programs without increasing the
administration of ODJJP; is that----
Mr. Wilson. Well, let me clarify that very quickly. The
money that's coming--some of it's coming from ONDCPs admin
money for the evaluation out of the money that we put in
directly into the program to support the work of the cap. The
training and technical assistance work is program money. We
don't consider training and technical assistance to the field
to be an administrative expense. We consider it to be a
programatic expense, and it's authorized by our training and
technical assistance authorizing legislation.
Mr. Souder. But you get other money to do that, and so this
program would be eligible for that money.
Mr. Wilson. Well, we can use it for training and technical
assistance. This is coming out of our drug prevention money,
which is programmatic money. Which includes training and
technical assistance. We would, that money would be going out
to communities to implement drug prevention programs,
demonstration programs if it were not going to support the
training and TA from the cap. So that would be--probably that
would be where it would go. So it would still be going out to
the communities.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much for coming today, and I
appreciate you taking the time to be here. If the third panel
could now come forward. And if you will remain standing I'll
administer the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show all the witnesses have
responded in the affirmative. We'd like you to limit it to 5
minutes, insert anything you want, or if you have additional
information to put into the record. General Dean, would you
like to begin?
STATEMENTS OF ARTHUR T. DEAN, MAJOR GENERAL, US ARMY, RETIRED,
CHAIRMAN AND CEO, COMMUNITY ANTI-DRUG COALITIONS OF AMERICA;
HONORABLE MICHAEL KRAMER, JUDGE, NOBLE COUNTY SUPERIOR COURT,
INDIANA, CHAIR OF DRUG-FREE NOBLE COUNTY AND MEMBER OF THE
ADVISORY BOARD OF CADCA; AND LAWRENCE COUCH, PROGRAM MANAGER,
MONTGOMERY COUNTY PARTNERSHIP, MARYLAND
General Dean. OK. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Chairman
Souder; Representative Cummings; and other distinguished
subcommittee members. On behalf of Community Anti-Drug
Coalitions of America [CADCA]----
Mr. Souder. General, could I ask you to pull the mic just a
little closer. I think it was on but----
General Dean. Is that better? Nope. OK. Well, to
basically--I hope you won't take that from my 5 minutes. But I
will go as fast as I can.
But good morning again, Mr. Chairman, Representative
Cummings, and other distinguished members of this subcommittee.
On behalf of the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America,
[CADCA], and our more than 5,000 community coalitions
nationwide, I am grateful for the opportunity to share with you
CADCA's unique perspective on H.R. 2291. I've also submitted
written testimony and supporting data for the record.
I will be very brief. CADCA is proud of its help that it
has provided Congress to develop the original Drug-Free
Communities legislation as well as the current legislation
being considered in both the House and the Senate. We also have
worked closely with our friends in ONDCP, OJJDP, CSAP, and the
Presidential Drug Free Communities Advisory Commission on
successful program implementation. The Drug Free Communities
program has been a central bipartisan component of our Nation's
demand reduction strategy.
The premise of the Drug Free Communities program is very
simple--and that's why we care so much about it--that
communities must be organized and equipped to deal with
individual substance abuse problems in a comprehensive and
coordinated manner and that Federal anti-drug resources must be
invested at the community level. This program is unique in that
Federal support is contingent upon local efforts and results.
The GAO 1997 report--and I have detailed the title of that
report in my written statement--says that one of the most
promising drug prevention strategies targeting young people is
community anti-drug coalitions. I know firsthand from many
visits around this country to organizations that belong to
CADCA, many of them that are Drug-Free Communities grantees,
that this program truly does make a real difference.
Let me give you some quick examples, and I have given more
for the written testimony. In Vallejo, CA, the Valejo Fighting
Back Partnership reports that monthly marijuana use for seventh
graders was reduced from 16 percent to 6 percent between 1996
and 2000. They also saw alcohol use among ninth graders reduced
by 17 percent between 1999 and 2000.
Another example, Miami Florida coalition reports that the
perception, and the perception is critical, of the availability
of marijuana decreased from 43 percent in 1995 to 28 percent in
1999.
And my last example is the Lane County Prevention Coalition
in Eugene, OR, reports that inhalant use within the last 30
days among eighth graders dropped from 12.4 percent in 1996 to
5.3 percent in 2000.
I believe these impressive results have been achieved by
community coalitions through the implementation of an array of
programs and strategies. I would like, quickly, to address some
of the provisions of H.R. 2291 and why CADCA is very pleased
and particularly excited about them.
First of all, we believe that the bill raising the 2002
authorization from $43.5 million in current law to the $50.6
million requested by President Bush is a good one; and we
support that. We also support the levels authorized for fiscal
years 2003 through 2007. We believe that this will add hundreds
of community coalitions to this program. We also support the
provision of H.R. 2291 that allows coalitions who have
completed 5 years to continue, as Congressman Portman talked
about, with them having the responsibility to have a higher
match locally. We think that's important.
There has been much discussion, Congressmen, about the
administrative cap. What I say from a grassroots perspective,
having visited many of the grantees is that--and talked to the
members of the drug free commission, talked to our friends over
in ONDCP and OJJDP--that there clearly is a need to raise the
cap so the program can be more effectively managed and
evaluated; and we think that 8 percent is the appropriate
level.
CADCA is particularly excited about--that H.R. 2291
includes the authorization for, and I will be more than willing
to answer more questions about the National Community Anti-Drug
Coalition Institute. The coalition field urgently needs this
Institute to provide the most effective and efficient vehicle
for developing and disseminating relevant and easily
understandable information. The field needs materials
specifically designed to address the unique sustainability
outcome measurement and other challenges facing community
coalitions, like integrating the faith community into their
operations, like integrating the business community.
The Institute will provide the education, training,
technical assistance, and performance measurements and other
state-of-the-art information needed to cause these coalitions
to be effective. The Institute will be a wholesaler. It will
assist in communities building coalitions, sustaining
coalitions, and evaluating coalitions. The new supplemental
authorized under H.R. 2291 enabling mature coalitions, we
believe, also is important in that the Institute and the
supplementary mentoring grants are intended to complement each
other and not to be duplicates of each other.
The Institute will develop and provide the field with the
latest and best information and materials needed to implement
evidence-based strategies and to measure, assess, and to
document their performance. Mentor coalitions will use the
information, will be trained by the Institute, and will assist
in the mentoring of other coalitions in their communities.
H.R. 2291 authorizes $2 million in Federal funding for the
Institute in 2002 and 2003 and a sum to be determined from 2004
through 2007. The Drug-Free Communities program is truly the
backbone of successful local anti-drug efforts, and I am
delighted that the proposed legislation will reauthorize and
strengthen the program. I thank you for the opportunity to
testify before you today, and we appreciate your support and
leadership.
[The prepared statement of General Dean follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. I'd now like to have a statement
from Judge Kramer, my friend; and it was great of you to
sacrifice a little bit of time from wonderful, beautiful
Indiana and come out here to Washington.
Judge Kramer. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. Chairman
Souder, Ranking Member Cummings, I hope I can make some
contribution toward the passage of this legislation because, as
has been mentioned before, I do believe that this is one of the
keys to reducing drug use among youth.
I am a trial court judge in the Noble Superior Court in
Indiana. Eleven years ago, in response to seeing the large
number of both civil and criminal cases that are rooted in the
use and abuse of alcohol and other drugs and dealing with the
resulting devastation of people's lives, I became involved with
Drug-Free Noble County, our countywide anti-drug coalition. For
the last 7 years, I've served as the chair of Drug-Free Noble
County.
I do want to thank you for enacting the original act. I
wrote the successful grant request for our county in 1998 in
the first round. The grant has raised our efforts to new
levels. While we were doing good things before, we've been able
to provide services in areas of need. We've hired a staff
person to organize our volunteers and, over the last 2 years,
have over doubled the number of people who volunteer with our
coalition.
It's changed attitudes and energized people in our county
in ways that I really can't describe. And it's changed
attitudes and made drug prevention and youth development really
a priority for the county. One program is our youth program,
which is Noble County PRIDE, affiliated with national PRIDE
Youth Programs. I'd like--I could sit here all morning and talk
about the things that they've done. They're known locally as
miracle workers for all the work that they do. Their emphasis
is on community service and working in the community to make it
better while serving as models for a drug-free lifestyle.
One thing that I'm particularly gratified by, we have a lot
of top students and top athletes, but a lot of those kids don't
have time to be involved. And although we have some right now
grades 5 through 12, about 40 percent of the student body are
active participating members in PRIDE. And a great number of
those are kids that would otherwise have very little connection
with the school and are not otherwise involved in things after
school or other activities.
And I think this has played a very big role in their lives.
And through the grant, we've been able to expand that so we've
gotten up to the 40 percent that we're at right now.
I do support the ability of current grantees to continue to
receive funding beyond the 5th year. I do not want to see
grantees become so dependent upon Federal funds that when that
support is taken away, they fail. On the other hand, it's
important to realize that we're working with problems that have
been around for 40 years, actually a lot longer than that, and
quick fixes are not going to work.
Programs have to be given time to take root in the
community and become a part of the fabric of the community. We
need to have a consistent, devoted, research-based effort over
a long period of time to make changes in our community. And I
see this part as getting that process started.
We have limited funds. We're a small rural community in our
county; and before receiving the grant, we'd done a pretty good
job at tapping into those resources.
Our original plan to replace the funding was unsuccessful.
And late last year, we had to switch to plan B and without
continued support after the 5th year, I guess my fear is that
we're going to have to cut back on some of our effort and even
with the 50 percent cut in the 5th year, we may not be able to
continue with full services, even in the 5th year of the
program. I believe that to be able to allow current grantees to
reapply, but with an increased dollar match will help balance
the needs in the communities with the desire to not make
coalitions dependent upon the Federal funds. It will best
insure that new programs and positive changes seen throughout
the country will further develop and become ingrained in the
communities and have the best chance of continuing with local
support.
One thing that really bothers me is seeing other
communities that are not making full use of the opportunities
and resources available to them to address the drug problem. I
mean, things that we've done in Noble County can be done in
every community across the country. A lot of these groups are
just waiting for the spark to come. All of these people, as
Representative Cummings had mentioned, are people who care very
deeply for their communities and want to make a difference.
What they lack is direction and training and expertise.
They know what they want, but they don't know how to get there
and don't know where to turn for help as I think you had put
it. For these reasons, I'm excited about the National Community
Anti-Drug Coalition Institute and mentor coalitions. I think
they will help spread the influence and energy of community
coalitions throughout the country and in every city and town
and help create new coalitions and strengthen existing
coalitions.
Our coalition right now does mentoring in kind of a
haphazard way. I got a call about a week and a half ago from a
woman in LaGrange County whose son is in middle school and
addicted to methamphetamine. And she wants to get involved in
prevention activities with youth in LaGrange County, so other
kids don't end up as her son. And she wanted to start a PRIDE
group there. And so we're helping her.
I think mentoring would provide a more organized program to
allow these types of people who are struggling and don't know
where to turn to have a place to turn to. The Institute will
provide training and resources and the mentor coalitions will
put those training and resources into practice. I think that
this will help not only struggling groups and people who are
first addressing a problem, but will help strengthen existing
coalitions.
And I do truly appreciate the dedicated people at OJJDP who
have over seen our grant. They've done a very good job at
keeping the grantees accountable and doing so in a helpful,
flexible way by working with each coalition. Their work has
shown me that they truly care about the success of each
grantee. An institute, I feel, would work very well and not
duplicate current efforts. I know that we had asked the people
there some program-type questions; but, as I think had been
expressed before, their main focus is in making sure that we
comply with the Federal grant requirements, the code of Federal
regulations, and other technical requirements as far as the
grant.
It would be nice to have the Institute to work along with
that and when OJJDP got questions, to be able to refer them to
the Institute about program questions, about evaluation. We
have a mentoring program in a homeless shelter in our county,
and I've tried everywhere trying to find ways that we can do a
good evaluation of that program to see whether having the high
school kids come in and mentor the homeless kids is helping.
I mean, I feel, from anecdotal evidence that it is; but it
would be very nice to be able to have some sort of evaluation
system developed to evaluate that. And there's really no place
that we can turn for that.
Last, I also welcome anything that can be done to increase
accountability. And this is not based upon any abuse by any
grantee or OJJDP. I think that it's intolerable to waste
precious funds that could be used to save the lives of
children, help our communities, and reduce the destruction of
human life.
I welcome anything that insures the funds are used to the
best and highest purpose. For that reason, I do feel that--and
I don't know about the number, but I do feel that the
administrative cap should be raised for OJJDP because they will
insure that there are no abuses in communities. And I think the
greatest threat to our program, to community coalitions, comes
not from outside but from people who are careless or misguided
within, who go off the track. And I would like to have--make
sure there's proper oversight available to make sure that there
are no abuses with these funds.
Once again, I do thank you for your help in reducing
illegal use of drugs by youth, and I appreciate the honor of
being asked to testify here today.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Judge Kramer follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Mr. Couch.
Mr. Couch. Thank you. Mr. Chairman Souder, Ranking Member
Cummings, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify in support of H.R. 2291.
I'm a father and, within the week, may become a
grandfather. As a father, I've experienced the terrible tragedy
drugs can cause in a family and partly for that reason became
involved with the Montgomery County Community Partnership. The
Partnership is a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting
alcohol, tobacco, and drug abuse issues.
About 18 months ago, we formed a collaborative arrangement
with the Task Force on Mentoring an all-volunteer group, which
has been in existence for about 10 years, focusing on mentoring
at-risk children. We came in with a collaborative application
to Drug-Free Communities, and were funded. Our relationship
with the task force has been very useful.
In my written testimony, I go into details about our
successes and our accomplishments and the guide we developed
with the various mentoring programs in the schools and our
efforts to insure that a mentoring program be available in
every middle school and every secondary school in Montgomery
County. We're far from that, but we've made some progress.
Recently, the school system hired a program-mentor
coordinator, which was at least an acknowledgment by the school
system that mentoring is important. And so we're moving in that
direction. But during my brief testimony, I'd like to talk more
about mentoring in the sense that mentoring is being used
during this conversation.
In one sense, the relationship between Montgomery County
Community Partnership and the Task Force on Mentoring has been
a mentoring relationship. The Task force had been, for 10
years, an all-volunteer effort. They had a conference Once a
year which was useful. But I really believe when they became
associated with the Partnership, not only because of the
additional resources made available, which we're greatly
appreciative of; but I think also just because the Partnership
had a lot of experience in working with coalitions, looking at
institutions, looking at community norms, and looking at how
the environment affects drug use and looking at the broader
picture, that we helped the Task Force on Mentoring to focus
better, to strategize better, and to see more of its own
options. We're talking about mentoring as a way of empowerment.
Mentoring of at-risk children is empowering the children on
an individual basis. But we can also empower organizations, and
I think we've been instrumental in empowering the Task Force on
Mentoring. The Montgomery County Community Partnership has also
worked with students and formed the Students Opposed to
Smoking. And again, you know, students can discover how much
power they have. We know they have power. But students often do
not realize how powerful they can be, what type of access they
can have to the media, what type of institutional change they
can realize and can affect.
We have also worked with communities outside of Montgomery
County and, in terms of working with the coalitions, helping
them to get formed and get started. Someone once said, an
expert is a person who lives 50 miles away. Maybe there's some
truth to that even. Sometimes a person from the outside can get
a different perspective of what the problem is and what the
potentials are and can take--I know as a member of the
community, you can get so wrapped up in individual issues that
sometimes you can miss the bigger picture.
Congressman Levin said that replication is not duplication.
I really like that. The idea of going into another community
and working with them would certainly not be to impose my
vision or our vision onto somebody else but really working with
that coalition to help them to know what is their vision, what
is their voice, and how they would want to proceed. I believe
that the experiences that we've had as a coalition is
transferrable and is really something that shouldn't be wasted.
Any coalition that has been in existence and has been
successful should get the opportunity to go out to other
communities and work with them. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Couch follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. We have a little--15 minutes. First
let me--General Dean, if you could do this, that CADCA has
various research studies and other examples of some of the
programs you said for example that were in the audience today.
If you could submit some of that for the record, because our
focus on the record has been to some degree on budget issues.
But this will be the only hearing on the whole act, and we want
to make sure that this record reflects what we all share, which
is that the community organizations have been very effective,
that we've seen good responses around the country.
Really the only thing we're going back and forth on the
administrative costs is the administrative costs takes money
from the community groups. It's a zero sum gain. And therefore
we're not arguing with that, that there shouldn't be an
increase in funds and more money going to the communities
because we're just all presuming here today that it's been
fairly effective.
Maybe a little more targeting here and there and how do we
go to the next level. Did we--in effect the allusion was made
that those that were already organized were easier to supervise
because they were already in existence to some degree, like
Noble County, IN, or the mentoring programs in Montgomery
County and, therefore, it's becoming harder so, therefore, it
takes more administratively. Those are the kinds of questions
that we're going through. But we want to make sure that the
record from today shows the successes from as many programs as
possible. And if you could work with the association with that.
Now, let me ask you the difficult question. Authorizing
funds are going up. But appropriating funds may or may not go
up. So would you favor the administrative costs going up if the
dollars are the same, which means an actual net reduction going
to the grassroots?
General Dean. Me.
Mr. Souder. All of you briefly.
General Dean. I would answer the question this way. And I
would quickly say to you that we did submit to you about a
three page summary of outcomes from current Drug-Free Community
recipients.
[The information referred to follows:]
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General Dean. We also shared with you that we get dollars
from the Annie Casey Foundation in Baltimore to do a research
study, and we left that for you as well.
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General Dean. I would answer the question this way: that
after traveling around this country and having looked at the
conditions of our communities and visiting hundreds of
coalitions, that I believe I would favor less recipients in
order to provide the current recipients better support and
services and make them stronger and better.
That's a very difficult question--that's not easy for me to
say because I want to have as many grantees as possible, but I
don't want to have so many grantees out there and them
floundering without the appropriate assistance that is so
critically needed for them to be successful, so I have to come
down on the side that I would favor less grantees in order to
better provide support and assistance and evaluation.
Mr. Souder. Judge Kramer, if I could ask you, you mentioned
LaGrange County. I know DeKalb is also interested in effect.
I'm sure we're trying to move the prevention funds up, and I
think it'll go up some. But, for example, this could make the
difference whether one or neither of those counties get any
money if we increase the overhead. Or it could make a
difference in whether you get your additional years.
Judge Kramer. Right. It's important to have the money in
the communities; but it's also important to have the proper
oversight. And I guess it concerns me that there are other
prevention programs, demonstration projects in the OJJDP, that
are not being funded to help provide the administrative costs
for----
Mr. Souder. That's not what he said. He said that it's not
programmatic. It's administrative.
Judge Kramer. OK.
Mr. Souder. It's not pure administrative, but it's
technical assistance. In other words, we--in Congress, we give
technical assistance to OJJ--this is a very important thing to
do because there was a little misunderstanding. But the admin
funds come from Congress to administer. We also give technical
assistance funds. Those technical assistance funds are to cover
all their programs. There's no reason some of their funds
shouldn't cover this program. Because if they can cover other
programs----
Judge Kramer. I guess, I think that the money that's used
should be used the best, and I think that there still does need
to be some increase in the administrative costs of the program
to insure that each grantee builds the best program possible.
And I guess my goal, my vision would be to have that map
covered with dots with grantees from the past. And I guess that
means that the map would be covered a little bit more slowly,
but hopefully, with a lot stronger coalitions by having the
proper oversight over them.
Mr. Souder. This is a tough question. And I appreciate
that's what we're having to go through, and you're, in effect,
saying that this is a great need which is what we need to hear.
Mr. Couch.
Mr. Couch. We've received excellent assistance from OJJDP.
I understand our program manager at one time was working with
100 grantees. I mean that's not realistic, especially for
grantees that need a lot of assistance. I think creating weak
coalitions doesn't really help anybody and can really hurt the
effort.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And also, Washington, DC, may be the
only place where we don't view experts being 50 miles away.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank you all for being with us
today. And yes, judge.
Judge Kramer. There was one point that I wanted to make,
and I forgot because I was trying to--I kept watching the
clock. One concern that I have in the mentor coalition is the
requirement of requiring a match. And I understand the reason
for that. But it's difficult for us to raise money in our own
community for use in that community. But I don't know how I can
go out and ask businesses or individuals to give me money to go
help a coalition that's 200 miles away. I just don't know how
that would work.
There may be some coalitions that have enough money that
they have extra money that they can use to help fund this new
coalition of getting off the ground that they're mentoring. And
I think that's the wise outlook because, you know, obviously,
people are not stable and people move around. And just because
we've--may have made progress in Noble County, there are people
that move into Noble County all the time and we need to have a
broader look, outlook. But it's--I don't know how I'm going to
raise money to be able to help us mentor for the match. And
that was the only comment that I had forgotten.
Mr. Cummings. Judge, how did you, how did you get involved
in this? I mean, I know what you said, that you had some people
coming through your court, and the reason why I'm asking that
is because I've noticed that there's a trend of more judges
getting involved and I think that's great. I really do,
because, see, you guys, you all see it up front and personal.
You see the men and women come in front of you every day.
And I often say that there are some of us who are blessed
to be in certain places at certain times to be witnesses so
that you can come before other people and tell them what you've
seen when your neighbors might not normally see it unless it
happened in their house or something like that. But they still
would never see what you see. So I'm just wondering, how did
that come about?
Judge Kramer. It was just from seeing people. I got tired
of seeing people that were--that needed to be fixed up and that
were--had their lives destroyed. And I--you know, there needed
to be something more than--I can send them to substance abuse
treatment; and I can do things to try to maybe help. But you
still can't really fix them, patch them up totally. And I think
the key is to be engaged in prevention so they never get
involved in the system to begin with.
Mr. Cummings. Do you----
Judge Kramer. I guess it was just more frustration out of
not being able to put these people all the way back together
again.
Mr. Cummings. The dollars that you--I mean, you mentioned
just a few minutes ago some lady that called you and said that
she wanted you all's help because she was trying to do the same
thing that you were doing. And apparently, I assume, she
doesn't have dollars.
Judge Kramer. Right.
Mr. Cummings. So what--I mean, so do you think you are
prepared now, after doing what you all have been doing all this
time, to truly give her advice?
Judge Kramer. I think so. I think we can--there are things
that we can give her advice on how to go about it and maybe
avoid the mistakes that we've made and you know, hopefully,
hopefully help her.
Mr. Cummings. Now, one of the things they talked about a
little bit earlier is the Institute and how they would take
best practices and use them to help other people. I take it
that some of the things that you've learned you would be
willing to share with the Institute.
Judge Kramer. Right. Yeah. Exactly. The Institute--I guess
I'm excited about the Institute for what it can do for us.
We've been members of CADCA. And CADCA has been a tremendous
resource for us, and I see this as really expanding upon that
and giving us a lot of help and being able to help this woman
maybe refer her to the Institute and get some specific advise
for her from the Institute in--to help us help her.
Mr. Cummings. Now, General, does your organization do some
of what the Institute is going to do?
General Dean. I guess the best way to answer that question
is, you know, CADCA is a private non-profit organization, and
to date has not received any Federal assistance.
Mr. Cummings. I got all that. I understand that.
General Dean. So the Institute will bring to--the Institute
will bring to the field an expanded capability to take the
research that Dr. Vereen talked about and put it into a usable
manner so it can be delivered out to the field. So the answer
to your question is CADCA has attempted to do for the field
using the resources that it has, some of the things that the
Institute will do in a more sophisticated and expanded way.
Mr. Cummings. OK. Now, that leads me to this: the Institute
will gather information. Again I'm trying to figure out how do
we maximize our dollars and the use of them. Let's say the
Institute established itself and assuming that you all are
not--become the Institute, you know, I'm assuming that. Does--
do you foresee being able to use some information gathered in
the Institute to help your organization do what you do?
General Dean. Yes, I do. I envision a very close
proximity--excuse me. A very close collaboration between the
two organizations. Both benefiting each other, both with the
goal of creating more stronger community coalitions. So the
answer is, yes. I see a very close relationship, a close
working relationship, whether that relationship is the result
of CADCA managing the Institute or someone else managing the
Institute there has to be a very close relationship.
Mr. Cummings. So that would enhance your efforts and help
you be able to do even more. Is that right?
General Dean. That's correct.
Mr. Cummings. Finally, Mr. Couch, I want to thank you for
being here and thank you for your efforts. You're from my
State, and I had to say something to you. And I want to
congratulate you on what you're doing. And I really do, we all
appreciate it very much. I didn't want you to take it personal
when I talked about Montgomery County being the richest county
and Baltimore--I don't want you to take that personal. I may be
running Statewide some day. I don't want you to get up in the
audience and say he beat up on Montgomery County. So you did
understand that?
Mr. Couch. I understand. You have my vote.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. I want to thank you all for coming but most
importantly for the work that you do. There is no question, to
restate Congressman Cummings earlier point, that this is one of
our brightest hopes and success stories in the prevention
field. And as we look to put more dollars in, if we're being
very cautious with this it's that we want to build on it.
We've had some problems with drug-free schools, but we've
tried to amend that and make changes in the recent education
bill to try to address that because it's clear we're all
focusing on demand reduction in a way that we've never done
that before. And it needs to be a key part of any component,
and this is hopefully a way to strengthen that effort. And
thank you for contributing to our hearing today. And with that,
the hearing now stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:28 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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