To: Martin L. Cousineau, Finance Committee Chairperson
From: Prosecutor David Leyton
title
RE: Partial Repayment of STOP Grant funds
recommendation
BOARD ACTION REQUESTED:
Authorization to amend the Prosecutor’s Office FY2024 budget to allow for repayment of $14,020.00 in grant funds to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS).
BACKGROUND:
In our FY2024 budget, the Prosecutor’s Office has a STOP Violence Against Women grant from MDHHS in the amount of $276,368 which provides funding for two full-time assistant prosecutors including salaries and fringes. These two positions are assigned to carry out the goals of the grant which are to combat stalking, domestic violence and criminal sexual assaults. Under the terms of the grant agreement, these two assistant prosecutor positions may only perform work related to cases that involve the aforementioned crimes. In December 2023, MDHHS conducted an extensive, in-depth review of both financial and programmatic components of our grant-funded operations during FY2023. During this review, MDHHS determined that our two APA’s did, on rare occasions, go beyond the scope of work allowed by the grant agreement by working on criminal cases that did not meet the above-mentioned goals of stalking, domestic violence or criminal sexual conduct. There were a number of factors that led to this situation, not least of which was an unusually high number of staff vacancies during FY 2023 which imposed enormous pressures on all staff to carry out our prosecutorial duties in the courtroom. This led to our STOP grant APAs helping out their fellow attorneys by covering for them in court when scheduling conflicts arose or handling various hearings when a Judge called upon them while they were in the courtroom. While the legal work they performed was always in furtherance of the overall goals and mission of the Prosecutor’s Office, roughly 5% of their work during FY2023 consisted of miscellaneous activities that fell outside the scope of the STOP grant. The final report from MDHHS regarding our grant review determined the Prosecutor’s Office received $14,020.00 in funds that went toward non-grant activities as explained above. We are now required to pay back that money to MDHHS.
DISCUSSION:
Going forward, the Prosecutor’s Office has implemented policies and procedures to address the situation that arose during FY2023 so that this will never happen again. Our administrative, managerial and grant staff are committed to only allowing grant-funded staff to handle, 100% of the time, caseloads that fall squarely in line with the goals and criteria of the grant. Our two APAs now provide time and effort reports to their supervisor every pay period and those signed reports are provided to MDDHS for approval before Fiscal Services submits their financial reports to MDHHS for grant reimbursement. In early February, Chief Assistant Tammy Phillips met with members of the County Board of Commissioners to go over this grant, the necessity of repayment of $14,020 and our plans going forward.
IMPACT ON HUMAN RESOURCES:
None.
IMPACT ON BUDGET:
There is a budget amendment attached to this agenda item request whereby $14,020.00 will be deducted from our Medical Insurance budget line item, GL # 1010-296.01-718.000, in order to repay MDHHS the same amount.
IMPACT ON FACILITIES:
None.
IMPACT ON TECHNOLOGY:
None.
CONFORMITY TO COUNTY PRIORITIES:
This request supports the County value of building strong relationships by working with MDHHS to address an identified problem, by respecting their decision and honoring our commitment to making things right with regards to grant funding. This in turn promotes the County priority of long term financial stability by ensuring our grant funding through the state continues into the future, thereby releasing some stress on County finances.
resolution
TO THE HONORABLE CHAIRPERSON AND MEMBERS OF THE GENESEE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
BE IT RESOLVED, by this Board of County Commissioners of Genesee County, Michigan, that the request by the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney to authorize a budget amendment to allow for the repayment of disallowed costs from account 2383-296.01-955.020, said amendments being detailed in the memorandum request and necessary for repayment to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, is approved (a copy of the memorandum request and supporting documentation being on file with the official records of the March 20, 2042 meeting of the Finance Committee of this Board), and the Chief Financial Officer is directed, as necessary, to make the line item budget adjustments.