Eileen Chung - Excerpts from Capstone Report to the Rappaport Institute

Fellows work directly with officials from state and local public agencies in the Greater Boston area on policy research and management projects. In addition, at the end of the summer program, all fellows are required to submit a capstone project or report that addresses the policy and management challenges posed by their work. Here are some excerpts from our public policy fellows.

Eileen Chung

American federalism creates an archipelago of small nationally-funded programs for states to individually administer. Congress creates programs for a specific purpose, leaving it to states to figure out how to best allocate resources to meet their own patchwork of needs.

To combat a wide range of crime problems, the federal government assigned all fifty states’ public safety offices to administer the federal Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance Program (Byrne Program). Established in 1988 by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the Byrne Program focuses on violent and drug-related crime and serious offenders. It also focuses on fostering multi-jurisdictional and multi-state efforts to support national drug-control policies. Since then, each state has received an annual Byrne grant, ranging from less than $2 million to more than $50 million, depending on the size of the state, population, crime problems, and a host of other factors. The state’s Executive Office of Public Safety (EOPS) Programs Division, responsible for allocating the Byrne fund, parcels out approximately $10 million annually to the Commonwealth’s subgrantees.

Administration of the Byrn Program has improved since 2003, with greater emphasis on tracking progress and financial reporting. However, the director lacks adequate staff. State and federal budget cuts have made it difficult to add staff or devote existing staff to more Byrne Program-related assignments. If the Secretary funnels more of EOPS’ financial and human resources towards the Byrne Program, then other critical public safety areas will undoubtedly suffer.

In order to receive the Byrne grant subgrantees also must find matching grants. Subgrantees can receive a Byrne grant for a maximum of four years and the amount they are required to match Byrne funds increases each. The intent is to push subgrantees to slowly become less dependent on the Byrne grant, so that they can sustain and expand their programs by themselves at the end of the four years. The Byrne grant is seed money to get programs started and operational. But this has become more difficult given the poor economy, slashed state and federal budgets, shrinking pot of private grant money for the public and nonprofit sectors, and increased competition for the shrinking pot of money. Even if programs are successful, subgrantees sometimes can not sustain their programs after the fourth year of funding.

The Byrne Program focuses on violent and drug-related crime and serious offenders and on fostering multi-jurisdictional and multi-state efforts to support national drug-control policies. Within Massachusetts, the funds are distributed to a variety of offices. The police departments and sheriff’s offices generally carry out programs related to drugs, anti-terrorism, gangs, and domestic violence. Public schools and universities carry out programs focusing on youth, education, and training. For example, some public schools are subgrantees for the Bullying Prevention Program to decrease the number of incidents instigated by bullies and the Life Skills Training Program to teach at-risk youth important life skills. The University of Massachusetts at Lowell focuses on warrant management training as well as biohazard training. County and state district attorney’s offices oversee programs that bring safety to unsafe neighborhoods, help ex-offenders assimilate back into the community upon release, and educate youth about the dangers of the internet and underage drinking. Many of the subgrantees do not have the capacity to perform the expected services or follow-up that EOPS expects, so they work with private sector agencies, nonprofit agencies, or even private nonprofit agencies to provide these services.

There are several courses of action EOPS can take to improve their administering of the Byrne Program. Unlike most other states surveyed, a percentage of Byrne funds is not set aside for annual impact assessments. Setting aside approximately 5 percent ($500,000) of the $10 million Byrne funding annually for impact assessment would help EOPS determine if the criminal justice programs funded by the Byrne Program are actually effective and successful. The assessment could be done in-house if the Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) has enough staff to perform such an endeavor. EOPS could also contract the assessment out to universities, private agencies, and/or nonprofit agencies.
Subgrantees may not like this policy option because then they will be held accountable for their programs by outside observers. If the impact assessment finds that a program is ineffective, then the subgrantee will lose their Byrne funding. Many subgrantees may prefer to run an ineffective program than receive no funding at all. EOPS will have to come up with an incentive for the subgrantees to buy into this policy option. They may want to give subgrantees with a failing assessment a grace period during which they will continue to receive funding to implement their program as long as the program institutes noticeable changes to make the program successful.

An annual workshop in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to provide technical assistance for current and potential subgrantees would also help subgrantees produce strong applications. Since a majority of the subgrantees lack good outcome measurement systems and results, the annual workshops could specifically focus on developing good outcome measures. These workshops could be made mandatory or strongly required.

Most applicants will need additional assistance after the workshop to determine the clear goals, objectives, and activities necessary to creating strong output and outcome measurement systems. During the month prior to the application deadline, Byrne Program staff and the SAC will have to field numerous inquiries from applicants.

All programs funded by the Byrne Program should be visited once throughout the funding year. Many applications or progress reports do not provide an accurate picture of the programs. Some strong applications result in very poorly run programs, while some poor applications result in very well-run and highly successful programs. Without site visits to each and every program, EOPS will never know the quality of its programs.

Site visits would also hold subgrantees more accountable for their performance. They would also add credibility to the Byrne Program and signal to subgrantees that EOPS genuinely cares about the performance of their programs. To make all these site visits will require many man hours, especially since some programs are located far from Boston. One site visit may take an entire day. With approximately 100 subgrantees for the Byrne Program annually, more staff will be required to help make site visits.

Subgrantees should be required to allot a certain percentage of their overall budget to analyze their outcome results at the end of the year through an in-house or out-house researcher. This can be done by either (1) funding fewer subgrantees and providing them with more funds or (2) funding the same number of subgrantees and requiring them to come up with a specified amount of funds for an annual impact assessment. The first option seems to be the most plausible since subgrantees are having enough trouble coming up with current levels of matching funds. The requirement would help EOPS and subgrantees determine if their programs actually are effective in combating a specific crime problem.

Many subgrantees may not want to perform good outcome analysis because they will loose funding if the results are poor. Thus, EOPS needs to help subgrantees see accurate outcome analysis and as a way to provide subgrantees with solid proof that their programs work. If that is the case, then they could use their program as a source of leverage to obtain more resources from the community.