NATIONAL PARTNERSHIP TO PREVENT DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1986 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES, COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a.m., in room 2261, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dale E. Kildee (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Members present: Representatives Kildee, Tauke, and Petri. Staff present: Susan Wilhelm, subcommittee staff director; S. Jefferson McFarland, legislative counsel; Margaret Kajeckas, clerk; Carol Lamb, minority legislative associate; and Dan Yeager, minority counsel. Mr. KILDEE. The Subcommittee on Human Resources convenes this morning to discuss the circumstances surrounding funding and subsequent termination of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's grant for the National Partnership for Alcohol and Drug Abuse. The concept for the national partnership grew out of a number of meetings sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in late 1984. The partnership received a grant from OJJDP effective August 1, 1985, with the ambitious mandate of bringing together people and resources from a number of disciplines to address the serious problem of alcohol and drug abuse in our Nation. Eleven months later, after the expenditure of close to $1 million, OJJDP announced the suspension and then termination of the grant. It appeared that few of the grant's objectives had been met in spite of the expenditures of large sums of money. Juvenile justice funds are extremely limited. That $1 million was spent with apparently little or no impact on services available for the children the act was designed to assist is of great concern to the committee. It is important to determine the factors contributing to the demise of a program that was begun with such large expectations. It is also important to understand what must be done differently should such an undertaking be attempted again. The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act was established out of a great concern for the children of our Nation. This hearing is being held with the intent of ensuring that juvenile justice funds are expended as effectively as possible to benefit chil (1) dren. We are pleased to have with us several witnesses who have agreed to help us in this learning process. In this program, we must see that children are served and we also as people in Government must see that in so doing that we be careful custodians of the taxpayers' dollars. It is for that reason that we come together this morning to see why this happened and what can be done to prevent similar things occurring in the future. I call upon now the ranking minority or Republican member of the committee, Mr. Tauke of Iowa. Mr. TAUKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to suggest that minority wouldn't long be applicable, but I am not certain that that is a likely scenario. I do want to note, Mr. Chairman, that this is probably the last hearing that this subcommittee will hold during the current Congress, and I have enjoyed very much the opportunity to serve on this subcommittee and to work with you and your staff. It has been a great pleasure for us. We very much enjoyed all of the courtesies that you have extended, and I hope that in the next Congress we will both be here again and will be able to work together on these issues that are of such concern. Mr. KILDEE. God and the voters will determine that. Mr. Chairman, I also want to express appreciation this morning to Mr. Speirs and to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for the cooperation that they have extended to this subcommittee in the investigation of this particular issue and on other matters. We very much appreciate the good working relationship that we have had with you and your office, Mr. Speirs. I recognize that this hearing is brought about by an unfortunate set of circumstances that led to the termination of the grant with the National Partnership to Prevent Alcohol and Drug Abuse. I hope that while this grant has been terminated that we are not in any way diminishing our desire to achieve the goals and objectives of the grant, essentially to prevent alcohol and drug abuse among youth. Although the issue has been hyped a little bit and probably subjected to a little bit of political grandstanding over the last couple of months, that should in no way diminish the intensity of our efforts to prevent alcohol and drug abuse among youth, I hope that the problems which have arisen relating to this grant do not diminish our desire to meet that objective. We should learn from the problems associated with this grant and do all that we can to guard against similar situations developing in the future. If that requires additional oversight on the part of this subcommittee, we should recognize that. If it requires changes in legislation, obviously we will have to deal with that. It may just mean that there needs to be some change at the administrative level. In any event, I look forward to the testimony today. I hope it helps us get a better handle on this issue and helps us make certain that the program works even better on behalf of the young people of our Nation in the years ahead. Thank you. Mr. KILDEE. Thank you, Tom. Our first witness is Verne L. Speirs, the Acting Administrator of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. We look forward to working with you on this issue and all issues affecting children as they are administered by your agency. Thank you for your appearance. If you wish to have people accompany you, that is all right with us. STATEMENT OF VERNE L. SPEIRS, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Mr. SPEIRS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Mr. Tauke. Thank you for inviting me to testify before the subcommittee today concerning the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's grant to the National Partnership to Prevent Alcohol and Drug Abuse among youth. As you know, the Partnership was launched in October 1985 with a $1 million OJJDP grant amid high expectations that it would foster increased public and private sector involvement in combating the problem of substance abuse by our Nation's youth. Unfortunately, these expectations were never realized. Therefore, soon after I became Acting OJJDP Administrator, I suspended further funding for the partnership, and later, based on the findings of a subsequent program review, decided to terminate the program activities and not fund the program past July 1, 1986, the end of the grant period. I have attached to my testimony a chronology of major events concerning OJJDP's monitoring of the partnership and our actions not to continue funding, so I will not take up the subcommittee's time this morning by detailing these events. I would like to say before responding to questions that you may have, that the final decision not to continue funding the partnership should not be construed to be a reflection on the level of commitment of the partnership staff. I understand the hardship this decision caused partnership employees. It was unfortunate that it was necessary to take this action. We believe the employees conducted themselves in a professional manner throughout the life of the program, particularly during the difficult days of program closeout. For a variety of reasons, however, the program's potential was never achieved. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be pleased to respond to any questions that you may have. Mr. KILDEE. Thank you very much for your testimony, Verne. Let me start with these questions. Federal law prohibits a Federal agency from establishing a nonprofit corporation without specific statutory authorization. In assisting with the national partnership organizing activities, did OJJDP stay within the bounds of this law, in your opinion? Mr. SPEIRS. The answer that I have is yes, that they stayed within the bounds as based upon the review of the advice given by the general counsel. Mr. KILDEE. I guess we have to ask, because we are trying to work together to see how we can continue to serve these young people. We must see whether the spirit of the law was kept in some of the apparent assistance which the national partnership received in those early days of organization. Do you feel that the spirit of the law was kept? Mr. SPEIRS. I would have to address you this way from my knowledge, or I should say my lack of knowledge, of what went on at that time, Mr. Kildee. I don't believe I could pass a value judgment on that because I was not there. I did not take any part in that. Mr. KILDEE. I guess what we will try to ferret out in this hearing and subsequent investigation, too, is to see whether there was such a close relationship between the national partnership and the OJJDP that it could be accused of being cozy-I use that word; that is a rather subjective word-whether the relationship was too close. Let me ask you this in conjunction with that: Did the OJJDP financially support the preparation of the national partnership's grant application? Mr. SPEIRS. The answer is no. I think you are referring to the situation of the writing of the actual grant application, and money to pay for that was from a private source paid to a consultant, who wrote that application. Mr. KILDEE. What was that private source? Mr. SPEIRS. I believe it was from a brewery company. I can get the exact name or trace that back for you if you would like. [The information is included in the appendix.] Mr. KILDEE. They were at that time accepting then private contributions? Mr. SPEIRS. Well, to say accepting, I am not sure what that delineates. I know that that money was available or at least was made available to pay for that particular activity, but it was not OJJDP's funds that went to pay for the service of writing the application. Mr. KILDEE. In reviewing the national partnership's application for assistance, did the Office use peer reviewers with expertise in the alcohol and drug abuse prevention field, did they clearly find that the application had outstanding_merit, and were any of the application review criteria changed? I ask this because when you do award something on a noncompetitive basis, there are certain criteria that must be followed, and one is that it be reviewed by a peer review panel. Can you tell us whether that took place in accordance with the law? Mr. SPEIRS. From what I understand there was a peer review process. There was an initial panel. Two individuals on that panel either removed themselves or were disqualified because of an apparent conflict of interest, that conflict being that they were involved in the early stages of the meetings or the early formation of the concept of the Partnership. So they disqualified themselves or were asked to leave. Two new individuals were put in and there was a peer review that was done by that panel. Mr. KILDEE. Who asked them to leave, the first two? Mr. SPEIRS. I think the program manager who was involved in handling the process or one of the staff members that was handling the process. I know that Mr. Frank Porpotage asked, I believe, one of the peer reviewers to remove herself, and I think one of the second peer review panel members removed themselves. Mr. KILDEE. Who was the program manager? Mr. SPEIRS. It was the staff person working to get the peer review process done, Mr. Porpotage. Mr. KILDEE. To whom did he report? Mr. SPEIRS. At that time, his chain of command was through Mr. Donahue, but he was reporting directly to the Administrator. Mr. KILDEE. Thank you. Mr. Tauke. Mr. TAUKE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Who would you say initiated this effort to establish the national partnership? Mr. SPEIRS. Who initiated the effort? Mr. TAUKE. Yes. Mr. SPEIRS. From my understanding, the initiation or the force behind it was the former Deputy Administrator of the office. Mr. TAUKE. Do you have any feeling as to why there was the belief that it was necessary to establish a new organization? Mr. SPEIRS. My impression is this: that the concept where you are taking such diverse groups, the business community, concerned citizens, drug and alcohol people, and trying to bring them together on such a large-scale basis and trying to establish a national voice to combat the alcohol and drug abuse problem, it was the thought that there was a need to have a unique entity that could handle that level of program direction and policy formulation. Mr. TAUKE. So the idea, from your perspective, originated within OJJDP? They didn't think there was another appropriate group to take on this task, so it served as a catalyst in order to establish what would hopefully be a national group that could tackle this challenge? Mr. SPEIRS. I think that is a fair characterization. Mr. TAUKE. You indicated that the board was made up of four groups. I am not sure I can identify the four groups. Mr. SPEIRS. If you are talking about the four general areas that the groups were drawn from Mr. TAUKE. Yes. Mr. SPEIRS. One was the business community, you had a community from the media, you had private sector business and then you had the professionals involved in drug and alcohol abuse, those people involved in the actual business of treatment or prevention. Mr. TAUKE. The business community, the media▬▬ Mr. SPEIRS. Private citizens- Mr. TAUKE. Private citizens Mr. SPEIRS. And professionals in the field. Mr. TAUKE. What kind of legal responsibility did the board have for the operation of the national partnership? Mr. SPEIRS. I cannot answer that. I do not know. Mr. TAUKE. I presume they adopted some kind of charter or bylaws? Mr. SPEIRS. The partnership was a duly incorporated entity and had a status all of its own. From a management perspective or from an organizational perspective, there was a broad-based mem |