Wash. Times, FoxNews.com misrepresent Justice IG report to claim ACORN “mismanaged” grant funds

Wash. Times claimed “report” found “ACORN mismanaged grant money.” On November 21, The Washington Times published an article headlined, “Report: ACORN mismanaged grant money.” The article stated, “A report Friday by the Justice Department's independent inspector general revealed that ACORN won approval for nearly $200,000 in Justice grants since 2002 and mismanaged some of the money.” But the article did not provide evidence supporting the claim that ACORN or its affiliates “mismanaged some of the money.” Rather, the Times reported that the Justice Department report found “ACORN did not always receive the grant money that was approved.” From The Washington Times:

FoxNews.com: “ACORN Mismanaged $200,000 of DOJ Funding, Report Finds.” A November 20 FoxNews.com article headlined, “ACORN Mismanaged $200,000 of DOJ Funding, Report Finds,” falsely reported that “ACORN mismanaged about $200,000 from the Justice Department, which failed to track how the allocated money was used, according to a report by the department's watchdog.” From FoxNews.com

In fact, the Justice IG report did not address how ACORN or its affiliates managed grant money

IG report “conducted” review “to determine whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) had provided grants to” ACORN. From the DOJ IG report:

In response to a congressional request, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) conducted this review to determine whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) had provided grants to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Inc. (ACORN). In our review, we examined whether: (1) ACORN applied for federal funds through DOJ-administered grant programs, (2) ACORN received federal funds through DOJ-administered grant programs, (3) controls were placed on the use of DOJ grant funds awarded to ACORN, and (4) DOJ conducted any reviews or audits of the use of DOJ grant funds awarded to ACORN. We also conducted the same analysis for organizations we determined to be ACORN affiliates.

Justice audit “did not identify any significant deficiencies” regarding an ACORN affiliate's use of DOJ funds, the only funds obtained through a direct grant. The only direct grant to ACORN or an ACORN affiliate identified by the IG report was a congressional earmark for $138,130 in 2005 for the New York Agency for Community Affairs Inc. (NYACA) for a youth organizing program. The IG report stated that "[w]e identified a Single Audit Act report issued in April 29, 2008, of the NYACA for the years ended 2005 and 2006. That Single Audit Act audit did not identify any significant deficiencies regarding NYACA's use of DOJ funds."

IG report found problems with other grant recipients, not ACORN

IG report: Audit found “significant irregularities” in activities of grant recipient NTIC, not ACORN. One of the four subawards to ACORN or ACORN affiliates identified in the IG report was a 2002 grant to the National Training and Information Center (NTIC), which partnered with “36 sub-recipients,” including ACORN affiliate the American Institute for Social Justice (AISJ). According to the IG report, an audit of the NTIC grant “revealed significant irregularities in NTIC's grant activities, significant weaknesses in NTIC's grant management practices and internal control system, and various instances of unallowable, unsupported, and unapproved expenses.” The IG report stated that the audit “could not determine how the grant funds paid to AISJ were spent” because “NTIC's files did not contain the required expenditure reports for Toledo ACORN or AISJ, and NTIC did not have any supporting documentation for the sub-recipient's expenditures.” The report noted that the ACORN affiliate did not respond when the IG “attempted to contact NTIC's 36 sub-recipients by letters and telephone calls.” Because the IG was “not able to contact Toledo ACORN, and their records were not available for audit, we questioned the total funds paid to this sub-recipient by NTIC, which amounted to $20,000.”