The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of the Inspector General (OIG), Audit Division, has completed an audit of the Republican National Convention grant 2004-DD-B5-1191.¹ The DOJ, Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), awarded the City of New York Police Department (NYPD) this grant to provide traffic control, counterterrorism intelligence, and physical security to delegates, visitors, and venues during the 2004 Republican National Convention (RNC). In total, the BJA awarded the NYPD $49,852,500 for police department overtime and fringe benefits.

The purpose of our audit was to determine whether the costs reimbursed under the grant were allowable, supported, and in accordance with applicable laws, regulations, guidelines, and the terms and conditions of the grant. We also assessed the NYPD’s program performance in meeting grant objectives and overall accomplishments.

We determined that the NYPD generally complied with grant requirements in the areas we tested. However, the NYPD did not report the financial and program performance of the grant to BJA in a accurate and timely manner. Additionally, the NYPD did not maintain adequate documentation for all grant expenditures, and made errors in calculating some expenditures. As a result of these deficiencies, we question a total of $49,699 in expenditures: $47,307 in unsupported expenditures and $2,392 in unallowable expenditures.²

These items are discussed in detail in the Findings and Recommendations section of the report. Our audit objectives, scope, and methodology appear in Appendix I.

We discussed the results of our audit with NYPD officials and have included their comments in the report, as applicable. In addition, we requested a response to our draft audit report from the NYPD and the BJA, and their responses will be appended to the final audit report.

1. The OIG also completed an audit of a similar grant to the City of Boston to provide security for the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

2. The Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, contains our reporting requirements for questioned costs. However, not all findings are dollar-related. See Appendix II for a breakdown of our dollar-related findings and for definitions of questioned costs.