Summary

Congressional requestors asked GAO to review waivers of Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) grant conditions. GAO held that: (1) the waiver of the prohibition against the California State Economic Opportunity Office conducting certain investigations and evaluations was unauthorized and invalid, since the OEO grant condition did not violate the governor's review rights under the Economic Opportunity Act; (2) OEO regulations precluded waiver of the prohibition; (3) the contribution waiver was also invalid, since OEO regulations required state economic opportunity office grantees to obtain nonfederal contributions; (4) OEO failed to publish the contribution waiver in the Federal Register at least 30 days prior to its effective date; and (5) the contribution waiver constituted a substantial policy change requiring publication.