More Evidence of Retaliatory Grant Audits Emerges - Lobbying and Speech Rights

Lobbying and Speech Rights: News Background Analysis Correspondence Blog

Published: 08/26/2003

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More Evidence of Retaliatory Grant Audits Emerges

If you know of organzations experiencing the problems outlined in this article or other types of actions taken by the government to control nonprofit speech please send a message to Kay Guinane at kguinane@ombwatch.org

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched another audit of a federal grantee, Advocates for Youth, apparently based on the group’s opposition to the administration’s abstinence-only strategy for HIV/AIDS prevention and health education. The audit will be the third review in a year, although the previous two audits found no problems. The new review, which is being conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), responds to a complaint by Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-PA), an abstinence-only advocate. Pitts sponsored an amendment to this year’s international AIDS bill that requires one-third of federal HIV/AIDS prevention funds to be spent on abstinence-only programs.

Pitts and 23 other members of Congress complained to CDC about a web site sponsored by Advocates for Youth, NoNewMoney.org, that urges opposition to funding for abstinence-only programs. The congressmen reportedly asked CDC to examine whether Advocates for Youth is spending federal dollars on lobbying.

Bill Barker, a spokesman and Advocates for Youth, told the Washington Post on Aug. 16 that the group has been receiving federal funds for 15 years and never had an audit until the last year, when they were audited by both CDC and the General Accounting Office (GAO). “Advocates is concerned that it appears that the selective and political use of these audits is to intimidate organizations such as ours that support comprehensive sex education,” Barker said. “They want to impose a kind of censorship.”

The trend toward ideologically-based audits has drawn the attention of Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking member of the House Committee on Government Reform, who sent a
letter to HHS on Aug. 15 expressing “growing concern” that “an ideological test is determining whether grantees in the HIV/AIDS prevention programs are audited.”

Advocates for Youth’s problems started two years ago when an internal HHS memo identified the group as “critics of the Bush administration” because of its opposition to abstinence-only programs. As described by Waxman, “Shortly thereafter, several of my Republican colleagues asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to audit Advocates for Youth. In January 2003, GAO, at the request of House Republican members, also obtained copies of Advocates for Youth’s financial records.” According to the Washington Post, neither audit found any problems with Advocates for Youth’s handling of its federal funds.

Why another audit so soon? The real reason appears to be the NoNewMoney website and grassroots campaign to oppose further funding for abstinence-only programs. CDC filed an audit plan for Advocates of Youth on July, 20, 2003, citing the need to investigate “possible misuse of grant funds for lobbying efforts.” This plan identified two “deficiencies” in Advocates for Youth’s file -- failure to file a report that is not due until Dec. 29, 2003, and incorrect information about the group’s arrangements for services of a certified public accountant.

In his letter protesting the latest audit of Advocates for Youth, Waxman asks HHS to provide him with:

A list of all audits and reviews of HIV/AIDS programs since January 2001;
The rationale for each audit or review; and
Any policies or written standards used by HHS to determine which grantees will be audited.

Waxman has requested that the information be provided by Aug. 29, 2003.

The selective use of audits to target groups that disagree with the Bush administration is an unacceptable attempt to limit debate on important questions of public policy. OMB Watch has published a report, An Attack on Nonprofit Speech: Death by a Thousand Cuts that details similar audits and actions by the administration and its allies in Congress.

The microscope put on Advocates for Youth and similar groups stands in stark contrast to grantees that advocate for administration policies. In response to Waxman on Nov. 27, 2002, HHS explained that its Office of Inspector General has only performed audits of programs that use comprehensive approaches to sex education, and no audits of abstinence-only programs are being conducted. In another example, the Department of Education awarded a $600,000 grant in October 2002 to a group that promotes charter schools and vouchers, the Black Alliance for Educational Options. A board member, state Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Phila.), told the Philadelphia Inquirer that some of the funds would be used to lobby for a bill he is sponsoring on the subject. However, Pitts and others have not requested audits, even though the group’s spokesman specifically referred to a planned expenditure that would violate federal law.