[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEMANDING ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE
CORPORATION FOR NATIONAL
COMMUNITY SERVICE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
AND WORKFORCE TRAINING
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND THE WORKFORCE
U.S. House of Representatives
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 24, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-49
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce
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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE
JOHN KLINE, Minnesota, Chairman
Joe Wilson, South Carolina Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott,
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Virginia
Duncan Hunter, California Ranking Member
David P. Roe, Tennessee Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania Susan A. Davis, California
Tim Walberg, Michigan Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Matt Salmon, Arizona Joe Courtney, Connecticut
Brett Guthrie, Kentucky Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio
Todd Rokita, Indiana Jared Polis, Colorado
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Joseph J. Heck, Nevada Northern Mariana Islands
Luke Messer, Indiana Frederica S. Wilson, Florida
Bradley Byrne, Alabama Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon
David Brat, Virginia Mark Pocan, Wisconsin
Buddy Carter, Georgia Mark Takano, California
Michael D. Bishop, Michigan Hakeem S. Jeffries, New York
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Katherine M. Clark, Massachusetts
Steve Russell, Oklahoma Alma S. Adams, North Carolina
Carlos Curbelo, Florida Mark DeSaulnier, California
Elise Stefanik, New York
Rick Allen, Georgia
Juliane Sullivan, Staff Director
Denise Forte, Minority Staff Director
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE TRAINING
VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina, Chairwoman
David P. Roe, Tennessee Ruben Hinojosa, Texas
Matt Salmon, Arizona Ranking Minority Member
Brett Guthrie, Kentucky Hakeem S. Jeffries, New York
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Alma S. Adams, North Carolina
Joseph J. Heck, Nevada Mark DeSaulnier, California
Luke Messer, Indiana Susan A. Davis, California
Bradley Byrne, Alabama Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona
Carlos Curbelo, Florida Joe Courtney, Connecticut
Elise Stefanik, New York Jared Polis, Colorado
Rick Allen, Georgia
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 24, 2016..................................... 1
Statement of Members:
Adams, Hon. Alma S., a Representative in Congress from the
state of North Carolina.................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Foxx, Hon. Virginia, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Higher
Education and Workforce Training........................... 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Statement of Witnesses:
Cohn, Mr. Joseph, Legislative and Policy Director, Foundation
for Individual Rights in Education, Philadelphia, PA.......
Prepared statement of....................................
Maatz, Ms. Lisa M., Vice President for Government Relations,
American Association of University Women, Washington, DC...
Prepared statement of....................................
Jeffrey, Ms. Deborah, Inspector General, Corporation for
National and Community Service............................. 19
Prepared statement of.................................... 21
Spencer, Ms. Wendy, Chief Executive Officer, Corporation for
National and Community Service............................. 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 9
Additional Submissions:
Ms. Adams:
Letter dated May 23, 2016, from The Corps Network........ 48
Prepared statement of.................................... 50
Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Connecticut:
Hartford Courant article: Veteran's coffeehouse opens in
Danielson.............................................. 53
Chairwoman Foxx, questions submitted for the record to:
Ms. Jeffrey.............................................. 136
Ms. Spencer.............................................. 139
Response to questions submitted:
Ms. Jeffrey.............................................. 143
Ms. Spencer.............................................. 161
Corporation for National and Community ServiceGrant
Competitions Results - Fiscal Years 2010-2016.......... 170
Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'', a Representative in Congress
from the State of Virginia:
May 2008 Executive Summary Still Serving: Measuring the
Eight-Year Impact of AmeriCorps on Alumni.............. 57
May 2008 Still Serving:Measuring the Eight-Year Impact of
AmeriCorps on Alumni................................... 70
AmeriCorps Alumni Outcomes Summary Report Executive
Summary October 2015................................... 126
AmeriCorps Alumni Outcomes Summary Report October 2015... 134
DEMANDING ACCOUNTABILITY AT THE CORPORATION FOR NATIONAL
COMMUNITY SERVICE
----------
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
House of Representatives
Committee on Education and the Workforce,
Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training
Washington, D.C.
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Virginia Foxx
[chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Foxx, Roe, Guthrie, Curbelo,
Stefanik, Adams, DeSaulnier, Davis, Courtney, and Polis.
Also Present: Representatives Kline, and Scott.
Staff Present: Janelle Belland, Coalitions and Members
Services Coordinator; James Forester, Professional Staff
Member; Tyler Hernandez, Deputy Communications Director; Amy
Raaf Jones, Director of Education and Human Resources Policy;
Nancy Locke, Chief Clerk; Dominique McKay, Deputy Press
Secretary; Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Alex Ricci,
Legislative Assistant; Mandy Schaumburg, Education Deputy
Director and Senior Counsel; Alissa Strawcutter, Deputy Clerk;
Tylease Alli, Minority Clerk/Intern and Fellow Coordinator;
Pierce Blue, Minority Labor Detailee; Mishawn Freeman, Minority
Staff Assistant; Denise Forte, Minority Staff Director; Carolyn
Hughes, Minority Senior Labor Policy Advisor; Brian Kennedy,
Minority General Counsel; Veronique Pluviose, Minority Civil
Rights Counsel; and Rayna Reid, Minority Education Policy
Counsel.
Chairwoman Foxx. The quorum being present, the Subcommittee
on Higher Education and Workforce Training will come to order.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's hearing. Ms.
Spencer and Ms. Jeffrey, I would like to thank both of you for
joining us to address the most recent misuse of taxpayer funds
in the AmeriCorps program, or perhaps more accurately, the most
recent misuse of taxpayer funds that we know of.
Let me start by providing a little more context for those
who are not familiar with this case. The Corporation for
National Community Service, or CNCS, is in charge of overseeing
the community service activities of more than eight different
Federal programs and initiatives. For the current fiscal year,
CNCS received more than $1 billion to carry out these programs,
one of which is the AmeriCorps program. As the head of the
corporation, Ms. Spencer, you have a responsibility to ensure
the Federal funds you receive, which are no small sum, are
being spent in full compliance with Federal law. That includes
policies that prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to fund
abortion activities.
We are here today because the office of your inspector
general has reported one AmeriCorps grantee, the National
Association of Community Health Centers, violated the law. As
of today this organization is still receiving taxpayer funds.
More specifically, this organization, one of the largest to
participate in the AmeriCorps program, allowed AmeriCorps
members to engage in illegal activity by providing support
services during abortion procedures. Regardless of your
position on the issue of abortion, the law is the law and it
must be followed.
The most recent law reauthorizing CNCS programs explicitly
prohibits the use of AmeriCorps resources to provide abortion
services or referrals for receipt of such services, end quote.
For two years these illegal activities were allowed to continue
completely undetected by the very agency meant to oversee these
programs in the agency you are in charge of. The investigation
that began when you finally did become aware of what had
happened confirmed that taxpayer funds were used to support
unlawful activities. But it also revealed much more.
The inspector general also found that several AmeriCorps
members were regularly tasked with conducting work performed by
employees of the centers they supported. This activity is also
against the law, but the grantee failed to stop or even report
it. AmeriCorps members technically are to serve strictly in
volunteer roles and should never perform the same task as
employees. But again, that is not the end of it.
It was also discovered that the grantee's senior management
chose not to inform the corporation of instances of waste,
fraud, and abuse, choosing instead to undermine transparency
and avoid reporting information that would make them look bad.
This disturbing list of unlawful and dishonest practices really
makes you wonder, how on Earth was this allowed to happen? How
were these activities allowed to go on for so long? And why is
the National Association of Community Health Centers still a
grantee?
When the committee learned about this unlawful activity
last month, Chairman Kline immediately called on the
corporation to cease all future funding of this organization.
On behalf of the committee, I am renewing this call today, Ms.
Spencer. I sincerely hope you will be able to provide us with a
plan of action and describe steps you are taking to address
this situation.
Revoking this grant would be a good start, but it is also
important to recognize that this is not an isolated incident.
In fact, I chaired a hearing back in 2011 examining reports
that AmeriCorps members had engaged in other unlawful activity.
In response to questioning, the head of CNCS assured us the
corporation would be diligent in educating grantees, ``helping
them to understand the rules,'' and would require, ``all
AmeriCorps grantees to annually assure compliance with
regulations on prohibited activities.'' It seems that neither
strategy has solved the problem.
That's why today I am also calling on the Corporation to
conduct a comprehensive review to ensure all other grantees in
the program are complying with the law. Enough is enough. The
Corporation needs to be held accountable for the way it spends
taxpayer dollars and that's why we are here today.
We have many questions to answer and much to discuss.
So I now recognize Ranking Member Adams for her opening
remarks.
[The information follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Virginia Foxx, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on
Higher Education and Workforce Training
The Corporation for National and Community Service, or CNCS, is in
charge of overseeing the community service activities of more than
eight different federal programs and initiatives. For the current
fiscal year, CNCS received more than $1 billion to carry out these
programs, one of which is the AmeriCorps program.
As the head of the corporation, Ms. Spencer, you have a
responsibility to ensure the federal funds you receive--which is no
small sum--are being spent in full compliance with federal law. That
includes policies that prohibit the use of taxpayer dollars to fund
abortion activities. We're here today because the office of your
Inspector General has reported one AmeriCorps grantee, the National
Association of Community Health Centers, violated the law. As of today,
this organization is still receiving taxpayer funds.
More specifically, this organization--one of the largest to
participate in the AmeriCorps program--allowed AmeriCorps members to
engage in illegal activity by providing support services during
abortion procedures. Regardless of your position on the issue of
abortion, the law is the law, and it must be followed. The most recent
law reauthorizing CNCS programs explicitly prohibits the use of
AmeriCorps resources to ``provide abortion services or referrals for
receipt of such services.''
For two years, these illegal activities were allowed to continue,
completely undetected by the very agency meant to oversee these
programs. The investigation that began when you finally did become
aware of what had happened confirmed that taxpayer funds were used to
support unlawful activities, but it also revealed much more.
The Inspector General also found that several AmeriCorps members
were regularly tasked with conducting work performed by employees of
the centers they supported. This activity is also against the law, but
the grantee failed to stop or even report it. AmeriCorps members are to
serve strictly in volunteer roles and should never preform the same
tasks as employees. But, again, that's not the end of it.
It was also discovered that the grantee's senior management chose
not to inform the corporation of instances of waste, fraud, and abuse,
choosing instead to undermine transparency and avoid reporting
information that would make them look bad.
This disturbing list of unlawful and dishonest practices really
makes you wonder: How on earth was this allowed to happen? How were
these activities allowed to go on for so long? And, why is the National
Association of Community Health Centers still a grantee?
When the committee learned about this unlawful activity last month,
Chairman Kline immediately called on the corporation to cease all
future funding of this organization. On behalf of the committee, I am
renewing that call today, Ms. Spencer. I sincerely hope that you will
be able to provide us with a plan of action and describe steps you are
taking to address this situation.
Revoking this grant would be a good start, but it's also important
to recognize that this is not an isolated incident. In fact, I chaired
a hearing back in 2011 examining reports that AmeriCorps members had
engaged in other unlawful activity. In response to questioning, the
head of CNCS assured us the corporation would be diligent in educating
grantees, ``helping them to understand the rules,'' and would require
``all AmeriCorps grantees to annually assure compliance with
regulations on prohibited activities.'' It seems that neither strategy
has solved the problem.
That's why today I am also calling on the corporation to conduct a
comprehensive review to ensure all other grantees in the program are
complying with the law. Enough is enough. The corporation needs to be
held accountable for the way it spends taxpayer dollars, and that's why
we are here today.
______
Ms. Adams. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you both for
being here today. I would also like to welcome Wendy Spencer,
chief executive officer for the Corporation for National and
Community Service, and Deborah Jeffrey, the inspector general.
And I want to thank you both for joining us today.
We are here today to discuss the critical role that the
Corporation for National and Community Service, or CNCS, has in
encouraging volunteerism and civic engagement. Service is the
rent that we pay for living on this Earth and it is also the
foundation of our democracy, and its value to our society
cannot be overstated.
Since its founding, CNCS has engaged millions of volunteers
in national and community service. These volunteers have served
as teachers and tutors and mentors and counselors working with
disadvantaged students in high-need schools. In cases of
natural disaster, volunteers have helped local communities
prepare for, mitigate, respond, and recover from forest fires
and floods and hurricanes and tornadoes. Volunteers have
assisted our Nation's veterans in adjusting to civilian life,
constructed and rebuilt homes for thousands of families, and
help our Nation's seniors in maintaining the highest degree
possible of independent living and much more. All of us ought
to be engaged in national service. So thank you, CNCS, for
being a leader on this issue.
You see, my upbringing taught me that we won't be able to
celebrate community, nor can we build community if we are not
inclusive, if we do not care for the least of these. So as we
engage ourselves in trying to improve our community for the
better, we must do so remembering that we are thy brother's and
thy sister's keepers, and as such, inextricably tied to one
another. But in order for the community to be engaged, the
community must be involved. And that is exactly what CNCS does.
CNCS and the community volunteers that they coordinate enable
tens of thousands of nonprofit organizations, faith-based
groups and schools and municipal agencies to solve tough
problems and meet local needs. CNCS also serves and builds and
makes an impact that change lives and communities.
Martin Luther King once said that the ultimate measure of a
man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and
convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and
controversy. So during the times of challenge, CNCS is there.
During the Flint crisis, CNCS deployed an AmeriCorps team
to Flint to support State and local efforts to protect the
public health of residents facing challenges from increased
lead levels in the Flint water supply. And when tornadoes
wreaked havoc in Oklahoma, CNCS deployed an AmeriCorps team to
that region.
So needless to say, I could praise the instances of these
volunteers helping our Nation's communities in times of need.
But I will stop here and say that it is without a doubt that
CNCS has improved the quality of life in my home State of North
Carolina and communities around this great Nation.
After I was sworn into Congress, I made it a priority to
join the Committee on Education and the Workforce and I am glad
I am here. And I fought to do that intentionally because I
understand the significance of community engagement. And as a
member of the Committee, I feel responsible for ensuring that
the Corporation has strong management, monitoring, and
oversight as well as the resources necessary to effectively
administer its programs and carry out its mission. And while
there is always room for improvement, I strongly believe that
CNCS is taking this responsibility serious.
So with regard to the recent incidences that occurred with
the AmeriCorps program, CNCS discovered and resolved these
issues with deliberate action. And I can't help but think that
if this were anything other than services related to women's
health, that the Corporation would not be called in front of us
here today.
So as we proceed with today's hearing, I want to strongly
encourage my colleagues on this committee to focus on the vital
importance of service to our Nation. And while we must maintain
vigorous oversight and enforcement, we must also remember how
CNCS engages over a million volunteers, which is something that
benefits local communities all across America on both sides of
the aisle. So I look forward to hearing more about how we can
improve and strengthen National Service programs that are so
important to our Nation's success. Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The information follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Alma S. Adams, a Representative in Congress
from the state of North Carolina
Good morning and thank you, Chairwoman Foxx. I would also like to
welcome Wendy Spencer, chief executive officer (CEO) for the
Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and Deborah
Jeffries, the Inspector General, for joining us today.
We are here today to discuss the critical role that the Corporation
for National and Community Service, or CNCS, has in encouraging
volunteerism and civic engagement. I'm a big fan of saying that
``service is indeed the rent we pay for living on this earth.'' Service
is the foundation of our democracy, and its value to our society cannot
be overstated.
Since its founding, CNCS has engaged millions of volunteers in
national and community service. These volunteers have served as
teachers, tutors, mentors, and counselors working with disadvantaged
students in high need schools. In cases of natural disasters,
volunteers have helped local communities prepare for, mitigate,
respond, and recover from forest fires, floods, hurricanes and
tornadoes. Volunteers have assisted our nation's veterans in adjusting
to civilian life, constructed and rebuilt homes for thousands of
families, helped our nation's seniors in maintaining the highest degree
possible of independent living and much more.
All of us ought to be engaged in national service. So thank you
CNCS for being a leader on this issue. You see, my upbringing taught me
that we won't be able to celebrate community nor can we build
community--``if we're not inclusive and don't care for the least of
these.'' As we engage ourselves in trying to improve and better our
community, we must do so remembering that we are thy brother's and thy
sister's keepers and as such we are inextricably tied to one another.
But in order for the community to be engaged, the community must be
involved. And that is exactly what CNCS does. CNCS and the
community volunteers they coordinate enable tens of thousands of
nonprofit organizations, faith-based groups, schools, and municipal
agencies to solve tough problems and meet local needs. CNCS serves,
builds, and makes an impact that changes lives and communities.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, ``The ultimate measure of a man
is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where
he stands at times of challenge and controversy.'' During times of
challenge, CNCS is there----
* During the Flint Water Crisis, CNCS deployed an AmeriCorps team
to Flint, Michigan, to support state and local efforts to protect the
public health of residents facing challenges from increased lead levels
in the Flint water supply.
* When Hurricane Katrina devastated the South, CNCS deployed an
AmeriCorps team to the region.
* And when tornadoes wreaked havoc in Oklahoma, AmeriCorps
volunteers were there.
Needless to say, I could praise the instances of these volunteers
helping our nation's communities in times of need. But, I'll stop here
and say that it is without a doubt that CNCS has improved the quality
of life in my home state of North Carolina and in communities around
this great nation.
The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act reauthorized and expanded
the national service programs administered by CNCS. After I was sworn
into Congress, I made it a priority to join the Committee on Education
and the Workforce. I fought to get on this Committee intentionally
because I understand the significance of community engagement. And as a
member of this Committee, I feel responsible for ensuring that the
Corporation has strong management, monitoring, and oversight, as well
as the resources to effectively administer its programs and carry out
its
mission. While there is always room for improvement, I strongly
believe that CNCS is taking this responsibility seriously.
With regard to the recent incidences that occurred with the
1AmeriCorps program, CNCS discovered and resolved these issues with
deliberate action. And I can't help but think that if this were
anything other than services related to women's health, that the
Corporation would not be called in front of us here today.
As we proceed with this hearing, I want to strongly encourage my
colleagues on this Committee to focus on the vital importance of
service to our nation. While we must maintain vigorous oversight and
enforcement, we must also remember how CNCS engages over a million
volunteers, which is something that benefits local communities all
across America, on both sides of the aisle. And I look forward to
hearing more about how we can improve and strengthen national service
programs that are so important to our nation's success.
Thank you.
______
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you, Dr. Adams. Pursuant to
Committee Rule 7(c), all members will be permitted to submit
written statements to be included in the permanent hearing
record. And without objection, the hearing record will remain
open for 14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous
material referenced during the hearing to be submitted for the
official hearing record.
It is now my pleasure to introduce our distinguished
witnesses. The Honorable Wendy Spencer is the chief executive
officer for the Corporation for National and Community Service
here in Washington, D.C. Ms. Spencer began serving as CEO of
the Corporation on April 9, 2012. Prior to that, the
Corporation, Ms. Spencer served as the CEO of the Florida
Governor's Commission on Volunteerism and as the director of
the Florida Parks Service.
The Honorable Deborah Jeffrey is the inspector general for
the Corporation for National and Community Service here in
Washington, D.C. Ms. Jeffrey joined the corporation as
inspector general on July 19, 2012. Prior to this, Ms. Jeffrey
spent 25 years in private practice of law, including as an in-
house counsel on ethics and loss prevention.
I now ask our witnesses to raise your right hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairwoman Foxx. Let the record reflect the witnesses
answered in the affirmative.
Before I recognize you to provide your testimony, let me
briefly explain our lighting system. You have 5 minutes to
present your testimony. When you begin, the light in front of
you will turn green. When 1 minute is left, the light will turn
yellow. When your time has expired, the light will turn red. At
that point, I will ask you to wrap up your remarks as best as
you are able. Members will each have 5 minutes to ask
questions.
Now I would recognize the Honorable Wendy Spencer for her
opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF WENDY SPENCER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
CORPORATION FOR NATIONAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
Ms. Spencer. Thank you, Madam Chair, Dr. Adams, members of
the committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. I
welcome this opportunity to discuss our commitment to
accountability and good stewardship of taxpayer dollars.
Today, 345,000 Senior Corps and AmeriCorps members are
serving in 50,000 locations across the Nation. These dedicated
Americans serve in tough conditions to meet pressing local
needs like tutoring and mentoring at-risk youth, responding to
disasters, supporting veterans and their families, and much,
much more, all while recruiting millions of additional
volunteers to serve alongside them and multiply their impact.
National Service invests in local solutions. It provides
human capital support to increase the impact of nonprofits and
faith-based organizations and other community organizations.
Governor-appointed state service commissions decide where most
of the AmeriCorps resources are invested. Local groups recruit,
select, and supervise their members. Mayors and county leaders
are also an important part of our partnerships at the local
level.
Congress created our agency years ago to empower citizens,
solve problems, and expand opportunity. Our agency is built on
smart, commonsense principles, local control, competition,
public-private partnership, and a focus on results. And it's
working.
I share the committee's view that our agency has a
responsibility to ensure Federal funds are well managed. That
has been my priority from day one. We have built a culture of
accountability and strong systems of monitoring and oversight.
These systems are working.
Misconduct is very rare, but when it happens, we take
strong action. Accountability is more than compliance. It also
means achieving our mission. We are investing funds more
effectively to drive community impact by using evidence,
increasing competition, and measuring performance.
My written testimony details our comprehensive risk-based
system to prevent and detect issues and enforce our rules. But
let me list just a few to highlight.
We start before a grant is ever made by doing a financial
scan and reviewing past performance. Every direct grant is
monitored for fiscal and programmatic compliance. Every year
our staff conducts a risk assessment of our entire portfolio of
grants to inform our monitoring plan. Grantees identified as
having risk receive site visits, desk reviews, and other types
of audits. In fact, 3,200 have occurred in the last 5 years. If
issues are discovered, we enforce our rules. That can mean
requiring corrective action plans, placing funds on hold,
reporting activities to the inspector general, or even
suspending or terminating a grant.
In recent years we have strengthened our monitoring and
oversight in many ways through expanded grantee and staff
training, better use of financial data, increased control on
fixed-amount grants, improvements to our grants management
system, better communication with our grantees and members, and
more.
Several initiatives currently underway, we have just
recently hired a chief risk officer; the first in our agency's
history and one of only a few positions like it in the Federal
Government. This executive will lead an office that oversees
all of our risk assessment programs, an integrated coordinated
approach to better manage our resources and decision-making. We
believe we are ahead of the curve in developing an enterprise
risk management program to help us take a holistic view of
risk.
We are updating our grant management IT system. A key
component will be to enhance and validate our grantee risk
model. This will enable us to move from compliance-focused
monitoring to a more nimble and targeted risk-based approach.
Given the priority we place on accountability, we are
deeply disappointed that a grantee authorized National Service
participants to engage in prohibited activities. We immediately
referred this matter to the inspector general for
investigation. Once the results were known, we suspended the
grantee from enrolling new members, directed them to hire an
independent oversight monitor, and required them to take
several other corrective actions. The inspector general stated
our response was robust.
The IG concluded that the noncompliance was extremely
limited in scope involving six of nearly 1,600 members serving
under this particular grantee over three years. It is important
to put that in perspective. That is six members out of more
than 1 million National Service positions in the same period.
In fact, since this subcommittee's hearing five years ago,
there have been nearly 2 million AmeriCorps members and Senior
Corps positions granted. Members have served 820 million hours.
They have made an extraordinary contribution to our communities
and our Nation.
I hope that my testimony today assures the committee of our
commitment to accountability and our interest in doing more and
making improvements where needed. We look forward to working
with you to further strengthen the impact of National Service.
And as I always ask members of Congress, I welcome your advice
and your guidance. Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The statement of Ms. Spencer follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you very much, Ms. Spencer. Ms.
Jeffrey, you are recognized.
TESTIMONY OF DEBORAH JEFFREY, INSPECTOR GENERAL, CORPORATION
FOR NATIONAL AND COMMUNITY SERVICE
Ms. Jeffrey. Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Adams, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to
testify about the work of the Office of Inspector General to
strengthen accountability at CNCS. I have had the privilege of
serving as the IG for nearly 4 years.
Since early 2013, OIG has been recommending substantial
improvements to CNCS's grants management, especially risk
assessment and focused monitoring. We have identified new
monitoring requirements and encourage CNCS to begin work on
them early. Our work has shown that better internal controls
and risk management are needed across the organization.
OIG conveys our recommendations in audit and investigation
reports, in meetings with CNCS's leaders, and in briefings of
the board of directors. We summarize them in our semiannual
reports to Congress.
We have also identified other sources of help for CNCS.
Following a troubling financial statement audit, we initiated
discussions with OMB and CNCS to develop a plan for substantial
upgrades to internal controls. We recommended an assessment of
information technology and how it could better support the
agency's operations and programs. CNCS responded by
commissioning a report by The MITRE Corporation which gave rise
to the present IT modernization plan.
To jumpstart progress, we introduced the chief operating
officer to the Federal Enterprise Risk Management community and
its resources. We have long advocated that CNCS hire a chief
risk officer whom we recently welcomed.
At our suggestion, the House Committee on Government Reform
requested a GAO study of grant monitoring at CNCS which is
currently in progress. And to improve criminal history
checking, we brought in the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children to share its expertise in assisting
nonprofits.
CNCS has adopted a number of our individual
recommendations. There is an increased focus on accountability
and the leaders recently brought on board share that priority.
But much work remains to be done on basic risk management
systems. High turnover in key accountability positions,
insufficient resources, and lack of trained leadership have
impaired efforts to improve accountability. CNCS lacks bench-
strength and grant risk assessments and monitoring, creating
appropriate internal controls, and identifying and reducing
improper payments.
The agency has repeatedly promised progress, but it
continues to struggle. Its grant monitoring depends heavily on
risk assessments of unproven reliability. Our preliminary
review of 40 seriously troubled grants found that half had not
been monitored closely because they were rated as low or medium
risk. CNCS was therefore blindsided by the serious problems
that occurred.
Our audits and investigations also often find that the
staff has missed red flags. That was the case with OIG's recent
investigation of abortion-related prohibited activities. As you
alluded to, Chairwoman Foxx, last month OIG reported that the
National Association of Community Health Centers allowed a few
AmeriCorps members to provide emotional support to women during
abortions at three New York City clinics operated by a sub-
grantee. The Federal statute authorizing the AmeriCorps program
expressly forbids the use of AmeriCorps resources to provide
abortion services or referrals for receipt of such services.
Among the missed opportunities, from 2009, CNCS was on written
notice that one NACHC's sub-grantees was performing abortions
and having AmeriCorps members provide pre-abortion assistance.
The agency did not ask the identity of the sub-grantee, did not
determine whether the pre-abortion support activities were
prohibited abortion services, and did not target NACHC or the
sub-grantee for particular monitoring. The staff also did not
record this key risk-related information in its online grants
management system. Important institutional knowledge was
therefore lost.
The agency made a considered decision in 2009 not to
provide general guidance on the meaning of the abortion
prohibitions. Its first interpretive guidance was imbedded in
voluntary online training in 2014. There, CNCS stated for the
first time that an AmeriCorps member is prohibited from
accompanying a woman at a facility for an abortion; precisely
what was taking place at the sub-grantee.
The measures that CNCS is now implementing could have been
adopted long ago. These include OIG's recommendations, one, to
analyze grantees' programmatic activity and clientele in order
to identify those that present a heightened risk of a
particular prohibited activity. There is a greater risk of
abortion-related activities at a clinic that provides women's
healthcare than at a program for Meals on Wheels to senior
citizens. Second, to expand its repertoire of monitoring
activities to include more frequent direct communications with
AmeriCorps members, including surveys.
My staff and I see great potential to improve
accountability at CNCS and we look forward to working with the
Congress and agency leaders to that important objective.
Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my statement. I would be
pleased to answer any questions that you or the other members
might have.
[The statement of Ms. Jeffrey follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you very much, Ms. Jeffrey. I would
now like to recognize our subcommittee members for their
questioning and I will recognize the chairman of the full
committee, Mr. Kline, to ask the first question.
Mr. Kline. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank the witnesses for
being here today for your testimony.
I must say, Ms. Jeffrey, listening to your testimony, there
are a lot of concerns that you raised and one of them was
repeated staff did not, staff did not, staff did not, did not
recognize, they didn't take action, they could have, they did
not. And that makes me worry about what the culture and the
leadership might be and that would be back into Ms. Spencer's
box. But I want to come specifically back to you, Ms. Jeffrey,
the inspector general, because you talked about some steps that
have been taken and could be taken, you hope will be taken. But
you also in your testimony highlight the structural challenges
to better oversight at the corporation. Can you discuss why
these structural challenges pose an issue in whether the
corporation can properly oversee the program under its charge,
structural?
Ms. Jeffrey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The corporation has
not invested enough time, attention, and effort in
strengthening its structural internal controls. That has been a
finding repeatedly in the financial statement audits which are
conducted by an independent auditing company that audits a
number of Federal agencies.
The corporation often says that it will improve, it makes
efforts to do so, but its turnover in leadership of that effort
has impeded progress. The staff who are charged with
responsibility for this important function are undertrained.
They are under-resourced. And until the recent hiring of a
chief risk officer, they have not been led by someone who is
properly educated, trained, and with sufficient expertise.
The corporation also suffers some structural impediments by
virtue of its outdated information technology system and how
that impacts grant management. That is a place in which the
corporation has made some progress. There is an IT
modernization plan. It is underway and I believe it will
substantially improve grant monitoring two or three years
hence. Until that time however, the monitoring is extremely
laborious, conducted by hand, and does not have the benefit of
data analytics. We have been urging improvement on that score
as well virtually since the day I came to the corporation in
late 2012.
Mr. Kline. It sounds daunting to say the least. It's going
to take time. It's going to take real leadership. Is it going
to take reorganizing, creation, eliminating some departments
and creating new ones? Obviously, you've created a new one when
you hired a chief risk management officer. Are there other
organizational things that the IG has recommended?
Ms. Jeffrey. We have recommended that the corporation
undertake an assessment of what it will take to do these
things, real planning with meaningful milestones, meaningful
deadlines, and an assessment of the resources that will be
required to get to the finish line. I understand that is
underway now. We have not yet seen its results. And of course,
the chief risk officer has only been on board for about a
month.
Mr. Kline. It is like an indictment of a lot of people in
an oversight role and a management role. I suppose we have to
include ourselves in the oversight business. We will be taking
a close and continuous look as we go forward because the
problems, to listening to the IG, are extensive. I yield back,
Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Foxx. Chairman yields back. Mr. Scott, I
recognize you for 5 minutes.
Mr. Scott. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Spencer, most of this fanfare is over the abortion
services. How many employees were involved in that?
Ms. Spencer. Good day, Mr. Scott. According to the IG's
investigation that was very thorough and swift, it illustrated
that there were six AmeriCorps members at a limited scope of
time. I don't know that we can delineate the exact amount of
time, but if we were pressed we would probably say, combined,
maybe as much as 10 hours.
Mr. Scott. Ten hours, okay. And the hourly rate--
Ms. Spencer. Total.
Mr. Scott. Total aggregate total. And the expense of an
AmeriCorps member is about $10 an hour give or take?
Ms. Spencer. Well, AmeriCorps members' stipends vary. These
are full-time members. They receive approximately $12,600 a
year. It is a living stipend, not a living wage. And then
followed up with a college scholarship of around $5,700 at the
close of their commitment.
Mr. Scott. Full-time, 2,000 hours--
Ms. Spencer. Seventeen hundred.
Mr. Scott. It is about, in stipend, it is about $10 an
hour. So we are talking about somewhere around $100?
Ms. Spencer. That is correct.
Mr. Scott. Uh-huh. What is the total budget for this
grantee?
Ms. Spencer. Around $6 million, approximately 525 full-time
AmeriCorps members.
Mr. Scott. Were they told by outside attorneys that their
activities were legal?
Ms. Spencer. Were legal?
Mr. Scott. Right. Did they consult outside attorneys before
they reported it? Before you found out?
Ms. Spencer. So several things occurred. Several years ago
there was dialogue by Email back and forth, but looking back at
that, not very clear to me. It talked about reproductive
services, other things. I think looking back, both parties, the
grantee and our staff, could have been more clear. But yes,
they were told that it was against the rules to provide
abortion services.
Mr. Scott. Well, they were told. Before they were told
that, did they seek other counsel that gave them the impression
that it was not illegal?
Ms. Spencer. The inspector general report alludes to in
writing that it appeared there was some conversation on their
part with outside legal counsel. She might be able to speak to
that a little bit better than me.
Mr. Scott. All right, let me ask Ms. Jeffrey. Did they seek
outside counsel and were told that their activities were not
inappropriate?
Ms. Jeffrey. I think that would be something of an
overstatement. What we know is that at some point when the
grantee learned that an individual AmeriCorps member and a sub-
grantee was acting as an abortion doula, they did two things.
The national director at NACHC said that he analyzed for
himself whether this conduct was permissible. He also said that
he spoke to outside counsel. Looking at the documents, it
appears that his conversation with outside counsel concerned
whether it was permissible to be performing abortions at that
clinic, not whether it was permissible to use AmeriCorps
members. But he was not very specific about it and sometimes
implied--
Mr. Scott. Okay, so there was at least some discussion
about whether--the legality of this activity. We are talking
about $100 out of millions. I mean, we have spent more than
that in congressional salaries listening to the opening
statements. We have run through $100. I would like to get from
the chair how much money has been spent on this subcommittee
meeting. If we could provide that for the record so we can put
all these numbers in perspective because we are talking about
$100 that we are chasing. What has happened to the grantee
since then?
Ms. Spencer. Several things have occurred over the course
of several weeks, so allow me just to share the entire picture.
Mr. Scott. Well, I only have a couple seconds left. Is it
true that they are not being renewed?
Ms. Spencer. May I continue? I know we are out of time,
Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Foxx. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Spencer. Thank you. So during this time period of this
particular grantee, coincidentally, happened to be up for a new
grant, the start of a brand new grant. They were notified a few
days ago through the regular grant process that they will not
receive a new grant in this process based on our regular grant
process.
Now, they have an existing grant that is ongoing. It
terminates on July 31st. So they have received a letter this
morning reminding them that their grant terminates on July 31st
and instructing them to end the AmeriCorps member service at
the New York site where the inappropriate activity occurred.
Now normally a grantee would ask for a no-cost extension
for a year as a normal process. I am not inclined to grant them
a no-cost extension. But if they meet all of our demands over
the coming days as they close out this grant--hiring a monitor,
an ombudsman, not enrolling new members, all of these things;
there is a long list of requirements--I am amenable to
entertaining the thought of a short-term extension for 90 days.
If I did so it would mean that 500 AmeriCorps members get to
complete their full term of service.
I want to look at the AmeriCorps members and try to say,
should they be completing their terms of service, their
commitment they made to our country. Above the actions of one
or two individuals at the agency, at the Community Health Corps
Administration? So I am amenable to looking into that. So that
is the current status at this point.
Chairwoman Foxx. The gentleman's time has expired. The
gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. Roe, is recognized.
Mr. Roe. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
You know, typically the indiscretions of a few will hurt
the many who do good. And there is no question that is true.
And many of us feel very strongly about abortion whether you
are pro-choice or pro-life. I happen to be an obstetrician. As
I spent 31 years doing that, delivering about 5,000 babies, I
am strongly pro-life. And I think that the intent of those
grants was very clear. I can certainly see why someone who has
had an abortion, who has problems emotionally, would feel like
you want to help them. I certainly understand that. I have done
that. When people had them someone else and came to me, I did
offer support for those patients and would continue to do so.
But the grants can prohibit that. It's not to be used and I
think we feel like if we allow that, you will get on a slippery
slope and then people just decided what they want to do. And I
think that's the problem I have seen with--I am on the
Veteran's Affairs Committee and one of the problems I have with
this place is the lack of accountability. People just do what
they want to because they think they want to, not the intent of
Congress, and then there are no consequences to it.
So what I want to dig into, first of all, were there just
six people? What have been the consequences to that? Because if
the consequences were in this, we just cut the grant off. And
realizing that there are AmeriCorps members out there working
hard every day, New York or wherever they may be working that
are doing good work, if those consequences were there like
that, those grantees would not do that. If there was some
accountability like that.
And I think that you as a director, Ms. Spencer, are going
to have to say, well, I would like to see these people go on
and do all. Well, then there have been nothing for these
people. If you think about it, we are having this discussion
about not a lot. And what Mr. Scott was talking about, about
the amount of money, I do not care about that. It is the
principle that is involved. And I think, you know, a billion
dollars is a lot of money. It is a thousand million dollars
that you oversee every year. And so I want to know had there
been more than six, Ms. Jeffrey? Were there more than that? Or
how did you determine there were just six people involved?
Ms. Jeffrey. Thank you. We, in fact, know that there were
more than six involved.
Mr. Roe. Okay.
Ms. Jeffrey. There are six that we can identify by name.
The only way we are able to identify the individuals who served
as abortion doulas is if they somehow made a blog post or sent
something that is in the public record about their service. We
know that there were additional individuals. We do not know how
many because typically AmeriCorps members do not keep detailed
time records of their activities. And so it is very difficult
to quantify the number of people.
That said, it appears that the activity was limited to this
one sub-grantee. And it is not given the number of individuals
we can identify, we don't think it is orders of magnitude off.
Mr. Roe. Thank you, Ms. Jeffrey. What date does the sub-
grantees contract basic grant end?
Ms. Spencer. July 31st.
Mr. Roe. And has not been renewed.
Ms. Spencer. No.
Mr. Roe. And that they can't apply in some other grant.
Would you accept a different grant from these people?
Ms. Spencer. They just applied for one which was denied,
and they just received that. That was a $6 million request, a
little over $6 million request, and they were denied that.
Mr. Roe. Let me ask a question. When you are looking at a
program, a success or a failure of a program, what is a win?
How do you evaluate the success of a program because this one
clearly was not? I mean, someone in that shop decided we are
going to do this knowing good and well that they should not do
it. We will just do it and we probably would not get caught. We
will ask for forgiveness if we get cause because there is no
risk to us if we do. And the risk, I guess, is not getting
another grant, but that is it. You did not stop the grant.
So how do you evaluate a program? In other words, how do
you define a win, a success?
Ms. Spencer. Thank you for that question, Congressman.
Fortunately, we have an amazing array of successes all over the
country with 345,000 National Service participants during a
day. I have the joy of seeing those all over the country in
rural and cities and travel communities serving in disasters,
education. And a success would be something like this. A
program meets all of our requirements. They have filed their
financial reports on time. They have strong audits. They have
proper management and oversight. They have strong outcomes.
They are measuring their performance and reporting to us what--
that--our larger programs are doing--
Mr. Roe. I am about out of time, but when someone applies
for a grant, there are metrics out there, benchmarks that they
have to meet.
Ms. Spencer. Absolutely.
Mr. Roe. Okay, I yield back.
Ms. Spencer. Thank you.
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you, Dr. Roe. Dr. Adams, you are
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Adams. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am a little bit
curious about the review process. If you could talk a little
bit more about it. Was it just written? Were there verbal
conversations with the applicants? How did that work, Ms.
Spencer?
Ms. Spencer. Thank you, Dr. Adams. I am sure you are still
referencing the Community Health Corps or just in general
review processes?
Ms. Adams. Yeah, for this particular--
Ms. Spencer. For this particular.
Ms. Adams. Right.
Ms. Spencer. They did have a desk audit in 2014. So they
are assigned a program officer as soon as they receive a grant
from us. In this particular case, it is a direct grant that we
are managing. It is not going through one of our Governor's
Commissions on Volunteerism, which two-thirds of our grants are
AmeriCorps grants, are managed through Governor's Commissions
on Volunteerism. But this one is not. This is a direct grantor
agency, so they are assigned a program officer.
That program officer reviews all of the terms and
conditions with them. They provide direction to them to
trainings, to opportunities to find information like on our
Knowledge Network. We host nationwide trainings and regional
trainings. They attend those. They do monthly check-ins. So it
is a regular communication all the time. In this particular
case, this grantee knew the rules.
Ms. Adams. Okay, so--
Ms. Spencer. That's what is unfortunate.
Ms. Adams. Yeah, okay. So as a follow-up, in the
discussions, did they talk about abortion?
Ms. Spencer. It happened and I read a string of Emails
where there was communication back and forth. But if you look
back today as sort of hindsight armchair quarterbacking, the
language between the parties was sort of evasive. I think the
parties should have just picked up the phone and say, what are
you trying to do? Let us give you direct guidance. You may not
do abortion services. That is not allowed according to the
Serve America Act of which Congress has given us those rules.
So it looked like they were dancing around words and it was
hard to understand. But they were told you could not perform
abortion services.
Ms. Adams. Okay, let me ask. You mentioned no-cost
extension, that they could ask for that.
Ms. Spencer. Uh-huh.
Ms. Adams. Have they asked for a no-cost extension?
Ms. Spencer. No.
Ms. Adams. And so you did say you would consider it. So
when did you make a decision and would you approach them about
doing it? I mean, since we are talking about, maybe you are
talking about some misconduct, but not everybody was
responsible for it and not wanting everybody to suffer. So what
is your thought about that?
Ms. Spencer. Well, I think Congressman Roe makes a good
point. You do have to look at the intent of an organization and
how they are being managed. So I am concerned. What would guide
my decision in the coming weeks would be are they following our
demands? Are they meeting all of the requests that we have
asked them to do of which the IG also made recommendations to
us which we have adhered to? So I would watch and see. Are we
working in good faith with one another? Are they being
responsive? There are many things they could do to try to
convince us that they will adhere to the rules.
Ms. Adams. Okay, so since there is not much time, you
mentioned that the grant is up in July. But let me just move on
and ask, what exactly were the volunteers doing? I mean, did
they perform the abortions that you are talking about?
Ms. Spencer. Oh, no, ma'am.
Ms. Adams. Okay.
Ms. Spencer. As I understand it, an abortion doula. And
this is things that I am learning about, too, but was seated
with these women during the--
Ms. Adams. Okay, and finally before I run out of time, I
wanted to ask you, you know, if there were some things that you
think that were inappropriate, but what would reduced funding
for CNCS mean for communities around the country if you had to
do that?
Ms. Spencer. I am sorry, what would--
Ms. Adams. What would reduced funding do? What would it
mean for communities around the country if their funding was
reduced, eliminated?
Ms. Spencer. Well, you know, I looked at all of the other
things that the Community Health Corps does. They do diabetes
screenings. They do breastfeeding courses. They do well-baby
care education. They do support to veterans, support for
seniors. They do obesity prevention. You know, this is why it
is a mystery to me why they had to focus on this particular
issue. There are so many other things: financial literacy,
helping people figure out what kind of healthcare is affordable
and available to them. There is so many other avenues they
could be serving in.
And in 2011, I was a grantee of this agency. I was
receiving funds from this agency running the Florida Governor's
Commission on Volunteerism. And I remember, Madam Chair Foxx,
this hearing and watched with interest. It was no secret what
was allowed and what was not allowed to any of us as a grantee.
So, it was very clear at that time that they made the decision
to change the wording for the member contract that allowed this
activity to go on. So I am perplexed by that because all of us
in the field understood the rules clearly.
Ms. Adams. Yes, ma'am. Well, it sounds like it would have a
devastating impact in terms of the services overall that are
provided if the funding was not there. And I yield back, Madam
Chair.
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you very much, Dr. Adams. I believe,
Mr. Courtney, we are going to recognize you for 5 minutes.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you to the
witnesses.
Ms. Spencer, I just want to drill down a little deeper in
terms of just who the program was in New York that was the
subject of the IG report. Again, it was not the National
Association of Community Health Centers that operated that
program. It was a sub-grantee of the National Association of
Community Health Centers, isn't that correct?
Ms. Spencer. Yes, sir.
Mr. Courtney. And so the total grant for the community
health centers group nationally, again, the 535 volunteers that
are funded, I mean, those are all across the country.
Ms. Spencer. That is correct.
Mr. Courtney. Not just in New York City. So for example, in
Connecticut, where I come from, there are 21 individuals that
are funded through that National Association grant. There are
four in my district in Norwich, Connecticut, who I am, you
know, a frequent flyer at that community health center. They
don't provide anything remotely close to abortion services. So
the four volunteers that are funded through that grant, I mean,
do things like schedule flu shots, you know, help with
monitoring patients who are high emergency room utilizers, you
know, help with medication management. I mean, they are doing
this sort of blocking and tackling of primary care. And in many
instances, our young individuals who later on end up going to
medical school or advanced practice nursing, I mean, it is
really a launching pad for people in terms of a healthcare
career that has benefits that exceed even, sort of, the metrics
of what you were talking about in terms of program success.
So I guess, you know, I think it is important sometimes
right now, to put this in perspective here. I mean, if we
cancel a contract across the country, you are hitting community
health centers that, again, are not even close--
Mr. Courtney.--to the activity that was the subject of the
complaints. And you are really just depriving low-income
patients, elderly patients. Actually, in Norwich, Connecticut,
they provide services to some veterans in terms of dental care
that are not covered by the VA.
So, I mean, let's not shoot the bystander here in terms of,
you know, overreacting to this problem that was identified. And
I hope you keep that in mind as you sort of evaluate the next
steps here.
Again, the surgical remedies that have been put into place
are totally appropriate and that's your job. But, again, sort
of an across the board chainsaw through, you know, community
health centers I think really undercuts the mission of the
AmeriCorps law. I do not know if you want to react to that, but
I really think we got to put this in perspective.
Ms. Spencer. Thank you for that input and I concur.
Hopefully, in the future we will find more organizations like
this agency that is interested in our grants. So you make fine
points on it. I agree.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you. And I would just say that, again,
stepping back even further in terms of just the scope of
AmeriCorps as far as its, you know, value to the taxpayer, we
have an RSVP program up in northeastern Connecticut that
organizes veterans' coffeehouse. It sounds kind of small
potatoes, but actually it has become a gathering point for the
most rural part of the State for veterans who, as a result, are
now getting VA benefits that they did not know they were
entitled to because of, you know, the good information that is
shared at that coffeehouse. We have medal recoveries for World
War II vets, Korean War vets that never would have happened.
And, you know, you are talking, Greg Kline's the director of
it. I mean--
Ms. Spencer. Yeah.
Mr. Courtney. You know, this is really, at best, you know,
part-time pay that is happening. But again, the ripple effect
in terms of the value to people who wore the uniform of this
country is, you know, far excess in terms of whatever small
investment the taxpayer makes.
Ms. Spencer. I recently saw Greg at a training we did, a
regional training. And he gave me an update on that vet
coffeehouse because he had told me about his plans over a year
ago. And I am very pleased that you recognize them. We are
leaning in on veterans and military family members heavily
because there is great need there.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you. Madam Chairman, I have an article
from the Hartford Current which describes the AmeriCorps
program for veterans which we discussed here and I have asked
that it be made part of the record.
Chairwoman Foxx. Without objection.
Mr. Courtney. And again, I think what's--you know, again,
get some perspective here about what happened and what is an
appropriate remedy and not throw the baby out with the
bathwater. I yield back.
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you very much. That is an
interesting analogy you would use.
Mr. Guthrie, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you for
being here.
And my question, actually, kind of focuses on veterans as
well. And to Ms. Jeffrey, in your second fiscal year 2014
semiannual report to Congress you detail an investigation in
which you determine a grantee was supposed to use grant funds
to support veterans and military families, improperly disbursed
about 140,000 of Federal funds and improperly certified another
61,000 education awards. The grantee acknowledged the findings
and offered to refund the corporation the entire amount you
recommended. Unconscionably, the corporation not only requested
reimbursement for only about a third of the funds you
recommended, but the corporation retroactively expanded the
range of service activities of the grant in order to justify
the move. Is there any justification for the corporation to
retroactively approve over 12,000 National Service hours under
this grant to non-veterans fundamentally changing the purpose
of AmeriCorps' member service?
Ms. Jeffrey. In my view, there is not. And not only did
that happen with respect to this one veteran services grant, a
very similar thing happened at around the same time with two
other grants where the grantee unilaterally changed the
objective of service, did not ask the corporation for approval.
And then, when they were caught, sought forgiveness rather than
permission. I think strong accountability requires the
opposite. Grantees should be encouraged to ask first so the
corporation makes the decision about the proper allocation of
resources. Now, I believe there has to be accountability when a
grantee exceeds its authority in that fashion.
Mr. Guthrie. Yeah, well, what reforms are possible when the
corporation does not want to have the inclination to move
forward in that? What kind of reforms can you have if the
corporation changes the scope?
Ms. Jeffrey. Well, what I can do is report on it. That is
the limit of my authority.
Mr. Guthrie. Okay, well, thank you. So, Ms. Spencer, on
that, what are the steps to terminate a grant for failure to
comply with the Federal law or the conditions of the grant?
Ms. Spencer. Thank you, Congressman Guthrie. I wanted to
point out that we looked at all of the grants over the last
couple of years and what actions we have been taken. And I made
a short list for the committee if it's helpful. We have had 26
debarments, two suspensions. We have recovered $2 million in
grant funds and we have had 52 mutually agreed terminations. So
it is certainly something we don't take lightly. You know, we
are co-investing with these organizations who start out well-
meaning. Many of them are faith organizations, veterans'
organizations, local nonprofits, charities, local governments,
education, schools. And we start out with a good plan together
and we review them to see if they are worthy of a Federal
investment. And we go through a lot of criteria to see if they
are.
So when we find, and these generally, there are exceptions,
but generally for AmeriCorps we are looking at 3-year
commitments. So we go into a relationship for 3 years. When we
find that the grantees are not performing at the highest level,
that's when we start interventions. That is when you do the
desk audits. That is when you do more monitoring. On occasion,
if needed, we will ask for our annual audit report. We will put
them on the list for the inspector general to audit.
Unfortunately, the inspector general does not have all the
resources to audit all of our requests, but they do a very good
job of doing what they can with what resources they have.
So we want them to succeed.
Mr. Guthrie. Absolutely.
Ms. Spencer. I mean, we are in this together,--
Mr. Guthrie. Uh-huh.
Ms. Spencer.--but when they do not and after we have really
tried--and I have been in a position to have to terminate
grants from Florida when I was there directly managing about 45
AmeriCorps grants on behalf of the governor, of three different
governors in Florida. It's a tough decision. It is not always
popular. But we are not in the popularity business. We are in
the outcome business. And we chase problems and we have
solutions for those.
And so, I just say this--
Mr. Guthrie. And in your audit, so some of them you said
were mutual because I am about out of time.
Ms. Spencer. Yes.
Mr. Guthrie. Mutual, but if they were not mutual and you
have had the audit and you say, hey, this is not--what do you
actually have to--
Ms. Spencer. I would say--
Mr. Guthrie. What process do you have to follow to--
Ms. Spencer.--without looking at a list, and I could
certainly provide that of these 52 mutually agreed
terminations, that's a good way to end it--
Mr. Guthrie. Uh-huh.
Ms. Spencer.--but I am probably certain that if it was not
mutually agreed it would have been terminated. That's the best
way to end a relationship, but--and sometimes grants find out
they just are not suitable to manage a Federal grant. We do
have a lot of requirements, as we should. It is the taxpayers'
money.
Mr. Guthrie. I think that was the case on the matter of
this situation. They said we thought we were going to have a
more bigger group of veterans to serve. We didn't. Therefore,
we diverted to try to do some other things and admitted--I do
not think it was intentional to begin with, but it became that.
I--
Ms. Spencer. That was a tough one because they did provide
services to local residents, but they were not in the original
agreement for veterans.
Mr. Guthrie. Right.
Ms. Spencer. So the fact they did provide services is one
thing, but that was a tough one.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you and I am out of time. I yield back.
Chairwoman Foxx. The gentlemen's time has expired. Ms.
Davis, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Davis. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you both for
being with us today.
Ms. Spencer, one of the things that I think strikes me is
that you all have really exhausted multiple resources, time,
effort, everything in following up on this situation.
Ms. Spencer. Yes, ma'am, we have.
Ms. Davis. Do you have any sense in terms of what was
required to do that? I think what I am trying to see here
because we need to have some way of being aggressive as I think
you have been and at the same time not having a chilling effect
on the ability to use resources to actually improve programs,
to make sure that everything is working as it should. What is
your sense of that?
Ms. Spencer. Thank you very much. When we have a grantee
that does not follow the rules, it does take a lot of energy of
the organization, sadly, at some of the highest level
personnel, including our general counsel, including our chief
of grants, including our AmeriCorps director. But that's our
job--
Ms. Davis. Uh-huh.
Ms. Spencer.--and we will continue to be forthright and--
Ms. Davis. And as I understand it, too, I mean, this
started out as a media post, a social media post in terms of
how it was picked up initially, but that you all took the steps
to bring the Inspector General into it. And so, it seems to me
that, you know, you are moving ahead in the way that is
required. And that what we need to do and what I think we all
need to do is to be sure that if we believe that community
service--and I happen to believe and would love to see it
expanded. I think that in this country, we know there are other
countries that do this. You know, I would love to see every 18-
year-old give at least 18 months of their time in community
service. If we had the infrastructure in this country to do
that, it would be great. And I think we need to think about
what that would take in order to do that.
Clearly, in this kind of a situation, you have to be very
aggressive about those grants. You have to be very aggressive
that people are doing what they are expected to do. And
occasionally, and out of 345,000 or so volunteers today, there
were a few people who in trying to do the right thing and
perhaps not getting the direction that they obviously should
have gotten, they erred. Geez, I do not know. (Laughs) I do not
know if we have very many organizations in the country that can
say that. So I think we need to be clear about that.
But I also wanted to know from you, as well, Madam IG, what
do you see in terms of resources? I think you have spoken to
this a little bit, but if we had a way of crafting additional
help and support, would it be more monitors? Is that what you
think is required here? Is it more training, more education? We
are short on the resources that we're providing.
Ms. Jeffrey. It is a very good question and I do have some
thoughts on it. To a considerable extent, the corporation needs
to think outside the box about how it monitors.
As things stand now, roughly one of the few ways that a
corporation employee has contact with members is when that
person does a site visit. Site visits may not happen but once
every six years. That is not an effective way to know whether
there are prohibited activities taking place at a grantee. So I
think there need to be avenues for more frequent contacts with
AmeriCorps members.
Ms. Davis. Uh-huh.
Ms. Jeffrey. In the experience of the OIG, if you want know
what is really going at a grantee, the members will tell you.
They are vocal when they see something they don't like.
Now in this case, the grantee reported this to us, to the
corporation. But I do think that the more contact there is with
members, and it could be done with some simple survey
questions, the better the monitoring would be without
investment of tremendous resources.
Ms. Davis. And are you all monitoring the social media as
well to pick up problems?
Ms. Jeffrey. Interestingly enough, that was a
recommendation that CNCS made to grantees, that they monitor
social media.
Ms. Davis. Uh-huh.
Ms. Jeffrey. Had they done that, that is how the grantee
found it in this case.
Ms. Davis. Yeah.
Ms. Jeffrey. Now CNCS, as far as I know, does not take its
own advice and do that even on an intermittent or selective
basis. That may be something that it is considering now.
Ms. Davis. Thank you. Well, I looked at so many of the
organizations, certainly from San Diego, and the amount of work
the Catholic Charities is doing and many others, and, quite
frankly, in a number of situations, of course they are
providing emotional support. So, I think we want to be careful
how we use those words and how that relates to other issues and
other concerns that we have. And, perhaps, we need some way of
better defining what that means, under what circumstances. I
think that some of that has already been done, perhaps. But
again, let's be really clear with the people who are engaged in
this and let's not have a chilling effect on the young people
in this country who are doing such fabulous work.
Thank you so much. I see that my time is up. I am sorry.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you, Ms. Davis.
Chairwoman Foxx. Excuse me, I am sorry. Mr. Polis is next.
I apologize.
Mr. Polis. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you
both for being here today and I want to highlight some of the
contributions the Corporation for National Community Service
has made in my district as an example.
As my colleagues know, Colorado declared a state of
emergency in the fall of 2013 after experiencing the most
damaging floods in our State's history. Many homes, businesses,
roads, bridges were destroyed. There was loss of life. Thanks
to CNCS, though, volunteers were immediately deployed to
Colorado to help in the aftermath of our floods. And in total,
over 700 National Service members came to our State. Their work
involved volunteer donations, management, staffing call
centers, coordination of medical mobility rides, community
relations activities, meal services. I got to visit a number of
them as they were working to help feed some of those who had
lost their homes, and mucking and gutting and debris removal as
well.
I want to thank you, first of all, for CNCS's quick
response. And I was hoping you could talk a little bit more,
Ms. Spencer, about the important role CNCS has when a natural
disaster occurs, like ours.
Ms. Spencer. Thank you so much, Congressman. After some of
those disasters I actually toured in your district to see the
work of our National Service participants and I appreciate you
calling out their success. We have responded over the last
several years to 200 natural disasters and some manmade
disasters across the country. So we are very busy. We have
individuals deployed right now in communities across the
country.
This is an area that is very personal to me. I led the
volunteer and donations response for Governor Bush in 2004 and
2005, when we had eight major disasters over a 2-year period
and about 250,000 volunteers, including thousands of National
Service participants who were leading the way there. So this is
very personal to me.
We have a robust disaster program. We have trained
virtually every governor's commission on how to be engaged with
their State emergency manager using National Service
participants in their response and volunteers working closely
with their local volunteer organizations active in disasters,
their faith-based organizations that are working in disasters.
We have trained a cadre of individuals all over the country. At
any given time, we have got over 3,000 AmeriCorps members ready
to respond, ready to be deployed, redeployed, mobilized across
the country. We worked with the private sector on this. And
during Hurricane Sandy we actually had Southwest Airlines move
AmeriCorps members quickly across the country so they could get
in and be deployed along with about 400 AmeriCorps members.
We have FEMACorps now who are serving, young people 18 to
24, who are serving alongside FEMA professionals. They are
doing amazing work and they are learning now how to become
professional disaster responders. And they are moving into
careers in government and in nonprofits with disaster response.
So we are not only helping the individual communities. We are
training a new cadre of Americans to serve in this area. And
emergency managers both local and State and Federal across the
country have told me this is a gap that they have in
professionals, and they have a lot of professionals retiring,
like many sectors, and they need young people pursuing disaster
response as a career and many of our young people are pursuing
technology, but we need more in this area of public service.
So I am very excited about this. Whenever we have a major
disaster, I generally go personally, stop what I am doing,
travel to that district within 10 to 14 days so that I can
speak with local authorities and make sure that we are
responding swiftly and see what else we can do. I meet with
elected officials in the area. I have been all over the country
in disasters and I bring with me the experience I brought from
Florida and all of the service we did and how to train
individuals to respond with appropriate volunteer and donations
response. So thanks for pointing them out. We are doing a lot.
We have a robust program and we want to do more.
Mr. Polis. Well, thank you. And it was a great opportunity
to interact with that, with many of your members in the field
and in so many important roles in our State. And as you
indicated during your visit to our district, it was--there were
tens of thousands that were temporarily homeless. Many
thousands lost their homes. And really, the community came
together. But truly, the help with the managing, the outpouring
of support from the untrained volunteers in our community is
why we needed the trained volunteer and donations management.
So many people wanted to help with goods and with time, but
without the structure that CNCS provided with folks on the
ground, we really wouldn't have been able to take advantage of
that, and I just want to thank you.
Ms. Spencer. Thank you for those remarks.
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Polis. Now, Mr. DeSaulnier,
you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and no apology
necessary.
I just really want to commend you both on the work you do.
What you do is so important. I do not think often enough we
give enough attention to programs, the volunteer programs that
you oversee and also the challenge of doing them properly. And
I am reminded sitting here today, whether it was de Tocqueville
to David Brooks recently talking about the importance of
community and the breakdown of community in the United States
and how important these nonprofits, community groups are to the
fabric of America. So thank you for what you do.
I want to talk little bit about--well, first I want to
follow what Mr. Polis said. In California, of course, we had
similar instances where your services and your grantee services
have been very helpful in natural emergencies and now with the
drought. With wildfires, I hear the same thing. So thank you
for that.
But I want to talk about both proportionality that Mr.
Courtney brought in, that all the good things you do and, you
know, this might go in one of those categories where no good
deed goes unpunished in terms of your proper oversight given
the overall proportion of good work that most of your grantees
are doing and your oversight, but also sort of the right
investment.
So, Ms. Spencer, you mentioned in your comments under
strengthening risk-based monitoring, ``In the spirit of
continuous improvement, we are implementing additional steps to
increase the effectiveness of our oversight and monitoring,''--
and I want to sort of emphasize that word ``effectiveness''--
then you go on to say, ``as part of our continued effort to
incorporate best practices in our risk management.'' So there
is, coming from the private sector--I know that industries,
whether it's their insurance or just good management practices,
you know, for instance in the construction industry, a certain
proportion of your overall budget is going to be waste or
theft. I was in the restaurant business. You did not want
anybody stealing from you, but you did know that there was a
point where there was diminishing returns on what you spent to
make sure you bring it to zero.
So that is what wanted to ask you. As you look at your risk
management and, sort of, industry best practices, given that
you are dealing with nonprofits, given that you are dealing
with nonprofits who do not have a lot of administrative
overhead, and you are trying to encourage volunteerism, is
there sort of an accepted--or do you--knowing that particularly
in areas where you know that there is going to be a certain
amount of public and political consequences if you don't get it
to zero, what is appropriate?
And I think back at my time in the California legislature
wherein the previous governor spent so much time on waste and
abuse in the food stamp program, we actually found out that we
were spending too much and it was affecting our participation
rates. So somewhere in there, it is sort of the right porridge.
Is there a best practice when you come to your profession/
industry?
Ms. Spencer. Thank you so much, Congressman. I think it
would be too strong to say that there should be an accepted
amount of risk. And I come from this from my experience in
Florida managing about 45 AmeriCorps grants all over the State,
about 1,800 AmeriCorps members at any given time and we had
strong grantees. We had, during my watch, no fraud. I can't
recall any waste. Did we--we were focused on are we investing
the resources in the right areas? For example, I had a grantee,
a long-term grantee, that was providing education programs in
an area that was improving in their education success. So we
moved those resources to another area that was struggling. So
as you see success, right, you shift your resources.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Uh-huh.
Ms. Spencer. That is not fraud, waste, or abuse. That is
just smart management.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Uh-huh.
Ms. Spencer. So I would not be able to say that there is
some kind of accepted risk. I do not think that is a path that
we should consider. The inspector general and I agree on--
Mr. DeSaulnier. If I could--
Ms. Spencer.--much more than we--
Mr. DeSaulnier. Yeah, I am sorry to interrupt, but since I
have limited time, I did want to suggest that you want to get
to zero and I think you have done a great job of that.
Ms. Spencer. Uh-huh.
Mr. DeSaulnier. But at some point from a business model,
there is diminishing returns where you are spending so much,
where you, sort of, have to go upstream, which I think you have
done.
Ms. Spencer. I see.
Mr. DeSaulnier. So it is more--less on the subjective
point. We are more of the objective. We are spending X-amount
of dollars to capture this much of fault.
Ms. Spencer. And I think that--I was going to say and this
pertains to this, the inspector general and I agree on a lot
more than we disagree on.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Uh-huh.
Ms. Spencer. And she is right. We need improvements in our
IT. We need improvements in our internal controls. We hope
Enterprise Risk Management is going to help us. We hope that
our new chief risk officer, our first in our agency's history,
is going to lead us and guide us. We need to take this advice
and counsel. We are down, quite frankly, a lot of this comes to
money, We are down $6 million over the last six years in our
salaries and expenses line. So at some point, we have got to
look very hard at where we are shifting our resources. So it's
an important to make. You have to make best decisions and the
most cost-effective decisions. And I think that was where you
were going.
Mr. DeSaulnier. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired.
Ms. Spencer, I am glad to hear you make--in response, that
you don't want to accept waste and abuse. You did make a very
bold statement that in your programs in Florida you had
absolutely no fraud and no waste. That is a pretty strong
statement to make, but I appreciate--
Ms. Spencer. During my time.
Chairwoman Foxx. Would you please tell me what specific
steps you are now taking to ensure that your grantees and every
participant in the programs are--every participant is clear
about what conduct is and is not allowed. And I don't want you
to use up my whole 5 minutes outlining every single one, but
give me some as specific as you can and then I am hoping to do
a follow-up later to get more details from you.
Ms. Spencer. Can I ask for clarification?
Chairwoman Foxx. What are you doing to ensure your grantees
and every participant is clear about what conduct is and is not
allowed?
Ms. Spencer. Thank you. I think we are really leaning in
hard on our training of all of our grantees across the country.
We have implemented some regional trainings just at the last
couple of years that we have gotten excellent feedback from.
And virtually all of our medium to large grantees are
attending. Even small grantees are attending. This year we will
probably see over 2,000 grantees in four trainings. I attend
all of these and I address all of the participants. The
inspector general sends her staff there. This is one way. We
now have--
Chairwoman Foxx. Just to clarify. All 2,000 go to four
events each?
Ms. Spencer. So there is four regional. So we try to spread
them out so travel costs are reduced. In this case, this year,
four regional conferences. And we will see about 2,000
grantees. And these are the leaders. These are the people
running the programs. It is important. They are listening to
the rules. They are hearing what our expectations are. They are
learning about accountability and oversight. The Inspector
General brings her staff there. Their sessions are full. I have
looked in on them.
We are talking about criminal history checks. We are
talking about oversight to its fullest. We are talking about
performance measures.
So we also now, and the Inspector General makes a good
point about, can we do more to reach out directly to members?
She makes an excellent point. I want to find more ways that we
can do that. Since your last hearing, one of the things that--a
good thing that came out of it, several good things, but one
was that every AmeriCorps member receives a communication from
us that stipulates very clearly what the prohibited activities
are.
Chairwoman Foxx. Do they sign anything acknowledging that
they have received that?
Ms. Spencer. I will get back to you on that.
Chairwoman Foxx. Okay, and you said 2,000 grantees. Who is
left out of that? I mean, how many are not participating in
those regional programs?
Ms. Spencer. I would have to get back to you on that to
find out--
Chairwoman Foxx. And why not everyone?
Ms. Spencer. Well, that is a good point. In fact, in
California, I went to the training conference with the
Southwest United States, and I asked--California, of course,
being our largest state. And the California commission
director, who serves at the pleasure of the governor there,
said all of her grantees in the entire State of California
under her watch, except one, attended that training. And she
was going to make sure that one received all the materials and
instructions that the others received during their--now that is
just one option. You know, each State commission--
Chairwoman Foxx. I am--we are about to run out of time.
Ms. Spencer. Okay.
Chairwoman Foxx. And I have one more question. I am going
to ask you to detail tell me what steps you are taking. So is
an annual assurance that a grantee is in compliance with
regulations on prohibited activities currently part of the
monitoring protocols? And if so, did the National Association
of Community Health Centers make this assurance? If so, what
good is the assurance if the grantees and sub-grantees are not
faithfully adhering to the requirements of the law?
Ms. Spencer. We will certainly get back to you on that so
that we can be assured of the correct answer. Absolutely.
Chairwoman Foxx. Okay, well, thank you very much. Ms.
Jeffrey, I am going to submit some questions to you afterwards
related to the Improper Payments Elimination Recovery Act and
how the agency is not complying with that. And I know you have
given us some information on this, so I would want to get back
to you with that, okay?
Ms. Jeffrey. We look forward to responding.
Chairwoman Foxx. All right, great. My time has expired and
I believe all members have had an opportunity to ask their
questions. Therefore, I would ask Ms. Adams if she is ready to
make closing remarks?
Ms. Adams. Thank you, Madam Chair. I am and I want to thank
both of you for your participation today.
Since its creation more than 20 years ago, the Corporation
for National and Community Service has been a strong pillar in
our community. Across this Nation, CNCS has engaged millions of
Americans in service. It's AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Social
Innovation Fund, and the Volunteer Generation Fund program.
CNCS has been a leader in alleviating the role of national
service, which is important to those involved. Madam Chair, I
have a letter I wanted to submit. I am trying to figure out
where it is right now. Oh, here it is.
Chairwoman Foxx. Without objections.
Ms. Adams. Okay, thank you. So let me just move on to say
last year, CNCS provided 345,000 volunteers who served over 155
million hours through AmeriCorps and Senior Corps in more than
500,000 locations. And it's clear that our continued support is
absolutely necessary. Tackling issues like literacy and
homelessness and hunger have been continued priorities for
CNCS, as well responding to national disasters and helping
seniors reenter the workforce to improving student academic
achievement, CNCS is making a real difference and we appreciate
that.
But, you know, I guess I didn't come prepared today to hear
so much about the use of government funds and what appears to
me to be somewhat attacks on a woman's right to determine what
to do with their bodies. But CNCS did, from what I hear, what
they were supposed to do, address the issue at hand, but yet it
continues to come up in this Congress about women and what we
ought to do concerning reproductive rights. So while the
hearing is--was--I did not believe it was supposed to be about
reproductive rights, I just wanted to just comment that I think
that we wasted a lot of time with baseless attacks.
For instance, the Select Panel on the Planned Parenthood
has been nothing more in my opinion than a political theater.
But we, my colleagues, have pushed for 21 anti-women's health
votes, introduced 51 anti-women's health bills, and we have had
8 anti-women health hearings. And I just think that we need to
be talking about misuse of some of those funds.
But again, let me just applaud you for the hard work that
you have done over the past two decades and I know that what
you do will continue to engage more citizens and more
volunteers in a productive way. And I just think that the work
that CNCS has done and continues to do has made significant
contributions and I certainly hope that you will continue to do
that and that we will support those efforts.
Thank you very much. Madam Chair, I yield back.
Chairwoman Foxx. Thank you very much. Ms. Adams and I have
worked together over many years when we were both in the North
Carolina legislature and I will have to say I very much
disagree that this is only a hearing about women's reproductive
rights. This hearing has come about because there is an agency
in Federal Government that is not being held accountable
properly in terms of how it spends money in many different
ways.
I am home every weekend and I come in contact with
hardworking citizens who do their jobs and they pay their
taxes. They volunteer and they do not get paid for it. They are
true volunteers. And I see those people struggling every day to
make ends meet and do work in their fire departments as
volunteers, the Boy Scouts, and Girl Scouts. And they want
their money spent well. They do not begrudge helping their
fellow citizens. We are the most generous people in the world.
But they want their money spent well. And this agency does not
spend its money well in many cases.
You mentioned, Ms. Spencer, that you had a $6 million
reduction over six years. Well, you are just talking to the
wrong folks because our congressional offices over the past
eight years have had a 20 percent reduction in the money
allowed to us to serve a lot of people, over 700,000 people.
And all of us are struggling very hard to continue the level of
service that we gave before our funds were cut. So I am sorry,
that argument does not go very far with this group.
Your idea of a culture of accountability and mine and Dr.
Roe's and the folks on our side of the aisle are two very
different things. You can say you have a culture of
accountability, but I am sorry to say you have not described
that very well today in my opinion. If people had worked for me
who had broken the law, I'd have no tolerance for them
whatsoever. Zero tolerance. And many members of Congress have
exhibited that.
You talk a lot about intentions. We need to be talking
about metrics and true accountability here. Maybe Dr. Roe and I
are a little old-fashioned in what we think, but we think you
ought to be measuring real things. What kind of outcomes are
you actually getting? What skills are the people in these
programs truly getting? Do they get any certifications? You
know, we demand that kind of accountability in certain areas
and then in other areas where our colleagues want to measure
only intentions, we don't get that.
Now, it is true that the law has been broken by people, by
agencies, and groups you have funded. The law is clear. The
Federal Government is not going to support abortion services.
So while this hearing was not about that particular issue, I
don't think we can close it without making it very clear. You
seem to have a lack of concern about the violation of the law.
Your consideration of a no-cost extension is very troubling to
me.
We have said it before, I said it at the beginning of the
hearing, and I am going to say it again, this grant should be
pulled immediately and under no circumstances should it be
extended. And I hope we will get back from you a report that
will fulfill that because when you allow the violation of law
in whatever category that it is, then we start down a slippery
slope in this country. We are governed by the rule of law and
we should all want to uphold that.
There being no further business, the subcommittee stands
adjourned.
[Additional submissions by Ms. Adams follows:]
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[Additional submission by Mr. Courtney follows:]
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[Additional submissions by Mr. Scott follows:]
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Link:https://www.nationalservice.gov/sites/default/files/
evidenceexchange/FR--CNCS--
Alumni%20Outcomes%20Survey%20Executive%20Summary.pdf
[Questions submitted for the record and their responses
follows:]
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[Responses to questions submitted for the record follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Extensive material was submitted by Ms. Spencer. The
submission for the record is in the committee archive for this
hearing.]
[Whereupon, at 11:32 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[all]