The U.S. Justice Department no longer considers the local agency responsible for administering federal grants related to criminal justice, juvenile delinquency and victim services to be a “high risk” entity, V.I. Law Enforcement Planning Commission Director Moleto Smith Jr. announced during a weekly Government House briefing Tuesday.
“LEPC has reached this significant milestone achievement on behalf of the Virgin Islands, and it is great to know that our federal granters have recognized us in this way,” Smith said.
During an August hearing before the Senate Budget, Appropriations and Finance Committee, Smith said the U.S. Justice Department designated the LEPC as being “high risk” because of “serious irregularities” involving oversight and use of federal grants and that Justice had mandated that the commission reimburse more than $1 million in unallowable costs. A 2012 report from the auditing arm of the U.S. Justice Department Inspector General’s Office looked at 40 grants awarded to the LEPC between 2005 and 2010. Thirty-four were awarded through the federal government’s Office of Justice Programs and six others through the Office of Violence Against Women.
The 2012 report found that the LEPC: lacked controls “to account for, manage, and report the use” of the funds; lacked staff to manage the funds; could not provide accounting records to show how it spent nearly $1 million in grant funds; commingled the Justice Department money with other funds; let more than $600,000 in grant funds expire; failed to allocate Violence Against Women Act grant funds in 2007, 2008 and 2009; and had multiple other deficiencies.
Smith said Tuesday that the redesignation will allow the LEPC to continue funding priority areas in law enforcement, corrections and juvenile justice.
The U.S. Justice Department has changed radically since President Donald Trump resumed office a year ago. Executive orders signed by Trump and pushed by Attorney General Pam Bondi encourage prosecutors to pursue immigration and death penalty cases, among others. The Public Integrity Section, charged with weeding out public corruption, has been hamstrung, according to national reporting. The changes could have long-term implications for oversight in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which handles more than $25 billion in federal disaster recovery dollars and has seen four former cabinet members and high-ranking officials convicted on public corruption charges in the past year.
Lt. Gov. Tregenza Roach led Tuesday’s briefing while Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. attends meetings in Washington, D.C. Roach announced that the territory’s Tax Amnesty Program will be extended to Feb. 23, and that work on the Street Addressing Initiative for St. John has been finalized. The information has been shared with the U.S. Transportation Department, Google Maps, the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Interior Department.
“Both St. Thomas and St. John are 87 percent complete,” he said before asking Virgin Islanders to assist with street-naming. “We still need you to contact our offices. Every lane, every street must be named, and this is an extremely collaborative effort where we have gotten residents involved and have been able to memorialize certain aspects of our history by having streets named to commemorate people and events.”
