§11296 Oversight and accountability

Summary

All Department of Justice grants under this subchapter must follow extra oversight and accountability rules. The Justice Department Inspector General will audit grantees in two fiscal years between 2014 and 2023 to look for waste, fraud, and misuse of funds. If the Inspector General’s final audit says a grantee spent money on unauthorized or unallowed costs and that problem is not fixed within 12 months, that is an "unresolved audit finding." A grantee with an unresolved audit finding cannot get grant money under this subchapter for the two fiscal years that start after that 12-month fixing period. If a barred grantee nevertheless gets paid, the Attorney General must put the same amount into the Treasury’s General Fund and try to recover the money from the grantee. "Nonprofit" means a 501(c)(3) organization that is tax-exempt under section 501(a). The Attorney General must not give grants to nonprofits that keep money offshore to avoid the tax in section 511(a). Nonprofits that use certain IRS procedures to justify executive pay must share their pay process, reviewers, comparability data, and meeting records with the Attorney General, who will make them public on request. No grant dollars may pay for a conference that costs more than $20,000 unless the Deputy Attorney General (or a designated senior official) gives prior written approval that includes a full cost estimate; the Deputy Attorney General must report approved conference spending yearly to three congressional committees. Grant funds also may not be used to lobby any government official about getting grant money; if a recipient violates that rule, the Attorney General must require full repayment and bar the recipient from new grants for at least 5 years. Applying for a grant is not considered lobbying.