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HIV, AIDS agency faulted
FAIR March 2005 Newsletter
By Jim McElhatton
THE WASHINGTON TIMES:
March 18, 2005
The D.C. Office of the Inspector General yesterday faulted the city's
HIV/AIDS Administration for poor management of federal funds, including
not knowing the addresses of some of the grant recipients it is supposed
to monitor.
An ongoing investigation also has uncovered grant money paid to groups
not licensed for business in the District, poor accounting and unexplained
differences in expenditures reported to the federal government compared to
the District's financial records, officials said.
The inspector general's office rarely discusses findings of an
incomplete audit. Officials did so yesterday at the request of D.C.
Council member David A. Catania and because of the "seriousness" of the
findings, Assistant Inspector General for Audits William J. DiVello said.
The HIV/AIDS Administration, which operates with an $80 million budget,
is under the D.C. Department of Health and is tasked with reducing HIV and
AIDS.
Concerns are surfacing about the agency's finances and its ability to
provide services.
Mr. DiVello, who said the HIV/AIDS Administration is cooperating with
the audit, said the inspector general's review focuses on "management and
administration of federal grant funds to community organizations and
subgrantees."
So far, the inspector general's office has found the city's grant
monitors failed to perform the requisite four site visits per year to
groups receiving grant money.
Sometimes, grant monitors did not perform any visits at all, even
though Mr. DiVello said the employees had "more than adequate time" to do
their jobs. "We attribute that to poor management," he said.
At any one time, the HIV/AIDS Administration has between nine and 12
grant monitors. The employees oversee grants for tens of millions of
dollars in services, such as testing, counseling and medical emergency
care.
The audit coincides with heightened scrutiny of the HIV/AIDS
Administration by Mr. Catania, at-large independent, who heads the health
committee. Yesterday, he referred to the HIV/AIDS Administration as "a
20-year-old broken horse" that officials must fix.
Mr. Catania noted that most of the problems uncovered by the inspector
general and by an ongoing health committee inquiry predate the tenure of
Lydia Watts, senior deputy director of the HIV/AIDS Administration, and
her superior, D.C. Department of Health Director Dr. Gregg A. Pane. Both
started their jobs in September 2004.
"I intend to hold staff accountable for not adhering to my directives
as it relates to fiscal integrity and competent grants management," Dr.
Pane said yesterday.
Miss Watts said she is seeking to "change the culture" at the HIV/AIDS
Administration. However, she, too, came under scrutiny yesterday for her
role in a decision to spend $450,000 on a luncheon and promotional videos
for World AIDS Day, while service providers were complaining of cutbacks.
"These were my choices, and I can't go back on my choices," she said.
Though not covered in the inspector general's audit, Mr. Catania
raised other concerns yesterday. He singled out an HIV/AIDS Administration
program to provide housing referrals that cost $440,000, yet officials
said it provided about 800 referrals last year -- more than $500 per
referral.
A separate program to monitor HIV cases received $1.2 million in
funding, but it produced unreliable data, according to agency documents
submitted to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mr. Catania said he will schedule another oversight hearing to gauge
the progress of the HIV/AIDS Administration in fixing its problems. |
