GAO-20-609, Accessible Version, UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN: Actions Needed to Improve Grant Application Reviews and Oversight of Care Facilities

UNACCOMPANIED

CHILDREN

ActionsNeededto

ImproveGrant

ApplicationReviews

andOversightofCare

Facilities

Accessible Version

ReporttotheChairwomanofthe

SubcommitteeonLabor,HealthandHuman

Services,Education,andRelatedAgencies,

CommitteeonAppropriations,Houseof

Representatives

September 2020

GAO-20-609

United States Government Accountability Office

Highlights of GAO-20-609, a report to the

Chairw oman of the Subcommittee on Labor,

Health and Human Services, Education, and

Related Agencies, Committee on

Appropriations, House of Representatives

September 2020

UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN

Actions Needed to Improve Grant Application

Reviews and Oversight of Care Facilities

What GAO Found

The Office of Refugee Resettlement’s (ORR) grant announcements soliciting

care providers for unaccompanied children—those without lawful immigration

status and without a parent or guardian in the U.S. available to provide care and

physical custody for them—lack clarity about what state licensing information is

required. Further, ORR does not systematically confirm the information submitted

by applicants or document a review of their past performance on ORR grants,

when applicable, according to GAO’s analysis of ORR documents and interviews

with ORR officials. The grant announcements do not specify how applicants

without a state license should show license eligibility—a criterion for receiving an

ORR grant—or specify what past licensing allegations and concerns they must

report. In addition, the extent to which ORR staff verify applicants’ licensing

information is unclear. In fiscal years 2018 and 2019, ORR awarded grants to

approximately 14 facilities that were unable to serve children for 12 or more

months because they remained unlicensed. In addition, ORR did not provide any

documentation that staff conducted a review of past performance for the nearly

70 percent of applicants that previously held ORR grants. Without addressing

these issues, ORR risks awarding grants to organizations that cannot obtain a

state license or that have a history of poor performance.

State licensing agencies regularly monitor ORR-funded facilities, but according to

GAO’s survey of these agencies, their information sharing with ORR is limited

(see figure). State licensing agencies and ORR staff both said that improved

information sharing would benefit their monitoring of facilities. Without such

improvements, ORR may lack information about ongoing issues at its facilities.

Key Survey Responses on Information-Sharing with the Office of Refugee Re settlement (ORR)

by the 23 State Agencies That Licensed ORR-Funded Facilities in Fall 2019

ORR requires grantees to take corrective action to address noncompliance it

identifies through monitoring, but ORR has not met some of its monitoring goals

or notified grantees of the need for corrective actions in a timely manner. For

example, under ORR regulations, each facility is to be audited for compliance

with standards to prevent and respond to sexual abuse and harassment of

children by February 22, 2019, but by April 2020, only 67 of 133 facilities had

been audited. In fiscal years 2018 and 2019, ORR also did not meet its policy

goals to visit each facility at least every 2 years, or to submit a report to facilities

on any corrective actions identified within 30 days of a visit. Without further

action, ORR will continue to not meet its own monitoring goals, which are

designed to ensure the safety and well-being of children in its care.

View GAO-20-609. For more information,

contact Kathryn A. Larin at (202) 512-7215 or

larink@gao.gov.

Why GAO Did This Study

ORR is responsible for the care and

placement of unaccompanied children

in its custody, which it provides through

grants to state-licensed care provider

facilities. ORR was appropriated $1.3

billion for this program in fiscal year

2020. GAO was asked to review

ORR’s grant making process and

oversight of its grantees.

This report examines (1) how ORR

considers state licensing issues and

past performance in its review of grant

applications; (2) state licensing

agencies' oversight of ORR grantees,

and how ORR and states share

information; and (3) how ORR

addresses grantee noncompliance.

GAO reviewed ORR grant

announcements and applications for

fiscal years 2018 and 2019. GAO

conducted a survey of 29 state

licensing agencies in states with ORR

facilities, and reviewed ORR

monitoring documentation and

corrective action reports. GAO also

reviewed ORR guidance and policies,

as well as relevant federal laws and

regulations, and interviewed ORR

officials.

What GAO Recommends

GAO is making eight recommendations

to ORR on improving clarity in its grant

announcements, communication with

state licensing agencies, and

monitoring of its grantees. ORR agreed

with all eight recommendations.

Page i GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Contents

Letter 1

Background 3

ORR’s Grant Announcements Lack Clarity on How Applicants

Should Report State Licensing Issues and ORR Does Not

Document Review of Grantees’ Past Performance 10

State Licensing Agencies Regularly Monitor ORR Grantees, but

Information Sharing between ORR and States is Limited 22

ORR Primarily Addresses Grantee Noncompliance by Requiring

Corrective Actions, but Monitoring and Corrective Actions Have

Not Always Been Timely 30

Conclusions 41

Recommendations for Executive Action 42

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 43

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 47

Review of ORR Grants Documentation 48

Survey of State Licensing Agencies 49

Interviews with State Licensing Agencies 50

Review of Quarterly Performance Reports 51

Analysis of Corrective Actions and Monitoring 52

Appendix II: Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Grant Review Process 54

Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Health and Human Services 58

Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgments 63

GAO Contact 63

Staff Acknowledgments 63

Appendix V: Accessible Data 64

Data Tables 64

Agency Comment Letter 72

Related GAO Products 78

Page ii GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Tables

Table 1: Roles of ORR Teams Involved in Oversight and Issuing

Corrective Actions for Facilities Providing Care for

Unaccompanied Children 9

Table 2: States and Licensing Agencies Selected for In-Depth

Interviews, with Key Selection Characteristics 50

Table 3: Office of Refugee Resettlement-Funded Facilities

Selected by GAO for Review of Quarterly Performance

Reports 51

Table 4: Grant Applications and Outcomes for Applicants Seeking

Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Grants to Provide

Care of Unaccompanied Children, FY2018 and FY2019

Funding Rounds 56

Figures

Figure 1: Number of Grantee Facilities Funded by the Office of

Refugee Resettlement With and Without Unaccompanied

Children in Residence, July 2020 7

Figure 2: State Licensing Allegations and Concerns Reported in

Applications for Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)

Grants to Provide Care for Unaccompanied Children,

Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019. 15

Figure 3: State Licensing Agency Monitoring Practices for Office

of Refugee Resettlement-Funded Facilities Providing

Care for Unaccompanied Children, based on Survey

Responses in 2019 from 23 Agencies 23

Figure 4: State Licensing Agency Survey Responses on

Deficiencies They Found at ORR-Funded Facilities

during Fiscal Years 2018 through 2019 24

Figure 5: Communication between Office of Refugee

Resettlement (ORR) and State Licensing Agencies about

Facilities Providing Care for Unaccompanied Children 28

Figure 6: Grant Application Review Process 54

Accessible Data for Key Survey Responses on Information-

Sharing with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)

by the 23 State Agencies That Licensed ORR-Funded

Facilities in Fall 2019 64

Accessible Data for Figure 1: Number of Grantee Facilities

Funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement With and

Without Unaccompanied Children in Residence, July

2020 65

Page iii GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Accessible Data for Figure 2: State Licensing Allegations and

Concerns Reported in Applications for Office of Refugee

Resettlement (ORR) Grants to Provide Care for

Unaccompanied Children, Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019. 67

Accessible Data for Figure 3: State Licensing Agency Monitoring

Practices for Office of Refugee Resettlement-Funded

Facilities Providing Care for Unaccompanied Children,

based on Survey Responses in 2019 from 23 Agencies 68

Accessible Data for Figure 4: State Licensing Agency Survey

Responses on Deficiencies They Found at ORR-Funded

Facilities during Fiscal Years 2018 through 2019 69

Accessible Data for Figure 5: Communication between Office of

Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and State Licensing

Agencies about Facilities Providing Care for

Unaccompanied Children 70

Accessible Data for Figure 6: Grant Application Review Process 71

Abbreviations

ACF Administration for Children and Families

COVID-19 Coronavirus Disease 2019

FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement

HHS Department of Health and Human Services

OGM Office of Grants Management

OMB Office of Management and Budget

ORR Office of Refugee Resettlement

PSA Prevention of Sexual Abuse

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Page 1 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

441 G St. N.W.

Washington, DC 20548

Letter

September 15, 2020

The Honorable Rosa DeLauro

Chairwoman

Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education,

and Related Agencies, Committee on Appropriations

House of Representatives

Dear Ms. DeLauro,

The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee

Resettlement (ORR) was appropriated $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2020 to

carry out a program for the care and placement of unaccompanied alien

children—children without lawful immigration status and without a parent

or guardian in the United States available to provide care and physical

custody for them, including those who have been separated from their

parent or guardian.

In fiscal year 2019, the latest year for which complete

data are available, ORR awarded grants totaling over $1.8 billion to

organizations providing shelter and other services to these children.

Unaccompanied alien children (referred to in this report as

unaccompanied children) are generally referred to ORR for care by the

Department of Homeland Security. The numbers of these referrals have

fluctuated over time, but increased substantially from almost 14,000 in

fiscal year 2012 to more than 69,000 in fiscal year 2019, and decreased

The term “unaccompanied alien child” refers to a child who (1) has no lawful immigration

status in the United States, (2) has not attained 18 years of age, and (3) has no parent or

legal guardian in the United States or no parent or legal guardian in the United Stat es

available to provide care and physical custody. 6 U.S.C. § 279(g)(2). As such, children

traveling with related adults other than a parent or legal guardian—such as a grandparent

or sibling—are still deemed unaccompanied alien children. In addition, if the Department

of Homeland Security (DHS) determines that children in its custody without lawful

immigration status should be separated from their accompanying parents, DHS then

considers these children to be unaccompanied and refers them to ORR. For more

information on DHS processing of families arriving at the Southwest border and on

separations of such families, see GAO, Southwest Border: Actions Needed to Improve

DHS Processing of Families and Coordination between DHS and HHS, GAO-20-245.

(Washington, D.C.: February 19, 2020), GAO, Southwest Border: Actions Needed to

Address Fragmentation in DHS's Processes for Apprehended Family Memb ers,

GAO-20-274. (Washington, D.C.: February 19, 2020), and GAO, Unaccompanied

Children: Agency Efforts to Reunify Children Separated from Parents at the Border,

GAO-19-163. (Washington, D.C.: October 9, 2018).

ORR awards these funds via cooperative agreements; however, for the purposes of this

report we refer to them as grants.

Letter

Page 2 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

significantly in fiscal year 2020. According to ORR officials, as of June 4,

2020, there were 1,123 unaccompanied children in ORR’s care.

You asked us to examine ORR’s grant making process and oversight of

its grantees. This report examines (1) how ORR considers state licensing

issues and past performance in its review of grant applications; (2) state

licensing agencies’ policies and practices for overseeing ORR grantees,

and how ORR and states share information on oversight; and (3) ORR

policies and practices for addressing grantee noncompliance with grant

agreements.

To address our first objective, we reviewed documentation related to

ORR grants for fiscal years 2018 and 2019, the most recent years

available at the time of our review. We reviewed the eight ORR grant

announcements issued during this time, grant applications submitted to

ORR in response to these announcements, and ORR funding decision

memoranda. To determine whether applicants that received ORR grants

in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 were able to obtain a state license and

whether they had begun serving children, we compared the 58

applications (that resulted in grant awards) from those two years to data

ORR provided on facilities’ status as of July 2020.

While ORR program

officials acknowledged that these data are not always kept up-to-date, we

found the data sufficiently reliable for the purpose of providing

approximate numbers of facilities that had obtained a license and begun

serving children. To address our second research objective, we

conducted a survey via email of 29 state licensing agencies in the 26

states, including the District of Columbia, where ORR had awarded grants

to operate facilities as of July 2019.

We received survey responses from

28 of the 29 agencies.

We also conducted interviews with state licensing

agency officials in Arizona, Maryland, and Texas. We selected these

states based on a combination of criteria including the number of ORR

grantee facilities in each state, different types of state licensing agencies,

and both border and non-border states. We also analyzed selected

quarterly performance reports submitted to ORR from nine facilities in

these three states. We selected these facilities based on their number of

We also reviewed data provided by ORR on its facilities as of February 5, 2020.

We administered the survey from October 2019 to Janu ary 2020.

Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families declined to participate in

the survey.

Letter

Page 3 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

recent ORR and state licensing corrective actions, and to reflect a range

of facility types, sizes, and populations served.

To address our third objective, we reviewed ORR summary data on

corrective actions issued in fiscal years 2018 and 2019, and reviewed

corrective actions issued to our selected facilities by ORR teams involved

in monitoring. To assess the reliability of the corrective action data, we

obtained information from ORR officials about the data. We found the

data to be sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report. To address

all our objectives, we interviewed or requested written responses from

ORR officials, including ORR program officials, project officers, federal

field specialists, and other staff involved in the grant review process and

facility monitoring. We also reviewed relevant federal laws and

regulations, and ORR policies, procedures, and guidance.

Further, to incorporate the perspectives of ORR grantees in our review,

we sought to interview staff of ORR grantees. However, HHS wanted to

have one of its attorneys present at these interviews or take other

measures that we believed could have prevented grantees from speaking

freely with us about their experiences with ORR. We were unable to

reach timely agreement with HHS on procedures for conducting these

interviews that would address this concern. As a result, our review is

based on information obtained from ORR officials and documents and,

where relevant, state documentation and interviews. In addition, we

conducted some interviews with ORR officials, but obtained other

information through written questions at HHS’s request. For further

information on our scope and methodology, see appendix I.

We conducted this performance audit from May 2019 to September 2020

in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Background

Under federal law, unaccompanied children in the custody of the federal

government generally must be transferred to HHS within 72 hours after a

Letter

Page 4 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

determination is made that they are unaccompanied children.

ORR, part

of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within HHS, is

responsible for coordinating and implementing the care and placement of

these unaccompanied children.

Since 2003, ORR has cared for more

than 340,000 children.

The majority of these children have been 13 to 17

years old, but some have been younger, including infants. ORR is

required to promptly place unaccompanied children in its custody in the

least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child.

In addition,

the 1997 Flores v. Reno settlement agreement articulated standards for

the care of these children, including the provision of proper physical care

and maintenance, including suitable living accommodations, and

appropriate medical care and educational services.

According to ORR,

all children in its care receive classroom education appropriate to their

level of development, mental and medical health services, case

management, recreation, and unification services that facilitate their

release to family members or other sponsors who can care for them.

For

example, in 2016 we reported that 60 percent of unaccompanied children

8 U.S.C. § 1232(b)(3).

6 U.S.C. § 279.

HHS Latest UAC Data – FY2019,

https://www.hhs.gov/programs/social-services/unaccompanied-alien-children/latest-uac-da

ta-fy2019/index.html, downloaded May 31, 2019.

8 U.S.C. § 1232(c)(2)(A).

The court-approved settlement agreement in the case of Flores v. Reno was the result

of a class action lawsuit filed against the former Immigration and Naturalization Service

(INS) challenging the agency’s arrest, processing, detention, and release of juveniles in its

custody. The agreement sets out nationwide policy for the detention, release, and

treatment of minors in the custody of the former INS, the border security and immigration -

related functions of which are now performed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection,

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration

Services. Stipulated Settlement Agreement, Flores v. Reno, No. 85-4544 (C.D. Cal. Jan

17, 1997). A court order prohibiting the implementation of an August 2019 final rule that

would have replaced the terms of the Flores settlement agreement is currently pending

appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. See Flores v. Barr, No. 19-

56326 (9th Cir. argued May 19, 2020). In addition, the issue of releasing children from

ORR-funded facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be litigated.

ORR also provides grants to organizations to conduct home studies prior to placement

with a sponsor in certain cases, such as if the ch ild’s safety is in question and funds

follow-up services for at-risk children after their release. See 8 U.S.C. § 1232(c)(3)(B) and

ORR Policy Guide: Children Entering the United States Unaccompanied, sections 2.4 and

6.1, and 6.2.

Letter

Page 5 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

were released into the care of a parent who was already living in the

United States.

To provide for these children, ORR solicits residential care providers

(grantees) through funding opportunity announcements (grant

announcements),

and typically funds successful applicants through 3-

year cooperative agreements (grant agreements).

During fiscal years

2018 and 2019, ORR issued eight grant announcements, and awarded

funds to applicants in response to seven of them.

ORR grantees are

private nonprofit and for-profit organizations and businesses. The majority

of children in ORR custody are cared for in shelter facilities, but some are

cared for in other settings.

These include:

· secure shelters for children with an offender history,

· residential treatment centers for children with diagnosed mental health

disorders,

· transitional (short-term) foster care, where children receive services at

a central facility site but spend nights with a foster family, for younger

or more vulnerable children, and

This analysis used ORR data on unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala,

and Honduras who were released from ORR custody from January 7, 2014 through April

17, 2015. See Unaccompanied Children: HHS Can Take Further Actions to Monitor Their

Care, GAO-16-180 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 5, 2016).

ORR refers to these as Standing Announcements or Funding Opportunity

Announcements.

In this report, we refer to these cooperative agreements as grants or grant agreements.

The grants are for a 3-year project period; funds are awarded for the second and third

years based on approved continuation applications, subject to satisfactory progress by the

grantee and a determination that continued funding would be in the best intere st of the

federal government.

In this report, we refer to each instance in which ORR issued a grant announcement,

reviewed applications, and made award decisions as a funding “round.” We identify these

funding rounds by the deadline ORR set for grant appl ications. ORR issued an eighth

grant announcement for secure facilities that closed in June 2018, but did not fund any

grantees in response to this announcement,

In this report, we refer to these individual care settings as “facilities,” regardless of the

type of setting. When a grantee is providing transitional or long -term foster care, the

“facility” is the grantee’s office responsible for finding, vetting, and overseeing individual

foster homes (and, in the case of transitional foster care, providing on -site services during

the day). Individual licensed foster homes are not considered facilities. One grantee may

operate multiple facilities.

Letter

Page 6 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

· long-term foster care in single-family or group homes for children

whom ORR expects to be eligible for immigration relief and who are

expected to have an extended stay within the ORR system.

As of July 2020, ORR grantees were operating 176 facilities in 22 states,

and ORR had awarded grants for an additional 43 facilities that were not

yet serving children, including facilities in an additional three states (see

fig. 1). As a result, ORR’s available bed capacity was approximately

13,500, with approximately 5,000 additional beds funded but not yet

available for use.

Slightly over a third of ORR’s available beds were

provided by a single grantee. An additional 21 percent were provided by

the next two largest grantees. Many other grantees are smaller, operating

only one or two facilities or facilities with fewer beds.

There are several types of immigration relief that may be available to these children, for

example, asylum or Special Immigrant Juvenile status. ORR has other placement options

that it sometimes uses. For more information on types of immigration relief, the types of

facilities operated by ORR grantees, and the care provided to children in these settings,

see GAO-16-180.

The number of beds funded but not yet available is an estimate based on a spreadsheet

ORR project officers use to track the funded capacity of ORR grantees and the number of

beds ORR has available. ORR program officials acknowledged that the spreadsheet is not

always kept up-to-date, but is currently the only method it has to track this information.

Letter

Page 7 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Figure 1: Number of Grantee Facilities Funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement With and Without Unaccompanied

Children in Residence, July 2020

Note: ORR officials also told us that ORR has tw o additional facilities, one in Florida and one in

Texas, w hich ORR uses to provide services during influxes of unaccompanied children. Data

provided by ORR also included one additional ORR-funded facility, the location of w hich was still “to

be determined” and w hich was not serving children as of July 1, 2020.

ORR facilities generally must be licensed by a state licensing agency to

provide residential, group, or foster care services for dependent

Letter

Page 8 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

children.

State licensing agencies generally monitor facilities to ensure

they comply with the state’s minimum standards of care, and ORR

program officials told us this monitoring ensures facilities are adhering to

child welfare best practices. States establish their own licensing

requirements and monitoring activities, including the frequency of

monitoring, and a variety of state agencies may license and monitor

ORR-funded facilities.

In addition to state licensing and monitoring, ORR monitors the facilities it

funds. When ORR identifies a facility that is not complying with ORR

policies, the terms of its grant, or other applicable requirements, it may

require the facility to take corrective action. Several ORR teams are

involved in monitoring grantee compliance in different ways, and these

teams may issue corrective actions for any instances of noncompliance

they identify (see table 1). According to its policy guide, ORR may also

take other actions to ensure compliance and the safety of children,

including removing children from a facility entirely.

ORR also requires its grantees to comply with various other requirements. For example,

a recent grant announcement states that “[a]pplicants must describe that the facility/foster

home meets all relevant zoning, licensing, fire, safety, and health codes required to

operate a residential based social service program.” See Administration for Children and

Families, Office of Refugee Resettlement, Standing Announcement for Residential

(Shelter) Services for Unaccompanied Alien Children, HHS-2017-ACF-ORR-ZU-1132,

Due Date: 05/09/2019. See also 45 C.F.R. pt. 75 for HHS’s regulations establishing

uniform administrative requirements, cost principles, and audit requirements for HHS grant

awards.

At times, ORR has operated “influx” facilities —facilities used when the number of

unaccompanied children in ORR’s care has been exceptionally high. Influx facilities may

operate on federally owned or leased properties, and are generally exempt from the

requirement to obtain a state license, according to ORR’s Policy Guide. In June 2020,

ORR officials told us ORR was funding the upkeep of two influx facilities so that they can

be activated quickly should the need arise. However, these officials said there had been

no children in the care of these facilities since August 2019 and that ORR had no plans to

reopen them. Influx facilities may be funded via cooperative agreem ents or contracts, and

the HHS Office of the Inspector General is currently reviewing the process by which one of

these contracts was awarded.

Under HHS’s grant regulations, if a grantee fails to comply with federal statutes,

regulations, or the terms and conditions of its award, ORR may impose additional

conditions, such as requiring additional financial reports or project monitoring. If ORR

determines that additional conditions cannot remedy the noncompliance, it may take other

actions as appropriate, including terminating the award. 45 C.F.R. §§ 75.371, 75.207.

Letter

Page 9 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Table 1: Roles of ORR Teams Involved in Oversight and Issuing Corrective Actions for Facilities Providing Care for

Unaccompanied Children

Team

Roles and key monitoring goals

Areas reviewed/ potential corrective action

areas

Monitoring team

Conduct a review of each ORR-funded facility once

every two years, including:

· review of policies and procedures, reports, and

case files

· 5-day site visit and inspection of the facility to

review additional documentation, interview staff,

children and youth, and stakeholders

· Program management

· Services

· Safety and security

· Child protection

· Case management

· Personnel management

· Fiscal management

Project officers

· Oversee specific facilities

· Conduct desk monitoring through review of all

required documents and reports submitted by

facilities

· Responsible for overseeing facilities’

implementation of corrective action plans

· Program Design

· Personnel

· Compliance with ORR policy and

procedures

· Any items with budgetary impact

· Staffing ratios

· Compliance with grants terms and

conditions

· Licensing standards compliance

· Child safety/risk issues

Federal field specialists

· Act as the local ORR liaison with facilities and

stakeholders

· Generally visit facilities at least once per month and

work with contractor field specialists who visit

facilities more often

· Approve child transfer and release decisions

· May help monitor implementation of corrective

action plans

· Compliance with ORR policy and

procedures

· Child safety/risk issues

· Licensing standards compliance

· Any child-specific issues

Prevention of Sexual

Abuse team

· Contracts with outside organization to conduct

audits of all facilities’ compliance with ORR

regulations and policy on preventing and

addressing sexual abuse and harassment, within 3

years of February 22, 2016, and then every three

years

· Compliance with Interim Final Rule on

Standards To Prevent, Detect, and

Respond to Sexual Ab use and Sexual

Harassment Involving Unaccompanied

Children

· Related ORR policies and procedures

Source: Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Policy Guide, Department of Health and Human Services regulations, and interviews with ORR officials. | GAO-20-609

Note: During periods w hen ORR funds influx facilities via contracts, Contracting Officer’s

Representatives are also involved in monitoring facilities. ORR officials told us that these officials

serve a role similar to project officers. ORR officials confirmed that as of June 2020, they w ere

funding only one influx facility via contract, w hich was inactive and not caring for any children.

In December 2014, ORR published an Interim Final Rule establishing standards to prevent, detect,

and respond to sexual abuse and sexual harassment in certain ORR-funded facilities that house

unaccompanied children, in response to a requirement in the Violence Against Women

Reauthorization Act of 2013. 79 Fed. Reg. 77,768 (Dec. 24, 2014). Among other things, the rule

provides that each facility that houses unaccompanied children w ill be audited at least once w ithin 3

years of February 22, 2016, and during each three-year period thereafter. 45 C.F.R. § 411.111(a).

The rule does not apply to secure care provider facilities or individual foster care homes.

Letter

Page 10 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

In 2016, we found that some ORR facilities were not maintaining

complete case files on children in their care, and that ORR was not able

to complete in-depth monitoring visits on schedule, with some facilities

going years without such a visit. As a result, we recommended ORR

review its monitoring program to ensure timely visits and proper

documentation of services.

ORR agreed with the recommendation and

subsequently provided documentation showing that it had increased its

monitoring visits and standardized its monitoring tools. In addition, in

2019, the HHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported on concerns it

identified as a result of its review of 45 ORR-funded facilities, including

that some facilities did not have evidence of background checks on file for

all employees, hired staff who did not meet ORR’s education

requirements, and experienced challenges employing mental health

clinicians and accessing external mental health providers.

In 2020, the

HHS OIG reported that at 39 of 40 ORR-funded facilities reviewed,

inspection checklists used by the facilities to monitor their own security

measures did not include checks for all measures required by ORR.

The

HHS OIG has also reported on problems it identified at individual ORR-

funded facilities, ranging from claiming unallowable expenditures to failing

to document that the facility met ORR health and safety standards.

ORR’sGrantAnnouncementsLackClarityon

HowApplicantsShouldReportStateLicensing

GAO-16-180.

HHS, Office of Inspector General, Unaccompanied Alien Children Care Provider

Facilities Generally Conducted Required Background Checks b ut Faced Challenges in

Hiring, Screening, and Retaining Employees, A-12-19-20001, September 2019; and Care

Provider Facilities Described Challenges Addressing Mental Health Needs of Children in

HHS Custody, OEI-09-18-00431, September 2019.

HHS, OIG, Unaccompanied Alien Children Program Care Provider Facilities Do Not

Include All Required Security Measures in Their Checklists, OEI-05-19-00210, June 2020.

See https://oig.hhs.gov/reports-and-publications/featured-topics/uac/ for links to HHS

OIG reports on this topic.

Letter

Page 11 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

IssuesandORRDoesNotDocumentReview

ofGrantees’PastPerformance

ORR’sGrantAnnouncementsLackClarityandGrant

ApplicantsInconsistentlyReportStateLicensing

Information

We found that ORR’s grant announcements to solicit facilities to provide

care for unaccompanied children are unclear about the information

applicants must submit on state licensing, and applicants provide

inconsistent information. Two specific areas of ambiguity are the status of

state licenses and information about past state licensing allegations and

concerns.

State Licensing Status

ORR’s recent grant announcements specify that applicants must be state

licensed or eligible for a license and able to obtain one within 75 days of

their grant award.

The grant announcements also state that applicants

must include proof of their license or license eligibility. While ORR

program officials told us that many applicants apply to operate a new

facility before it is licensed, the grant announcements do not specify how

they should demonstrate that they are eligible for a license in their

application. ORR project officers, who review applications as part of

ORR’s multi-step grant review process, also could not cite specific

information or documents they would expect to see as proof of eligibility

for a license (for more information on ORR’s grant review and approval

process, see appendix II).

For example, see Administration for Children and Families, Office of Refugee

Resettlement, Standing Announcement for Residential (Shelter) Services for

Unaccompanied Alien Children, HHS-2017-ACF-ORR-ZU-1132, Due Date: 05/09/2019.

Section III.1. Eligible Applicants, which states that “Care providers are required to be

licensed or license eligible (temporary, provisional or an equivalent license) with license

being issued, by a state licensing agency, within 75 days of award to provide residential,

group or foster care services for dependent children.” The announcement further states

that applicants must provide “detailed information regarding type of s tate licensure,

including information on capacity, age/gender permitted, and length of stay allowable.”

ORR changed its required timeframe for obtaining a license from 60 days to 75 days

beginning with its November 2018 funding announcement.

Letter

Page 12 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

We reviewed all grant applications approved by ORR in fiscal years 2018

and 2019 and found that the majority did not include copies of state

licenses for the facilities proposed in the applications. Approximately

three-quarters of those 58 applications included a copy of a state license,

but 22 of them included licenses that did not cover all facilities proposed

in the applications.

(See sidebar for information on continuation

applications.) For example, in some of those cases, the licenses were for

facilities located in a different city than that proposed in the application.

Having obtained a state license in the past or for a different facility does

not guarantee an organization is eligible for, or will obtain, a state license

for a new facility. For example, according to information provided by

ORR, four of the 22 grantees that included a copy of a license in their

application that was not for the facilities proposed in the application, had

been unable to obtain a license for one or more of their proposed facilities

as of July 1, 2020. Therefore, none of these grantees were serving

children at those sites as of that date.

ORR program officials told us that

some states are taking longer to approve applications for state licenses

than they used to. However, these grantees had been unable to obtain a

license for 12 months or longer, significantly more than the timeframe

required in ORR’s grant announcement.

In most cases in which a state license was not included in the application,

the applicant provided some information about the status of its licensing

application, but many did not obtain a license within 75 days of receiving

a grant award. Several applicants stated they would seek licensing once

For an additional six applications that included licenses, it was unclear whether the

licenses included in the application were for all facilities proposed in the application or not.

ORR approved 58 grant applications during fiscal year 2018 and 2019. In some cases, a

single organization received more than one grant. Additionally, some applications included

proposals for more than one facility.

We previously reviewed ORR data on facility status as of February 5, 2020. At that time,

nine of these 22 grantees had not yet been able to obtain a state license for all facilities

proposed in their applications. Between February and July, five of these nine had obtained

the required licenses. It took these five grantees at least 7 months to obtain licenses for all

facilities in their grant applications. Grantees may not have been able to obtain a license

for a variety of reasons, and even though the grantees had not received a license as of

July 2020 this does not mean they are ineligible for a license or will never receive one .

However, it does indicate that they were unable to obtain a state license within the

required timeframe in ORR’s grant announcement.

The last grant announcement issued by ORR in fiscal year 2019 closed on May 19,

2019 and ORR finalized its funding deci sions on July 15, 2019.

Continuation Applications for ORR

Facilities Providing Care for

Unaccom panied Children

ORR requires grantees to submit a

continuation application betw een years 1 and

2 and years 2 and 3 of their grant

performance period to continue receiving

funding for years 2 and 3. According to fiscal

year 2018 and 2019 grant agreements w e

review ed, the grantees are required to submit

a copy of their state license as part of the

continuation applications. We review ed 13

continuation applications submitted in fiscal

years 2018 and 2019 for nine selected

facilities, and none of these applications

included a copy of a state license.

Source: GAO review of Office of Refugee Resettlement

(ORR) grant agreements and GAO analysis of continuation

applications. | GAO-20-609

Letter

Page 13 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

ORR awarded them the grant, indicating they had not yet begun the

licensing process. Others stated they had participated in a pre-licensing

workshop, had been in contact with the state licensing agency, or had

submitted applications for licensing. As of July 1, 2020—12 months after

ORR made funding decisions for the last fiscal year 2019 funding round—

approximately 14 facilities that ORR approved in fiscal years 2018 and

2019 had not yet been able to obtain a state license, including several

that had indicated that they were eligible for a license in their

application.

State Licensing Allegations and Concerns

ORR’s fiscal year 2018 and 2019 grant announcements also specify that

applicants must report “any and all documented state licensing

allegations/concerns.”

However, the announcements do not define this

phrase and our review of these announcements found a lack of clarity

regarding the information ORR expects applicants to provide. For

example, the announcements do not make clear for what time period any

such allegations and concerns should be reported. The announcements

also do not specify whether applicants operating multiple facilities should

report allegations and concerns that have occurred at any of them, or only

those at the specific facilities in the application.

ORR program officials told us that ORR’s grant announcement language

is intentionally broad regarding the time frame and facility location for

which state licensing allegations and concerns should be reported in

The last round of funding decisions for fiscal year 2019 were approved by ACF on July

15, 2019. Some of these 14 facilities were approved in prior funding rounds. In some

cases, a single grantee had been able to obtain licenses for some but not all of the

facilities proposed in its application. In other cases, the grantee was unable to obtain

licenses for any facility proposed in its application. We determined whether a facility was

licensed and serving children based on a spreadsheet provided by ORR and used by

ORR project officers to track the funded capacity of ORR grantees and the number of

beds ORR has available. ORR program officials acknowledged that the spreadsheet is not

always kept up-to-date, but is currently the only method it has to track this information.

ORR program officials also told us that ORR is in the process of developing a new system

to manage information related to its unaccompanied children program. The agency is

exploring, with the contractor developing the system, ways that this system might be used

to better track its bed capacity and related facility information.

For example, see Administration for Children and Families, Office of Refugee

Resettlement, Standing Announcement for Residential (Shelter) Services for

Unaccompanied Alien Children, HHS-2017-ACF-ORR-ZU-1132, Due Date: 05/09/2019.

Background - Program Structure.

Letter

Page 14 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

applications because ORR wants to know this information regardless of

when or where such issues occurred.

We asked the 11 project officers

who reviewed grant applications in one funding round in fiscal year 2019

what information on state licensing allegations and concerns they would

expect to see in applications. These project officers said that all

allegations and concerns should be reported. They also said that

applicants should include state licensing and monitoring reports showing

that the applicant has adequately addressed all allegations and

concerns.

However, we found inconsistent reporting of state licensing

allegations and concerns in the 58 applications we reviewed (see fig. 2).

Fifteen of the 58 applications included information about whether there

were state licensing allegations or concerns.

The remaining 43

applications did not reference any licensing allegations or concerns,

despite ORR program officials stating that all facilities receive state

licensing citations at some point. Further, we found that several

applicants had received state licensing citations in the past and one had

previously had its state license revoked, but that information was not

reported in their applications.

Initially, program officials told us that applicants are not required to report all past

allegations and concerns because allegations may be unfounded. The officials said they

would expect applicants to report only “serious citations” from state monitors, language

not included in the grant announcement and that conflicts with information provided by

project officers who review grant applications. However, in June 2020, program officials

told us that applicants should report all allegations and concerns in their grant

applications.

We provided written questions to ORR for the 11 project officers that reviewed grant

applications in one funding round in fiscal year 2019. ORR provided written answers to

these questions in a single document.

Two of these 15 applications, although they did not specifically mention the term

“licensing allegations or concerns,” did report on state monitoring fi ndings.

We did not attempt to determine the extent to which all grant applicants that did not

report state licensing citations in their grant applications had received licensing citations in

the past. However, we identified, through media reports, severa l grant applicants that had

had state licensing issues. We followed up with state licensing agencies in those states to

corroborate those media reports and obtain additional information about the specific

licensing citations received by those applicants.

Letter

Page 15 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Figure 2: State Licensing Allegations and Concerns Reported in Applications for Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)

Grants to Provide Care for Unaccompanied Children, Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019.

Tw o of these 15 applications, although they did not specifically mention the term “licensing

allegations or concerns,” did report on state monitoring findings.

Unless ORR clarifies in its grant announcements the specific information

and supporting documentation required from applicants on state licensing

issues, it may not receive the information it needs to avoid awarding

grants to organizations that will be unable to obtain a state license, have

issues that could affect their license status, or that are unqualified to care

for vulnerable children. HHS regulations state that the awarding agency’s

grant announcements must address the criteria it will use to evaluate

grant applications and should clearly describe all such criteria.

addition, federal standards for internal control state that agencies should

communicate quality information externally and use quality information to

achieve their objectives.

Our work has shown that effective oversight

45 C.F.R. pt. 75, app. I, sec. (E)(1).

GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government, GAO-14-704G

(Washington, D.C.: Sept, 10, 2014).

Letter

Page 16 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

and internal control are important to provide reasonable assurance to

federal managers and taxpayers that grants are awarded properly.

Verifying State Licensing Information

The extent to which ORR verifies the information provided by grant

applicants with respect to state licensing as part of its grant review

process is also unclear. ORR program officials told us that when

reviewing grant applications, project officers search state licensing

websites for information about applicants for ORR grants, such as

monitoring findings. However, we reviewed the websites of the seven

state licensing agencies we interviewed that licensed ORR-funded

facilities and found that three of them did not make applicable licensing

information publicly available on their website.

ORR program officials

also said ORR has well-established relationships with state licensing

agencies and that project officers would reach out to these agencies for

information they could not obtain online. The 11 project officers who

reviewed grant applications in one funding round in fiscal year 2019 said

they review state licensing and monitoring information if states make it

available, usually on state licensing websites. The project officers

provided conflicting information about whether they communicate with

state licensing agencies during the application review process. Initially,

project officers told us that they sometimes, but not always, communicate

with state licensing agencies by phone or email during the grant review

process; however, in subsequent responses they told us they do not

communicate with state licensing agencies during their review. Only two

of the 23 state agencies that licensed ORR-funded facilities reported in

our survey that ORR contacts them about potential grantees during the

application reviews.

With respect to applicants who do not already have a state license, ORR

could reduce the risk of awarding grants to applicants that will not be able

GAO. Grants Management: Observations on Challenges and Opportunities for Reform,

GAO-18-676T (Washington, D.C.: July 25, 2018) and Federal Grants: Improvements

Needed in Oversight and Accountability Processes, GAO-11-773T (Washington, D.C.:

June 23, 2011).

In addition, ORR program officials told us that project officers would typically only look

for state license information or licensing allegations or citations against an ap plicant in the

state in which the applicant sought a new grant. Therefore, ORR could be unaware of

licensing issues the applicant may have in other states. Because we did not receive a

response from ORR to our written questions on which states with ORR fac ilities make

licensing information available online, it is unclear whether ORR officials are aware of this

information.

Letter

Page 17 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

to obtain a state license by verifying relevant information during the

application review process. In our review, we identified two applicants that

received ORR grants in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 that were either

ineligible for, or subsequently denied, a state license due to past licensing

issues that ORR did not identify prior to awarding the grant, and which the

applicants did not report in their applications.

· During the November 2018 funding round, an applicant included a

copy of a previously revoked license in its grant application. The

revocation by the state licensing agency made the applicant ineligible

for a state license for five years, according to state officials. ORR

program officials told us that the applicant did not know that it was

ineligible for a state license because the revoked license was a

different type from the new one for which it applied. Nevertheless,

given the language in ORR’s grant application that applicants must

report “any and all documented state licensing allegations/concerns”

and ORR’s position that this language is to be broadly interpreted, it is

likely the revocation should have been reported in the application.

ORR awarded this applicant a grant and the applicant received grant

funds.

Although information about the revocation was available on

the state licensing agency’s website, ORR officials said that at the

time they approved the application for funding, they were unaware the

applicant was ineligible for a state license. ORR project officers told

us that they did not contact state licensing agency officials prior to

awarding this grant.

· In the May 2019 funding round, ORR awarded a grant and provided

grant funds to an applicant that was subsequently unable to obtain a

state license, according to state officials. State licensing agency

officials we spoke with said the applicant was ineligible because it

provided information to the state licensing agency on a prior facility

that did not accurately reflect its compliance history, which included

health, safety, and welfare violations. Among the undisclosed

citations, according to these officials, were multiple incidents of

physical discipline of children. ORR officials we interviewed said they

were unaware that this grantee was ineligible for a state license. ORR

awarded this applicant five separate grants for facilities in five states

in fiscal years 2018 and 2019. As of July 1, 2020, only one of these

The revoked license was a Mental Health license rather than the Residential Care

license required for a grantee to operate a shelter for unaccompanied children, according

to ORR officials.

In February 2020, ORR program officials said that ORR was in the process of

terminating this grant and would recover the grant funds.

Letter

Page 18 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

facilities had received a state license, and it had provided less than

half the beds proposed in its application.

ORR program officials told us that after the agency discovered it had

awarded a grant in November 2018 to the applicant whose license had

been revoked, ORR instructed project officers to start researching

information about applicants’ state licensing status prior to grant

approvals. ORR provided an internal guidance document officials said

was implemented in November 2019. The document includes questions

project officers should research about licensing and zoning, among other

issues. However, the guidance does not specify that the process by which

project officers review grant applications should include contacting state

licensing agency officials to verify licensing information submitted by

applicants.

While we found no instances of ORR placing children in unlicensed

facilities, ORR has awarded grants, and provided grant funds, to several

applicants that had difficulty obtaining the required state license within 75

days, and to at least two applicants that were ineligible for, or ultimately

unable to obtain, a state license. Without ensuring that project officers

have a process to verify state licensing information provided by ORR

grant applicants prior to approving grant applications, ORR may continue

to provide funds to organizations that do not meet its requirements and

may be unable to provide the services delineated in their application.

ORRDoesNotDocumentReviewofApplicants’Past

PerformanceasanORRGranteeWhenConsidering

Applications

ORR’s grant review process does not include a documented review of the

past performance of applicants that have previously received ORR

grants, and ORR does not have written guidance on how project officers

should review grantees’ past performance when reviewing new grant

applications. According to ORR officials, nearly 70 percent (72 of 104) of

the applications for ORR grants submitted during fiscal years 2018 and

2019 were from organizations that were currently, or had previously been,

ORR grantees. According to ORR program officials, project officers have

access to quarterly and annual performance reports, as well as

monitoring reports, for applicants that have previously provided care to

unaccompanied children and are expected to review applicants’ past

Letter

Page 19 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

performance.

However, at the time of our review, ORR had no written

guidance requiring project officers to conduct this review, or describing

how project officers should conduct or document it.

Project officers that reviewed grant applications during the grant round

ending in November 2018 told us they review past performance and

monitoring reports and note concerns they identify in their initial

assessment review. However, neither project officers nor ORR program

officials could provide documentation of such a review, and program

officials said that project officers generate no documentation of reviews

they conduct. In February 2020, ORR program officials said that ORR is

completing guidance that would require project officers to conduct a

review of past performance, but provided no additional information about

the content of the guidance or how the reviews should be documented.

We identified some ORR grantees with a history of significant incidents

related to the safety and well-being of children in their care that

subsequently received new or continuation grants. For example, among

our nine selected facilities, ORR monitored one grantee in March 2018

and found, among other deficiencies, that the grantee had placed a child

in a foster home in which one of the foster parents was under

investigation for sexual abuse of another unaccompanied child, according

to the ORR monitoring report.

Although the grantee removed all children

from that particular home three days after the ORR monitor visited it,

ORR did not formally notify the grantee of all its monitoring findings, and

As part of ORR’s grant review process, a panel of outside exper ts score applications

against criteria in the ORR grant announcement. According to our review of FY2018 and

2019 grant announcements, while applicants are expected to describe their organization’s

qualifications and history, and document their relevant exp erience providing services, the

criteria do not explicitly include applicants’ past performance on ORR grants, such as the

results of ORR performance and monitoring reports.

Some of the other deficiencies identified during this ORR onsite monitoring vis it were: a

child placed in a foster home in which a tenant without a Federal Bureau of Investigation

fingerprint check was living on site, a child in a foster home with a strong smell of cat urine

and feces, unaccompanied children reporting that they did not receive science or social

studies classes in the grantee’s school, and unaccompanied children not receiving proper

group counseling sessions. Other deficiencies included children not knowing they were

allowed to send or receive mail and medical and mental health staff reporting that they

never received specialized training on working with victims of sexual abuse or

harassment.

Letter

Page 20 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

ask them to take corrective actions, until November 2018.

In the

meantime, ORR awarded the grantee a new grant in the funding round

that ended June 2018.

In addition, in September 2018, a state licensing agency that licensed

facilities operated by a another ORR grantee formally notified this grantee

of its intent to revoke state licenses for all that grantee’s facilities operated

in that state. The state licensing agency took these actions based on its

findings that multiple facilities had failed to properly document fingerprint

background checks for all employees. In October 2018, the licensing

agency reached a settlement agreement with the grantee, which allowed

most of the facilities to keep their licenses.

Prior to these state licensing

actions, in 2017, one of this grantee’s facilities reported substantiated

cases of sexual abuse of unaccompanied children to ORR, leading ORR

to provide additional oversight of this grantee and facility, according to an

HHS report.

In addition, an employee of another facility operated by this

same grantee in the same state was convicted of sexually abusing a child

in 2015 at the facility, according to media reports. In September 2019,

ORR awarded two continuation grants for facilities operated by this

grantee in the state. ORR would not comment on whether, or how, it

considered these issues when it awarded these continuation grants.

We identified one instance in which ORR rejected an applicant that

scored above the cutoff score established by ORR leadership due to its

According to ORR officials, the ORR monitor shared the findings with both the grantee

and ORR staff assigned to the program d uring the visit. However, we found that the

grantee did not take action on many of the corrective actions until after it received the

report, 8 months after the monitoring visit and 5 months after ORR awarded the grantee a

new grant.

This settlement agreement resulted in two of the grantee’s facilities voluntarily

relinquishing their state licenses and the grantee paying monetary fines, among other

stipulations.

According to the HHS report, the additional oversight included monitoring both the care

provider facility and the grantee’s corporate offices to review internal policies and reporting

structures, supervisory response to events, available video footage, and the care provider

facility practices. ORR issued corrective actions to the facility, includ ing a requirement to

retrain all staff. In addition, ORR temporarily removed all children from the facility and

stopped placing additional children there. Report on Sexual Abuse and Sexual

Harassment Involving Unaccompanied Alien Children: 2017.

https://www.hhs.gov/programs/social-services/unaccompanied-alien-children/uac-sexual-a

buse-report-2017/index.html, downloaded July 8, 2020.

Letter

Page 21 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

performance on a previous grant.

ORR approved funding for that same

applicant in a new funding round four months later. ORR project officers

told us that the organization’s new application was recommended for

funding because it would be working with experienced subcontractors,

giving ORR confidence that the organization would be able to perform

successfully. However, our review of the organization’s applications from

the two funding rounds found that of the three proposed sites that were

the same in both applications, five of the six subcontractor partners were

the same as in the application that was rejected. ORR may have reasons

for continuing to work with grantees that have had serious performance

issues in the past. However, without ensuring that the grant process

includes a review of applicants’ past performance and documentation that

a systematic review has been conducted, it is unclear what information

ORR considers when making these decisions.

Our work has shown that the use of information on past performance can

inform and improve the selection process for grant recipients.

addition, HHS regulations state that the awarding agency must have a

framework in place for evaluating the risks posed by applicants before

they receive an award.

In evaluating such risks, the agency may

consider the applicant’s history of performance if it is a prior recipient of

federal awards.

ORR has relevant past performance information on a

high percentage of grant applicants because they have previously

received ORR grants. If ORR does not systematically consider this

information and document how this review informs its funding decisions, it

risks awarding grants to applicants with a history of poor performance,

which could potentially put children at risk.

According to ORR’s grant documentation, ORR chose not to fund this applicant

because, under a previous grant with ORR, the applicant had engaged in the poor child

welfare practice of allowing employees to serve as foster parents for unaccompanied

children. It also had failed to deliver the number of beds proposed in its application.

GAO. Grants Management: Enhancing Performance Accountability Provisions Could

Lead to Better Results. GAO-06-1046 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 29, 2006).

45 C.F.R. § 75.205(b).

45 C.F.R. § 75.205(c)(3). Specifically, the regulations provide that the agency may

consider the applicant's record in managing federal awards, including timeliness of

compliance with applicable reporting requirements, conformance to the terms and

conditions of previous federal awards, and if applicable, the extent to which any previously

awarded amounts will be expended prior to future awards.

Letter

Page 22 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

StateLicensingAgenciesRegularlyMonitor

ORRGrantees,butInformationSharing

betweenORRandStatesisLimited

StateLicensingAgenciesConductOversightofORR

GranteeFacilities,andAboutHalfThatMonitorThese

FacilitiesIdentifiedSignificantDeficienciesinFiscalYears

2018and2019

According to our survey, 23 state licensing agencies in 21 states

conducted oversight and monitoring of ORR-funded facilities in fall 2019

(see fig. 3).

Most of these licensing agencies were within their state’s

department of human services, child and/or family services, or child

safety. State licensing officials we interviewed said their monitoring and

oversight of ORR-funded facilities is the same as for other types of

facilities they license. In addition to conducting regularly scheduled

monitoring activities for established facilities, they reported conducting a

site visit or inspection and reviewing other documentation during a

facility’s initial license approval process. These officials also said their

agencies conduct investigations if an incident occurs at a facility or they

receive a complaint that could indicate noncompliance with state licensing

standards.

The 21 states included the District of Columb ia. We surveyed four additional state

agencies in states where ORR had awarded grants for one or more facilities, but these

facilities were not yet licensed or serving children. In addition, while information provided

by ORR indicated that two different state agencies license ORR-funded facilities in New

Jersey, only one of these two agencies responded in our survey that they do so. Officials

from the other agency told us they provide technical assistance to the licensing agency,

but do not directly license any ORR-funded facilities. For more information on our survey

methodology, see app. I.

Officials at all four agencies said allegations of abuse or neglect at facilities they license

are investigated by another state agency, the child protection agency. However, they said

that the state licensing agencies are notified of these investigations.

Letter

Page 23 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Figure 3: State Licensing Agency Monitoring Practices for Office of Refugee Resettlement-Funded Facilities Providing Care

for Unaccompanied Children, based on Survey Responses in 2019 from 23 Agencies

Of the 23 agencies that licensed ORR-funded facilities at the time of our

survey, 14 reported that in fiscal year 2018 or 2019 they found

deficiencies in at least one of the ORR-funded facilities in their state.

State licensing agency officials we interviewed said licensing deficiencies

can range from administrative or recordkeeping issues to threats to

children’s health or safety. State licensing officials we interviewed

reported that they typically note deficiencies in monitoring reports, issue

citations, and then require facilities to take corrective action. Eleven state

agencies—or about half of the 23 that licensed ORR-funded facilities—

stated that some of the deficiencies they found were significant, defined in

our survey as deficiencies that involved child health and safety concerns,

allegations of abuse or neglect, deficiencies with the physical building that

raised health or safety concerns, or other issues that could jeopardize the

facility’s license (see fig. 4). Officials from those 11 agencies stated that

these deficiencies have been resolved, or the facility has plans in place to

do so.

State licensing agencies used varying terminology to refer to issues they identify at

facilities, including citation, deficiency, and violation. Here we use “defici ency” to refer to

the issue identified, and “citation” to refer to the state licensing agency’s official notice to

the facility requiring them to address the deficiency.

Letter

Page 24 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Figure 4: State Licensing Agency Survey Responses on Deficiencies They Found at

ORR-Funded Facilities during Fiscal Years 2018 through 2019

Note: For purposes of our survey, we defined significant deficiencies as those involving child health

and safety concerns, allegations of abuse or neglect, deficiencies w ith the physical building that

raised health or safety concerns, or other issues that could jeopardize the facility ’s license. We

follow ed up w ith the 11 states that reported finding significant deficiencies, all of w hich told us in

March or April 2020 that all of those deficiencies had been resolved or the facility had plans in place

to do so.

ORR’sInstructionstoGranteesLackClarityonReporting

ofStateLicensingCitationsandORRStaffReported

InconsistentUnderstandingofRequirements

We found two areas lacking clarity regarding grantees’ reporting of state

licensing citations to ORR. First, ORR does not provide clear instructions

to grantees on whether and how they should include state licensing

citations in their quarterly performance reports to ORR. Second, some

ORR project officers did not have a clear understanding of what grantees

should report to them about state licensing citations.

Letter

Page 25 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Instructions for Quarterly Performance Reports

ORR considers state licensing citations to be a performance indicator, but

we found that grantees are not given clear instruction on whether or how

to submit this information in the quarterly performance reports that are

required under their grant agreements. ORR policy states that grantees

are required to evaluate their program’s strengths and weaknesses based

on specified performance indicators, one of which is adverse state

licensing citations.

However, ORR has not provided instructions or

guidance to grantees stating that state licensing citations are to be

included in the quarterly performance reports, or what level of detail to

include. ORR requires grantees to use an ACF form to submit their

quarterly performance report, but the form’s instructions do not include

specific information on where to include state licensing citations or how

much detail to provide, and project officers stated they do not provide

additional guidance to grantees on completing performance reports.

Our analysis of quarterly performance reports submitted to ORR by the

grantees that operated our nine selected facilities in fiscal years 2018 and

2019 found variation in the level of detail reported on state licensing

activity, including in descriptions of deficiencies identified by state

licensing agencies. The reports for three of our nine selected facilities

included state monitoring citations and additional information on state

licensing activity, including dates of on-site inspections, number of

records reviewed, number of interviews conducted, and corrective action

plans to remedy deficiencies. However, not all reports for our selected

facilities included such information. For example, the reports for three

selected facilities in two states, operated by the same grantee, did not

include any information on more than 70 citations issued by their state

licensing agencies to these three facilities during fiscal years 2018 and

2019.

The state agency that licensed two of those facilities began the

legal process of revoking their licenses in September 2018 due to non-

compliance with state fingerprinting and training requirements for facility

personnel. According to ORR officials and state licensing officials, ORR

was aware of these state licensing actions. The state agency and grantee

reached a settlement agreement in October 2018, allowing most of the

Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR Guide: Children Entering the United States

Unaccompanied, Section 5.5.5, accessed June 1, 2020,

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/children-entering-the-united-states-unaccompanied-

section-5#5.5.

We identified these citations through publicly available information from licensing

agencies in these two states.

Letter

Page 26 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

grantee’s facilities in the state to maintain their licenses. However, the

grantee did not document any state licensing citations or revocation

notifications in its quarterly reports during fiscal years 2018 and 2019.

Project Officers’ Understanding of Reporting Requirements

We also found that not all project officers understood what grantees

should report to them regarding state licensing citations. ORR grant

agreements require grantees to notify their ORR project officer within 24

hours if any of their facilities receive a citation from a state licensing

agency. However, three of the five ORR project officers with oversight of

our nine selected facilities said that grantees are not required to report

state licensing citations issued to their facilities and grantees do not report

this information to them. The other two project officers said that grantees

are required to report state licensing citations. ORR officials told us that

project officers do not receive guidance regarding reporting of state

licensing citations beyond what is stated in the grant agreements.

ORR project officers, who have primary responsibility within ORR for

reviewing the quarterly performance reports, also had different

understandings of whether or how grantees should include state licensing

citations in their performance reports.

ORR program officials we

interviewed said that grantees should report state licensing citations in

their quarterly reports. While two of the five project officers overseeing our

selected facilities agreed, the same three project officers who said

grantees were not required to report state licensing citations to them also

said they were not required to include these citations in their quarterly

performance reports and may not do so. Two of those three project

officers had oversight of the three selected facilities which we found did

not include this information in their quarterly reports.

HHS grant regulations state that the awarding agency should provide

grant recipients with clear performance indicators, and that reporting

ORR policy states that project officers review quarterly performance reports. In addition,

according to this policy, ACF’s Office of Grants Management also reviews these reports.

Letter

Page 27 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

requirements are to be clearly articulated.

In addition, federal standards

for internal control state that management should internally and externally

communicate the necessary quality information to achieve objectives.

Without clearer instructions on how grantees should report state licensing

agency citations to ORR in their quarterly performance reports, and in

what level of detail, ORR officials, including project officers reviewing

future grant applications or grant continuation applications from existing

grantees, will not have a complete record of identified state licensing

deficiencies and whether they were addressed. In addition, if ORR does

not take steps—such as through guidance or training—to clarify project

officers’ understanding of what grantees are required to report to them

regarding state licensing citations, project officers may not provide

effective oversight to the facilities they oversee.

ORRStaffandStateLicensingAgenciesReported

LimitedInformationSharing,andThatMoreInformation

WouldBenefitTheirMonitoring

According to our survey of state licensing agencies, there is limited

information sharing between ORR and state agencies. For example, 21 of

the 23 state licensing agencies that were monitoring ORR-funded

facilities in their state responded to our survey that they did not regularly

share monitoring reports or findings with ORR, and 11 stated that they did

not contact ORR when significant issues arose (see fig. 5). None of the

23 state licensing agencies monitoring ORR-funded facilities said in our

survey that ORR regularly shares its monitoring reports. ORR program

officials said they would share copies of ORR monitoring reports if a state

licensing agency made a formal request to the department, and that they

typically share facility census information with state licensing agencies.

Specifically, the regulations provide that the federal award may include specific

performance goals, indicators, milestones, or expected outcomes, and that reporting

requirements “must be clearly articulated such that, where appropriate, performance

during the execution of the Federal award has a standard against which non –Federal

entity performance can be measured. ” 45 C.F.R. § 75.210(d). See also 45 C.F.R. §

75.301, which states that “[t]he HHS awarding agency should provide recipients with clear

performance goals, indicators, and milestones as described in § 75.210. Performance

reporting frequency and content should be established to not only allow the HHS awarding

agency to understand the recipient progress but also to facilitate identification of promising

practices among recipients and build the evidence upon which the HHS awarding

agency's program and performance decisions are made.”

GAO-14-704G.

Letter

Page 28 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Figure 5: Communication between Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and State Licensing Agencies about Facilities

Providing Care for Unaccompanied Children

Several state licensing agency officials we interviewed and many we

surveyed reported they had some contact with ORR, but said this contact

was irregular. For example, officials at the state licensing agency that

began the process to revoke an ORR grantee’s license in September

2018 told us they were only contacted by ORR officials about the

deficiencies they had found after media reports were published on cases

of abuse at some of the grantee’s facilities. An official at another state

licensing agency told us that ORR reaches out if the agency is notified

that a state licensing citation involves serious allegations. ORR staff also

reported limited contact with state licensing officials. ORR guidance

states that compliance with state licensing standards is one of the areas

that should be monitored by project officers and field staff.

However,

three of the five ORR project officers for our selected facilities reported no

contact with state licensing agency officials.

Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR Guide: Children Entering the United States

Unaccompanied, Section 5.5.2, accessed June 1, 2020,

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/children-entering-the-united-states-unaccompanied-

section-5#5.2.

Letter

Page 29 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

In addition, most state licensing agencies do not have a point of contact

with ORR. Officials from 20 of the 28 state agencies that responded to

our survey said they did not have an established ORR point of contact.

An official from one state licensing agency said they would likely ask staff

at ORR-funded facilities in their state for a point of contact, or would

search the internet for a contact within ORR if they needed to contact the

agency. Another state licensing official told us their agency has no way of

notifying ORR if a state license should be revoked, or if there is an

immediate need to remove a child as a result of abuse or neglect.

Officials from three state agencies told us that they had previously

attempted to contact ORR to resolve issues with facilities. According to

these officials, one agency made repeated attempts before hearing from

ORR, one never received a response, and one was told that ORR could

not confirm or share information. Establishing points of contact would

facilitate the sharing of key information between ORR and state licensing

agencies in a timely way, and ensure ORR has information about ongoing

issues at its facilities, including any issues that may put children at risk.

Officials at state licensing agencies said their monitoring of facilities would

benefit from improved information sharing with ORR (see sidebar). Of the

28 state agencies that responded to our survey, including agencies that

did not yet license ORR-funded facilities, 25 reported they would find it

useful to receive additional information from ORR. For example, one

licensing agency reported in survey follow-up communication that it was

not aware that a facility in the state had recently been awarded an ORR

grant and was required to obtain a license. Ten state licensing agencies

responded that it would be helpful to receive ORR’s monitoring reports on

facilities in their state, which one respondent said would help identify

compliance issues for its own monitoring visits. Eight state licensing

agencies responded that they would find it helpful to receive notification

when ORR awards a grant to a facility in their state. Officials at one state

licensing agency noted that such notification would help it ensure

unaccompanied children receive all services available in the state. Types

of information state licensing agency officials reported would be useful

included a list of ORR-funded facilities in their state, copies of grantee

cooperative agreements, and ORR policies and guidance for funded

facilities.

Officials at six state licensing agencies reported in our survey that they

would like to share additional information with ORR, including state

monitoring reports. Officials from ORR stated that state licensing reports

and information on corrective actions would greatly assist ORR in its own

oversight of funded facilities; however, not all state licensing agencies

Selected State Licensing Agency Officials’

Views on Benefits of Additional

Information Sharing w ith ORR

"The more know ledge w e have about issues,

concerns, and problems at the entities w e

regulate, as w ell as their record of compliance

w ith other regulatory entities, the better able

and more effective we are when it comes to

ensuring child safety and w ell-being. It is also

good to know what other regulatory entities

require, so that w e can inform those

regulatory entities if w e become aw are of a

situation w here their requirements are not

being met. We partner closely w ith other in-

state government entities w ith regulatory and

contractual oversight of private child-caring

agencies, and it w ould be beneficial to have a

similar relationship w ith ORR."

“ORR should be aw are of licensing concerns

since these represent bottom line

expectations regarding health and safety.”

“It w ould be beneficial if a state is notified by

ORR w hen a provider within the state

receives a grant aw ard…and what services

the grant w ill provide. This w ould alleviate

future confusion if the state later hears that

there is an ORR provider in their state.”

Source: Written responses to GAO survey from selected state

licensing agencies about the Office of Refugee Resettlement

(ORR). | GAO-20-609

Letter

Page 30 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

have been willing to share this information. Four of the five ORR project

officers for our selected facilities said that additional information sharing

with state licensing agencies would be beneficial to their monitoring of

grantees. For example, one project officer said additional communication

would help ensure consistency in state and ORR monitoring.

ORR program officials told us at the time of our review that they were

exploring the development of a standard operating procedure on

communication with state licensing agencies, but did not provide further

details, such as when they will decide whether to develop such

procedures and whether state licensing agencies would be involved in

this effort. Federal standards for internal control state that agencies

should communicate quality information externally, and use quality

information to achieve their objectives.

Without improved

communication with state licensing agencies, ORR may not be fully

informed about issues at its grantees’ facilities. By working with state

licensing agencies to develop a plan for mutual information sharing, ORR

can maximize the benefits of such communication for both states and

ORR.

ORRPrimarilyAddressesGrantee

NoncompliancebyRequiringCorrective

Actions,butMonitoringandCorrectiveActions

HaveNotAlwaysBeenTimely

ORRisDevelopingaNewDatabaseforTracking

CorrectiveActionsIssuedtoAddressNoncompliance

ORR policy states that corrective actions are the cornerstone of ORR’s

monitoring policy for facilities providing care for unaccompanied children,

and may be issued at any time as a result of ORR’s various monitoring

GAO-14-704G.

Letter

Page 31 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

activities.

However, it has been difficult for ORR staff to access

comprehensive information on past corrective actions. Until recently, only

one of the four teams that can issue corrective actions to facilities—the

monitoring team that conducts week-long on-site monitoring visits—

maintained centralized data on the corrective actions it issued to facilities,

according to ORR officials. All four teams (the monitoring team, project

officers, federal field specialists, and Prevention of Sexual Abuse team)

generally saved documentation of the corrective actions they issued in a

shared electronic folder, according to ORR officials, but this system did

not allow ORR staff to easily identify the full history and status of a facility.

For example, one of the eight field specialists for our selected facilities

said that when first assigned to their facility, they would have had difficulty

finding information on the shared folder about the facility’s past history

had they not had the assistance of the past field specialist. Two of the

other specialists for our selected facilities said they did not review past

corrective actions at all when first assigned to their facilities. In addition,

while the field specialists generally said that project officers and

monitoring team staff inform them when issuing corrective actions to

facilities that the field specialist oversees, three of the eight said this is not

always the case.

Because only one of the four teams centrally tracked the corrective

actions it issued, ORR’s reporting to Congress and others who requested

information on corrective actions was incomplete. ORR program officials

said they used the monitoring team’s tracking data to respond to

information requests, including requests from Congress. However, we

reviewed a report provided to Congress in May 2019, which did not

Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR Guide: Children Entering the United States

Unaccompanied, Section 5.5, accessed June 1, 2020,

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/children-entering-the-united-states-unaccompanied-

section-5#5.5.

HHS’s Office of Inspector General also recently found that ORR’s reporting system for

significant incidents of a sexual nature involving children lacked designated fields that

would allow ORR to effectively track such incidents a nd ensure they are addressed

appropriately. This analysis found that ORR’s current system for reporting such incidents

requires field specialists and other ORR staff to conduct potentially time -consuming

manual reviews of narrative summaries in order to id entify key information. The Office of

Inspector General recommended that ORR assess its current system and identify

changes that will allow ORR to conduct more efficient and effective oversight in order to

protect the children in ORR’s care. See HHS, Office of Inspector General, The Office of

Refugee Resettlement’s Incident Reporting System Is Not Effectively Capturing Data To

Assist Its Efforts To Ensure the Safety of Minors in HHS Custody, June 2020.

Letter

Page 32 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

specify that data presented on corrective actions was limited to those

issued by the monitoring team.

In October 2019, as we conducted our review, ORR awarded a contract

to improve its corrective action data tracking and reporting by developing

a database to track corrective actions by all four teams that issue them,

according to ORR program officials.

ORR officials said the contractor

had met with all teams that will use the database to learn their data and

reporting needs. Officials said they tentatively plan for the new database,

which will become part of ORR’s new case management system, to be

partially operational by November 2020 and fully operational by late 2021.

ORRHasNotMetSomeMonitoringGoalsandHasNot

NotifiedSomeFacilitiesoftheNeedforCorrectiveActions

untilMonthsafterNoncomplianceWasIdentified

Audits on Preventing Sexual Abuse and Harassment

ORR has not ensured the facilities it funds are audited for compliance

with standards to prevent and respond to sexual abuse and sexual

harassment of children in their care, as required by ORR regulations. In

December 2014, ORR published an Interim Final Rule entitled Standards

To Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Sexual Abuse and Sexual

Harassment Involving Unaccompanied Children, in response to a

requirement in the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of

HHS, Administration for Children and Families, Report to Congress on Unaccompanied

Alien Children Program Facility Oversight. This report presents data on corrective actions

issued in fiscal year 2018, noting that some monitoring reports and corrective actions

stemming from fiscal year 2018 monitoring visits were still pending at the time of the

report. The report indicates that the data on corrective actions come from the site visit

team, but also states that the data represent “all corrective actions ORR issued in FY

2018,” even though they do not include those issued by other ORR teams.

ORR’s position description for the contractor states that their duties include enhancing

the collection and analysis of program performance data, including processes that yield

reliable and informative data and better capture and communicate corrective actions. The

officials said they also intend for the database to include corrective actions issued by

Contracting Officer’s Representatives during periods when ORR funds facilities via

contract.

Letter

Page 33 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

2013.

The rule stated that each facility caring for unaccompanied

children would be audited for compliance with the standards by February

22, 2019, and every three years thereafter.

ORR’s Prevention of Sexual

Abuse (PSA) team contracted with an outside organization to conduct

these audits, according to program officials.

ORR program officials said that the PSA team’s contractor began

conducting the audits in January 2019. In a report submitted to Congress

in May 2019, ORR stated that each facility it funded would receive a PSA

team audit by the end of fiscal year 2019 (September 30, 2019).

ORR

program officials said the PSA team’s contractor had audited 67

facilities—out of 133 that were in operation when the audit process was

implemented—by April 30, 2020, when the contract ended. Program

officials said the contractor was unable to audit all facilities during this

time because they had only a one-year contract and began the audits

later than expected. They said ORR was working with the General

Services Administration to re-compete the contract as a five-year contract

and that the new contractor will begin the remaining audits in October

2020. They estimate that the remaining 66 facilities will be audited in

fiscal year 2021. Under this new plan, ORR will have missed the audit

deadline for those facilities by over a year and a half, and audits will be

further delayed for newer facilities that have opened since the audit

process began.

Site Visits and Corrective Actions

ORR has not adhered to its policy to conduct a monitoring site visit of

each facility at least every two years, and provide a monitoring report to

79 Fed. Reg. 77,768 (Dec. 24, 2014). Specifically, section 1101(c) of the Act directed

the Secretary of HHS to issue ‘‘a final rule adopting national standards for the detection,

prevention, reduction, and punishment of rape and sexual assault in facilities that maintain

custody’’ of unaccompanied children. Pub. L. No. 113–4, § 1101(c), 27 Stat. 54, 134-35

(codified at 34 U.S.C. § 30307(d)).

45 C.F.R. § 411.111(a). The rule does not apply to secure care provider facilities and

individual foster care homes. Secure care provider facilities are subject to the Department

of Justice’s National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape, 28

C.F.R. pt. 115. According to the rule, unaccompanied children placed in traditional foster

care reside in licensed foster homes, attend pub lic school, and receive community-based

services, and ORR stated that it therefore was not practicable or necessary to extend the

standards to traditional foster care homes.

HHS, Administration for Children and Families, Report to Congress on Unaccompanied

Alien Children Program Facility Oversight.

Letter

Page 34 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

the facility on any corrective actions identified during the site visit within

30 days. According to the policy, site visits involve a comprehensive

review of each program’s compliance with ORR requirements for program

management, services, safety and security, child protection, case

management, and personnel and fiscal management. However,

according to ORR records, there were 23 facilities in fiscal years 2018

and 2019 that had not received a site visit for more than two years.

2016, we found that ORR was not able to complete all planned site visits

for fiscal years 2014 and 2015 due to resource constraints. We

recommended that ORR review its monitoring program to ensure that it

conducted site visits in a timely manner.

ORR policy further states that the monitoring team should send a

monitoring report documenting any necessary corrective actions to a

facility within 30 days after the site visit, but the monitoring team did not

meet this timeframe for many of the facilities that received site visits in

fiscal years 2018 and 2019.

Specifically, these teams averaged over 55

business days—11 weeks—to provide reports in fiscal years 2018 and

2019, according to data from ORR’s tracking system. Our analysis of

these data found that monitoring teams took more than 30 business days

to send reports to 77 percent of facilities they visited in fiscal year 2018

It is possible there were additional facilities for which ORR did not meet the 2-year site

visit goal. We reviewed internal ORR tracking documents indicating there were 22 facilities

that had not received a site visit for more than 2 years, but ORR officials later said the

monitoring team had identified an additional facility for which they had not met the goal.

See GAO-16-180. In August 2017, ORR officials provided documentation showing ORR

met its monitoring goals for fiscal year 2016. ORR officials told us in May 2019 that they

had completed all but five of the scheduled monitoring visits for fiscal years 2017 and

2018, and provided monitoring plans for the next 2-year cycle. The ORR records we

obtained for this review showed that 18 of the 23 facilities for which ORR did not meet the

2-year monitoring goal in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 had been scheduled for visits in

fiscal year 2019.

Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR Guide: Children Entering the United States

Unaccompanied, Section 5.5.1, accessed June 1, 2020,

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/children-entering-the-united-states-unaccompanied-s

ection-5#5.5. Although the policy does not specify business or calendar days, ORR

officials said that they interpret it to mean business days. After receiving the report,

facilities typically have 30 days to provide ORR with a corrective action plan. Once the

plan is received, ORR officials said that staff follow up as needed to confirm that all issues

are resolved.

Letter

Page 35 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

and 78 percent of facilities they visited in fiscal year 2019.

Some reports

took much longer; one report for a site visit conducted in fiscal year 2018

was not sent to the facility until early 2020, well over a year after the site

visit.

Monitoring team staff said they conduct exit meetings at the end of each

visit in which they inform facility staff of the corrective actions they plan to

issue. However, they said they sometimes identify additional corrective

actions after the visit, and this was echoed by three field specialists who

said that monitoring staff do not always notify facility staff of all corrective

actions at these meetings. Monitoring team staff also said that after a visit

they debrief the relevant project officer and field specialist on their

findings so they can start working with the facility on any corrective

actions before they receive the report. However, as previously mentioned,

some field specialists told us monitoring staff do not always inform them

of corrective actions, which means facilities may not know about some

needed actions until receiving their monitoring report months later.

Corrective action plans from several of our selected facilities support this,

indicating that the facility did not respond to some corrective actions

resulting from their site visit until receiving the monitoring report. None of

our selected facilities received their monitoring report within 30 days of

the site visit, and the longest delay among them was for one facility

overseeing multiple foster care homes, visited by ORR in March 2018,

which did not receive its monitoring report listing all corrective actions

until 8 months later (November 2018). While the facility’s response noted

some actions that were completed during or shortly after the site visit,

others, which included improving foster parent training, providing access

to religious services, and informing children that they were allowed to

send and receive mail, were not implemented until more than 9 months

after the visit. ORR staff did not confirm completion of all corrective

actions until early March 2019, nearly a year after the site visit.

ORR officials said that limited resources and staff prevented the

monitoring team from meeting its goals to visit each facility every 2 years

and provide facilities with a monitoring report within 30 days of the visit.

Monitoring team staff also said that that reports involving many or more

complex corrective actions took longer to write and review. They said

Numbers for fiscal year 2018 do not include three facilities that ORR st aff visited, but the

facilities closed before they could send the monitoring report. Median business days

between the end of the site visit and when the facility received the report were 43 for fiscal

year 2018 and 57 for fiscal year 2019.

Letter

Page 36 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

shifting ORR priorities sometimes hampered their efforts to meet these

goals, such as when staff were pulled from the team to help with efforts

related to reunifying separated families or to fill vacancies on other ORR

teams. In addition, Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has recently

impeded ORR’s progress in conducting monitoring site visits. ORR

program officials told us in June 2020 that at that time, the monitoring

team was not conducting site visits and that the longer the COVID-19

pandemic lasts, the more challenging it will be for the monitoring team to

conduct all site visits it planned for fiscal year 2020.

ORR program officials said that they planned to hire six additional

monitoring team staff in spring 2020. In March 2020, these officials told us

that this would be sufficient for ORR to meet its monitoring goals in fiscal

year 2020. As of June 2020, they said ORR had hired two additional staff

for the monitoring team and the hiring process was ongoing. Monitoring

team staff who responded to our written questions said their ability to

meet monitoring goals going forward would be contingent on hiring and

maintaining full staffing levels. They also described some actions that

ORR had taken in an effort to reduce delays, including tracking

monitoring report timelines starting in May 2019 and transferring

monitoring report approval authority from the ORR Director to the Deputy

Director. Monitoring team staff said they anticipated that these steps

would reduce the amount of time it takes to submit reports, but were

uncertain about whether they would be able to meet the 30-day timeframe

called for in ORR policy.

Project Officer and Field Staff Workloads

In addition to the staffing and resource limitations described by monitoring

team members, some project officers we interviewed said that ORR did

not have enough staff in these roles. The four project officers who were

overseeing our selected facilities said they were responsible for more

facilities than they considered manageable. They said a manageable

workload was between five and 12 facilities, depending on the size and

type, but their current workloads ranged from 14 to 20 facilities. ORR

program officials said as of June 2020 they had hired six additional

According to these officials, the monitoring team attempted in late March 2020 to

conduct remote monitoring of facilities through phone calls and video walkthroughs;

however, this effort was put on hold to allow facilities to focus on COVID -19 issues. In

June 2020, ORR program officials told us that the monitoring team was assessing weekly

whether remote and/or on-site monitoring could resume and was looking for ways to

streamline the monitoring process for future site visits.

Letter

Page 37 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

project officers and planned to hire three more project officers and two

senior project officers. Officials said they expected these new hires to

lower project officer workloads to 12 to 15 facilities each.

In addition, two field specialists said that ORR did not have sufficient

numbers of field staff, while a third specialist said that ORR recently hired

more field staff which had helped improve field staffing levels. ORR

program officials told us in March 2020 that they were hiring 18 field

specialists and two supervisors, and expected the additional staff would

allow this team to perform more site visits and develop strategies for

process improvement. As of June 2020, they said ORR had hired three

new specialists and that the hiring process was ongoing.

While additional ORR staff may help address staff shortages that have

contributed to delays, a plan—including roles, responsibilities, and

timeframes—to guide and focus its monitoring efforts could help ensure

that ORR adheres to its own monitoring goals. Timely monitoring visits

and prompt follow-up with corrective action reports are necessary to

ensure that facilities are in compliance with all applicable grant

requirements and ORR policies, including those that help ensure

unaccompanied children are safe and provided appropriate services.

ORRHasAdditionalOptionsforRespondingtoMore

SeriousGranteeNoncompliance

ORR policy states that ORR may discontinue funding, halt placements, or

remove children completely from facilities that fail to implement corrective

actions in a timely and effective manner,

and ORR used these options

to respond to some instances of noncompliance in fiscal years 2018 and

2019. An ORR-provided list showed that in fiscal years 2018 and 2019,

ORR stopped the placement of children in at least 18 facilities (out of 165

grantee facilities ORR funded during that time) and removed children

from two of those facilities. In addition, ORR removed children from at

Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR Guide: Children Entering the United States

Unaccompanied, Section 5.5, accessed June 1, 2020,

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/children-entering-the-united-states-unaccompanied-

section-5#5.5.

Letter

Page 38 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

least two other facilities where they did not stop placements.

According

to ORR officials, they took actions against 16 of these 20 facilities for

performance or noncompliance issues, most commonly staffing concerns,

such as issues with staff background checks. In two of the four other

cases, ORR stopped placements because the facility was preparing to

close. In the other two cases, individual children were moved to a

different facility due to behavioral challenges. ORR officials said they may

also stop placement or remove children for other reasons not related to

compliance, such as an outbreak of illness at a facility.

Four of our nine selected facilities were among the 20 in which ORR

stopped placement or removed children during this time period. For

example, in March 2018, an ORR monitoring team found multiple health

and safety issues at one of these facilities, a foster care program,

according to the site visit report. Among other issues, the report identified

three unaccompanied children living in a foster home where one of the

foster parents was under investigation for sexually abusing another minor.

ORR staff ensured that all unaccompanied children were removed from

the home where the foster parent was under investigation, according to

their report. The project officer overseeing this facility said from

November 2018 to January 2019, 8 to 10 months after the ORR site visit,

the facility staff visited the facility’s other foster homes to ensure there

were no further health and safety concerns that had gone undetected. In

addition, ORR staff also found that the same facility had been without a

program director for several months, a position required by ORR, and that

facility staff reported inadequate supervision from the acting director. The

facility hired a permanent program director about 2 months after the

monitoring visit. ORR officials said they did not consider stopping the

placement of children at this facility during this two-month period because

ORR had provided the grantee with technical assistance that was

sufficient to address the identified problems.

It is possible that ORR stopped placement and/or removed children from additional

facilities during this time. ORR program officials said they do not systematically track

these actions, but compiled the list by surveying project officers. ORR amended the list

they provided after we alerted them to an additional stop placement that a field specialist

told us about that was not included in ORR’s initial list.

ORR program officials told us in June 2020 tha t they had stopped placing children at all

facilities in California, New York, and Washington states since the outbreak of COVID -19,

due to the number of COVID-19 cases in those states and the need to limit long distance

travel from the border, but were allowing foster care facilities in those states to place a

limited number of children in foster homes. The officials said they had not removed any

children from facilities due to COVID-19.

Letter

Page 39 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

As previously mentioned, in September 2018, a state licensing agency

issued notices that it intended to revoke the licenses of all eight ORR-

funded facilities that were operated by one of ORR’s largest grantees in

that state, including two of our selected facilities. According to these

notices and a letter the state agency sent to the grantee, the state agency

took this step due to persistent deficiencies including the grantee’s failure

to comply with state fingerprinting and minimum training requirements for

facility employees. In October 2018, the state agency and the grantee

reached a settlement agreement in which the grantee agreed to

voluntarily close two of its facilities, pay a monetary penalty, and submit to

additional state monitoring in exchange for keeping its licenses for the

remaining facilities.

Once the grantee and state licensing agency reached this agreement,

ORR removed children from the two facilities that closed under the

settlement agreement and temporarily stopped placing children at the

remaining six facilities. The ORR project officer who was overseeing

these facilities at the time said that ORR did not consider a stop

placement earlier, although the state licensing agency had expressed

serious concerns to the grantee a month prior. ORR resumed placing

children at the facilities once the state agency approved them to return to

full capacity. Internal ORR communications note that in the months

following the settlement agreement, the grantee met weekly with ORR

project officers and field specialists. However, current and former ORR

field specialists with oversight of two of these facilities could not provide

examples of any additional steps they took to monitor them following

these events, such as increasing the frequency of visits to these facilities.

One of the facilities was cited by an ORR site visit team in July 2019 for

not meeting ORR’s background check requirements and ORR has

required corrective action. When we asked if ORR considered taking

further enforcement action, the project officer with oversight of the facility

cited general ORR policy on corrective action follow-up and enforcement

actions but did not provide any specific information on whether ORR

considered other actions.

As part of any enforcement actions and under HHS grants policy, ORR

may recover any funds that it determines were misspent or spent for

purposes that are not allowed. According to ORR officials, ORR required

three grantees to return funds to the agency in fiscal years 2018 and

2019:

· The grantee that had some of its licenses nearly revoked in 2018 was

required to return over $5 million to ORR in July 2019. According to a

Letter

Page 40 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

letter sent by ORR to this grantee, the agency took this action

because of issues including financial conflicts of interest by executives

at the organization that violated HHS regulations, and this action was

unrelated to the grantee’s state licensing issues.

· A second grantee, in October 2019, was required to return over $15

million as a result of drawing down funds in excess of their

expenditures. ORR program officials said the grantee returned the

funds to HHS, and these funds were available to the grantee for

allowable expenditures during the budget year.

· A third grantee was required, in February 2018, to return nearly $20

million due to excessive executive compensation and various other

costs that ORR determined were not allowed under the terms of the

grant and HHS regulations. ORR terminated its agreement and closed

all facilities operated by this grantee in March 2018. The grantee

appealed the requirement that they return funds to the HHS

Departmental Appeals Board and as of June 2020, ORR was awaiting

the Board’s decision.

ORR did not require that funds be returned by the other grantees at

whose facilities it had stopped placements or removed children for

performance-related reasons in fiscal years 2018 and 2019. According to

officials at the Office of Grants Management, HHS takes steps to recover

funds from grantees whenever it determines the grantee has not complied

with their grant agreements or relevant laws and regulations in ways that

have monetary implications. They said they may recover funds from a

facility where ORR stops the placement of children for performance-

related reasons, for example if the reasons for the stop placement

included unallowable expenditures by the grantee, or resulted in the

discontinuation of grant funding.

In addition, ORR officials said that from fiscal years 2014 through 2019

there was one grantee for which the agency declined to award a new

grant at the end of its 3-year grant period. ORR declined to award this

organization a new grant in February 2019, but in July 2019 awarded a

subsequent grant to the same organization. ORR officials said they

awarded the organization a new grant because it submitted a new

application indicating it would be working with experienced

Letter

Page 41 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

subcontractors, increasing ORR’s confidence that the organization would

perform successfully.

Conclusions

ORR provides grants to organizations to care for children in federal

custody without lawful immigration status until they can find an

appropriate sponsor available to care for them. These grantees are

responsible for the health, safety, and well-being of this vulnerable

population. ORR has policies and procedures in place to aid them in

awarding grants to the best-qualified organizations and to monitor

grantees to ensure that they comply with their grant requirements and the

children receive the care they need. However, several significant lapses

in the implementation of these policies and procedures could affect the

quality of care provided to these children. For example, we found a lack of

clarity in grant announcements regarding information applicants are

required to provide to ORR, including information related to their state

licensing status and any state licensing allegations and concerns.

Improving the clarity of these grant announcements could help ensure

that applicants provide more complete information to assist ORR in

making sound funding decisions.

Additionally, while ORR has conducted outreach in some cases to state

licensing agencies to obtain key information about its grantees,

information sharing is generally limited between ORR and state agencies.

This lack of regular communication between ORR and state licensing

agencies could limit the effectiveness of both state and ORR monitoring,

increasing the possibility that some children may not receive the care and

services they need and placing their safety at risk. Further, most state

agencies we surveyed reported that they would like additional information

about ORR-funded facilities in their state.

In addition, while ORR has taken steps to more centrally track corrective

actions and regularly monitor the facilities it funds, it has not met its own

specific targets for the frequency of its monitoring site visits, as well as

audits related to the prevention of sexual abuse. Following its monitoring

site visits, ORR does not consistently provide grantees with timely

information on changes they need to make to comply with ORR policy.

However, as previously noted, our review of the two applications found that of the three

proposed sites that were the same in both applications, five of the six subcontractor

partners were the same as in the application that was rejected.

Letter

Page 42 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Addressing these issues would better ensure the well-being of

unaccompanied children and that federal funds are provided to the most

qualified organizations.

RecommendationsforExecutiveAction

We are making the following eight recommendations to ORR:

The Director of ORR should clarify in its grant announcements the

information and supporting documentation applicants are required to

provide in their grant applications with respect to their state licensing

status, eligibility, and allegations and concerns. (Recommendation 1).

The Director of ORR should take steps to develop, and ensure that

officials reviewing grant applications implement, a process to verify the

accuracy and completeness of information reported by grant applicants

on state licensing status, eligibility, allegations and concerns.

(Recommendation 2).

The Director of ORR should ensure that the grant review process

includes a documented review of applicants’ past performance on ORR

grants for those that have previously received grants to care for

unaccompanied children. This could include, for example, a systematic

review of previous quarterly and annual performance reports and a review

of corrective actions issued by all ORR monitoring staff to all ORR-funded

facilities previously operated by the applicant. (Recommendation 3).

The Director of ORR should clarify in its instructions to grantees the

information they are required to report on state licensing citations in their

quarterly performance reports. (Recommendation 4).

The Director of ORR should take steps, such as through guidance or

training, to ensure that project officers clearly understand the requirement

that grantees report state licensing citations at any of their facilities within

24 hours and include state licensing citations in their quarterly

performance reports. (Recommendation 5).

The Director of ORR should work with state agencies that license ORR-

funded facilities to develop a plan for mutual information sharing,

including processes for ORR outreach to states during the grant

application review process and ongoing information sharing on ORR and

Letter

Page 43 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

state monitoring processes and identified deficiencies. (Recommendation

6).

The Director of ORR should ensure that ORR provides and maintains a

current point of contact for each state agency that licenses ORR grantees

to facilitate information sharing regarding ORR-funded facilities.

(Recommendation 7).

The Director of ORR should develop a plan—including roles,

responsibilities, and timeframes—to guide and focus ORR’s efforts to

meet its goals to:

· conduct an audit of each facility’s compliance with ORR standards on

preventing and responding to sexual assault, as required under the

Interim Final Rule,

· conduct on-site monitoring visits to each facility at least every 2 years

in accordance with ORR policy, and

· report any noncompliance to the facility within 30 days of the site visit,

in accordance with ORR policy.

(Recommendation 8).

AgencyCommentsandOurEvaluation

We provided a draft of this product to the Department of Health and

Human Services (HHS) for review and comment. We received written

comments from HHS, which are reproduced in appendix III. HHS also

provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate.

HHS concurred with all of our recommendations and outlined steps that

ORR plans to take to address them. In its response to our first

recommendation, HHS stated that in June and July 2020, ORR published

four new grant announcements, which it updated to require that

applicants be licensed at the time of their application and provide

documentation of their license in order to be considered for a grant.

These new announcements also require applicants to report any

allegations/concerns of abuse and/or neglect, as well as any denial,

Letter

Page 44 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

suspension, and/or revocation of their license.

HHS stated that ORR

would continue to assess whether the requirement to be licensed at the

time of application is reasonable and should be applied to future funding

cycles. We reviewed these grant announcements and believe that the

updated language is a promising first step toward clarifying the

information applicants must provide regarding their state licensing status

and any allegations or concerns, as we recommended. However, we

found that these grant announcements did not include clarification on two

key points: the time period for which any allegations or concerns should

be reported, and whether applicants operating multiple facilities should

report allegations and concerns that have occurred at any of their

facilities, or only those at facilities specified in the application. In addition,

if ORR decides not to retain the new requirement to be licensed prior to

applying in future grant announcements, it should clarify how applicants

that have not yet obtained a license should demonstrate license eligibility

in their application.

In concurring with our second and third recommendations, HHS noted

that ORR project officers currently assess the accuracy and

completeness of grant applicants’ state licensing information and consider

past grant performance in their reviews, but that ORR would develop

guidance and training in an effort to standardize those elements of their

reviews.

We agree that guidance and training are needed, given our

finding that the 11 project officers provided conflicting accounts of

whether they communicate with state licensing agencies during the

application review process, and could not provide documentation of their

reviews of past performance. In response to our fourth and fifth

recommendations, HHS stated that ORR would work with the Office of

Management and Budget to add a reporting requirement on state

licensing citations to grantees’ quarterly performance reports, and would

develop guidance and training to ensure project officers understand

grantee reporting requirements regarding state licensing citations.

With respect to our sixth recommendation, HHS stated that information

sharing between ORR and state licensing agencies would benefit both

In its official response to our recommendations, HHS stated that the grant

announcements require awardees to report allegations and concerns. However, HHS later

clarified that this sentence should be updated to read applicants, not awardees, consistent

with the grant announcements.

HHS stated that, under the department’s grants policy, ORR is unable to require the

panel of outside reviewers to verify the accuracy and completeness of information

provided; however, ORR project officers may perform such an assessment.

Letter

Page 45 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

parties, but noted that implementation of the recommendation would

depend on the state agencies’ willingness and ability to share information.

HHS said that ORR will reach out to other ACF program offices and state

licensing agencies, and will work to identify information sharing goals and

potential mechanisms to facilitate communication. We recognize that

states may vary in their interest and ability to share information with ORR.

However, most states we surveyed were interested in some additional

information sharing. We encourage ORR to work with each state

individually to develop a mutually beneficial information sharing

relationship. Regarding our seventh recommendation, HHS noted that

ORR will develop and maintain a list of points of contact for each state

agency that licenses an ORR-funded facility.

Finally, HHS outlined several steps ORR planned to take in response to

our eighth recommendation on monitoring. With respect to auditing

facilities’ compliance with ORR standards on preventing and responding

to sexual assault, as required under the Interim Final Rule, HHS

reiterated ORR’s plans to solicit a new contract for these audits, but did

not state the timeline for publishing the contract solicitation. We urge

ORR to work as expeditiously as possible to ensure the remaining audits

are carried out, given that it has already missed the initial deadline by

over a year. With respect to conducting monitoring visits to each facility

every 2 years in accordance with ORR policy, HHS stated that the

suspension of these visits due to COVID-19 makes it unlikely that ORR’s

monitoring team will be able to visit all facilities originally scheduled for

fiscal year 2020. HHS stated that ORR plans to hire additional staff to

ensure that the team can catch up on these visits once it is safe to

resume them. We recognize the real challenges caused by the current

pandemic and that it will likely be very difficult to meet the 2-year goal for

fiscal year 2020. With respect to future efforts, in addition to its current

hiring plans, we encourage ORR to continue monitoring the team’s

staffing levels to ensure it can consistently meet its goals going forward.

Finally, with respect to reporting noncompliance to facilities within 30 days

of the site visit in accordance with ORR policy, HHS stated that ORR is in

the process of developing a best practice resource guide for monitoring

staff to further improve the timeliness of report submissions.

As agreed with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents

earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days from its

issue date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to relevant

congressional committees, the Secretary of Health and Human Services,

and other interested parties. In addition, this report will be available at no

charge on GAO’s website at http://www.gao.gov.

Letter

Page 46 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact

me at (202) 512–7215 or larink@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices

of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last

page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report

are listed in appendix IV.

Sincerely yours,

Kathryn A. Larin, Director

Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 47 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Appendix I:Scopeand

Methodology

This report examines the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement’s (ORR)

grant making process and oversight of its grantees that care for

unaccompanied children. It addresses (1) how ORR considers state

licensing issues and past performance in its review of grant applications;

(2) state licensing agencies’ policies and practices for overseeing ORR

grantees, and how ORR and states share information on oversight; and

(3) ORR policies and practices for addressing grantee noncompliance

with grant agreements.

We used several approaches to address our objectives, including

reviewing relevant federal laws and regulations and ORR policies,

procedures, and guidance. In addition, we reviewed documents related to

ORR’s grants, including grant applications approved for funding in fiscal

years 2018 and 2019, conducted a survey of 29 state licensing agencies

in states where ORR had awarded grants to operate facilities as of July

2019, and reviewed information grantees submit to ORR on monitoring by

state licensing agencies. We also reviewed federal internal control

standards on using and communicating quality information. In addition,

we reviewed ORR monitoring documentation and corrective action data.

In addition, we interviewed or submitted written questions to relevant

ORR and Administration for Children and Families (ACF) officials.

Specifically, we collected information from ORR program officials, project

officers responsible for reviewing grant applications and monitoring, and

ORR federal field specialists, among others. We also collected

information from ACF Office of Grants Management (OGM) officials.

While we conducted some interviews with these officials, we obtained

other information through written questions at the request of the

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In addition, we

interviewed state licensing agency officials in selected states.

Further, to incorporate the perspectives of ORR grantees in our review,

we sought to interview staff of ORR grantees. However, HHS wanted to

have one of its attorneys present at these interviews or take other

measures that we believed could have prevented grantees from speaking

freely with us about their experiences with ORR. We were unable to

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 48 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

reach timely agreement with HHS on procedures for conducting these

interviews that would address this concern. As a result, our review is

based on information obtained from ORR officials and documents and,

where relevant, state documentation and interviews.

ReviewofORRGrantsDocumentation

To address our first objective, we reviewed documents related to ORR

grants made in fiscal years 2018 and 2019, the most recent years

available at the time of our review. We reviewed all eight ORR grant

announcements with due dates during these two fiscal years and all

seven funding decision memoranda issued by ORR during this time.

assess the reliability of grant award data in ORR’s funding decision

memoranda, we obtained information from ORR officials knowledgeable

about the data and reviewed the user manual for the data system that

generated the data. We found these data to be sufficiently reliable for our

reporting purposes.

In addition, we reviewed all 58 applications from applicants to whom ORR

awarded grants during these two fiscal years. We analyzed these

approved grant applications to determine what information applicants

included about state licensing and past performance on ORR grants,

where applicable, among other information. To determine whether

applicants that received ORR grants in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 were

able to obtain a state license and whether they had begun serving

children, we compared the 58 applications that ORR awarded grants to

with data ORR provided on facilities’ status as of July 2020.

assessed the reliability of the data provided by ORR on its facilities by

obtaining information from ORR officials with knowledge of the data.

While ORR program officials acknowledged that these data are not

always kept up-to-date, we found the data sufficiently reliable for the

purpose of providing approximate numbers of facilities that had obtained

a license and begun serving children. We also reviewed other ORR and

ACF documents related to the grant process, including checklists and

training materials, summary reports from the outside panel that reviews

ORR issued a funding announcement for secure shelter providers with a due date of

June 29, 2018. According to ORR officials, either ORR did not receive any applications in

response to this grant announcement or ORR’s contractor screened out all applicants

during its initial review. Therefore, ORR did not fund any applicants in this round and did

not issue a funding decision memorandum.

We also reviewed data provided by ORR on its facilities as of February 5, 2020.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 49 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

applications, internal guidance for project officers’ application review,

notices of awards, and grant agreements.

SurveyofStateLicensingAgencies

To learn about state licensing agencies’ oversight policies and practices

for ORR-funded facilities, and how these agencies share information with

ORR, we conducted a Microsoft Word-based survey of 29 licensing

agencies in 26 states, including the District of Columbia, where ORR had

awarded grants to operate facilities as of July 2019. Our survey included

questions about whether a state licensing agency currently licensed

ORR-funded facilities, its ongoing oversight practices, any deficiencies it

found at ORR-funded facilities, and information sharing with ORR. We

administered the survey from October 2019 to January 2020.

Because we surveyed all relevant state licensing agencies, our survey

had no sampling error. We took several steps to minimize nonsampling

error, including using methods to ensure we sent the survey to the

appropriate agencies and officials. We identified agencies to survey

through a combination of ORR-provided information and online research,

and confirmed that they were the appropriate licensing agency and point

of contact prior to distribution of the survey. Some of these officials

directed us to other officials at their agency. We also conducted pretests

with three state licensing agencies, chosen to reflect a variety of state

experiences with licensing ORR-funded facilities, to check for the clarity

of questions and flow of the survey. We made revisions to the survey

based on feedback from the pretests.

We sent the survey by e-mail in an attached Microsoft Word form that

respondents could return electronically after marking checkboxes or

entering responses into open answer boxes. Finally, we contacted all

respondents who had not returned the questionnaire by email and phone.

We followed up with respondents who submitted surveys with missing

question responses via email and phone to clarify their answers.

To supplement the survey and obtain further supporting information on

survey responses, we emailed state agency officials who responded to

questions on whether additional information from ORR would be useful.

We also emailed all state licensing agencies who responded to our

survey and asked if they had a point of contact at ORR.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 50 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

We received completed responses from 28 of the 29 state licensing

agencies we surveyed. Washington State Department of Children, Youth,

and Families declined to participate in the survey.

Interviewswith StateLicensingAgencies

To obtain further information on state licensing policies and practices, as

well as on their information-sharing with ORR, we conducted semi-

structured interviews with state licensing agency officials in Arizona,

Maryland, and Texas. We selected these states based on a combination

of criteria, including the number of ORR grantee facilities in each state, a

mix of types of state licensing agencies, and border and non-border

states (see table 2). We also selected Arizona in part because it has two

different agencies that license ORR grantee facilities.

Table 2: States and Licensing Agencies Selected for In-Depth Interviews, with Key Selection Characteristics

State

Number of ORR-funded

facilities located in the state

Licensing agency(ies)

Border

state?

Arizona

Department of Child Safety

Department of Health Services

Yes

Maryland

Department of Human Services

Texas

Department of Family and Protective Services

Yes

Source: List of facilities provided by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and state licensing agency information. | GAO-20-609

Based on a list provided by ORR as of July 30, 2019. Some facilities w ere not yet open, according to

this ORR data.

At each of these agencies, we interviewed state licensing officials at

various levels, including agency leadership and officials who monitor

facilities, to ensure we obtained a range of views. Additionally, we

reviewed each agency’s responses to the survey to determine if there

were answers that necessitated additional discussion or clarification. We

also conducted more limited survey follow-up interviews with officials from

New York’s Office of Children and Family Services, Georgia’s Department

of Human Services, and North Carolina’s Department of Health and

Human Services. We chose these states based on their survey

responses and licensing challenges at ORR-funded facilities identified by

news media reports and other federal agencies.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 51 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

ReviewofQuarterlyPerformanceReports

To learn what information grantees report to ORR regarding state

licensing citations at their facilities, we reviewed quarterly performance

reports submitted to ORR by the grantees that operated nine selected

facilities in our three states. We selected these facilities based on the

number of corrective actions received on their last ORR monitoring visit,

number of corrective actions received from their state licensing agency in

the past year (if known), and to reflect a range of facility types, sizes, and

populations served (see table 3).

Table 3: Office of Refugee Resettlement-Funded Facilities Selected by GAO for Review of Quarterly Performance Reports

State

Facility

Type

Population served

Size (bed

capacity)

Number of ORR

corrective actions

issued as a result of

ORR’s most recent

monitoring site visit

Number of state

licensing corrective

actions issued in FY

2019

Arizona

Shelter

Males and females

6-17

304

Arizona

Shelter

Males and females

0-17

300

Arizona

Shelter

Males, 12-17

Information not

available

Maryland

Shelter

Males, 9-17

Maryland

Transitional and

long-term foster

care

Males 9-17

(Transitional Foster

Care);

Males and females

2-17, pregnant and

parenting teens,

youth with special

needs (Long Term

Foster Care)

Texas

Shelter

Males 0-17, females

0-12, parenting

teens 12-17

400

Texas

Shelter

Males and females

8-17, pregnant and

parenting teens

100

The two facilities we selected in Maryland, and two of the four facilities we selected in

Texas, consisted of a shelter and foster care facility that were operated out of the same

location. Three of the nine facilities—one in Texas and two in Arizona—were operated by

the same ORR grantee.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 52 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

State

Facility

Type

Population served

Size (bed

capacity)

Number of ORR

corrective actions

issued as a result of

ORR’s most recent

monitoring site visit

Number of state

licensing corrective

actions issued in FY

2019

Texas

Shelter

Males and females

12-17, pregnant

teens in their first

trimester

110

Texas

Transitional foster

care

Males and females

0-17, pregnant

teens

Source: List of facilities provided by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and state licensing agency information. | GAO-20-609

Based on a list provided by ORR as of July 30, 2019.

State licensing agency did not make monitoring reports publicly available.

Not applicable because facility had not yet received an ORR monitoring site visit

We reviewed all 37 quarterly performance reports that were submitted to

ORR by the grantees that operated these nine facilities in fiscal years

2018 and 2019 for quarters in which they received a state licensing

citation. To determine whether these grantees reported state licensing

citations in their quarterly reports on those nine facilities, we compared

them to publicly available state licensing reports. We were unable to

conduct this analysis for one of the facilities we selected in Arizona, which

is licensed by a state agency that does not make information on its

citations publicly available and did not respond to our requests for this

information.

AnalysisofCorrectiveActionsandMonitoring

To evaluate the timeliness of reports sent by the ORR monitoring team to

facilities they visited, we analyzed information from the team’s

spreadsheets that tracked visits conducted in fiscal years 2018 and 2019.

Specifically, we calculated the number of business days between the

conclusion of each site visit and the date the team sent the monitoring

report detailing any needed corrective actions to the facility.

To assess

the reliability of the data in these spreadsheets, we obtained information

from ORR officials on their processes for maintaining the data. We also

compared the dates in the spreadsheets against another spreadsheet

that monitoring team managers use to assess the timeliness of monitoring

reports, and against monitoring reports for our selected facilities. We

ORR policy specifies that these reports be sent within 30 days. We calcul ated business

days because ORR officials told us they interpret the policy to refer to business days.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

Page 53 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

identified a few inconsistencies and corrected the data using revised

dates provided by ORR. After taking these steps, we determined the data

were sufficiently reliable for our purposes.

To identify examples of corrective actions issued by various teams at

ORR, and the timing of facilities’ responses to those corrective actions,

we also reviewed monitoring reports and other corrective actions issued

to the nine selected facilities described above. In addition, we obtained

information from ORR on the number of facilities in fiscal years 2018 and

2019 that had not had a site visit in over two years, which is the minimum

frequency set forth in ORR policy.

Finally, we asked ORR program

officials for written responses to our questions on the status of audits for

compliance with standards to prevent and respond to sexual abuse and

sexual harassment of unaccompanied children in ORR-funded facilities.

We conducted our work from May 2019 to September 2020 in

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain

sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our

findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that

the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and

conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Office of Refugee Resettlement, ORR Guide: Children Entering the United States

Unaccompanied, Section 5.5.1, accessed June 1, 2020,

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/children-entering-the-united-states-unaccompanied-s

ection-5#5.5.

See Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Sexual Abuse and Sexual

Harassment Involving Unaccompanied Children, 79 Fed. Reg. 77,768 (Dec. 24, 2014).

Appendix II: Office of Refugee Resettlement

(ORR) Grant Review Process

Page 54 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Appendix II:OfficeofRefugee

Resettlement(ORR)Grant

ReviewProcess

ORR uses a multi-step process when it reviews new grant applications to

provide care to unaccompanied children. The process consists of an

initial review by an ORR contractor, a review by a non-governmental

panel (outside review panel), and a review by an ORR project officer.

After these reviews, either ORR leadership or the Administration for

Children and Families’ (ACF) Assistant Secretary makes the final funding

decisions. ACF’s Office of Grants Management conducts a business

review of the approved applications (see fig. 6).

Figure 6: Grant Application Review Process

The following information on ORR’s grant review process was provided

by ACF officials, ORR program officials and project officers, or obtained

through our review of documentation related to this process.

· Contractor review. ORR’s contractor, F2 Solutions, conducts an

initial review of all applications for completeness and to make sure

they meet certain requirements laid out in ORR’s grant

announcement. For example, the contractor confirms that the

organization or business applying for the grant is eligible for ORR

grants and that the application is complete. If the application fails to

meet the requirements of the contractor review, the contractor deems

the application ineligible and no further reviews are conducted. If the

Appendix II: Office of Refugee Resettlement

(ORR) Grant Review Process

Page 55 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

contractor determines that the applicant has met all requirements, the

application is forwarded to the outside review panel.

· Panel review. The outside review panel scores applications against

criteria laid out in the grant announcement. The panel is comprised of

three reviewers and a Panel Chair, who acts as a liaison between the

panel and ORR.

According to ORR officials, reviewers are selected

from outside of the federal government and typically have

backgrounds in social work or child welfare. Each of the three panel

members independently review and score each of their assigned

applications. The panel chair then sends ORR the average of the

three reviewers’ scores for each application.

· Application cutoff score. As part of deciding which applicants will be

awarded a grant to care for unaccompanied children, ORR’s

leadership establishes an application cutoff score after receiving

scores from the review panels. When determining the cutoff score,

ORR officials said they look for a natural breakpoint in the scores, at

the range of application scores during the particular funding round,

and ORR’s capacity needs.

· ORR project officer review. According to ORR program officials and

project officers, an ORR project officer reviews each application that

has a score above the cutoff established by ORR leadership to

assess whether the applicant has a viable plan to provide services

and a reasonable budget proposal. The project officer makes funding

recommendations to ORR leadership. ORR does not typically review

applications that score below the cutoff score; however, ORR project

officers receive the list of such applicants and can recommend

funding for those applicants. ORR projects officers said that this rarely

happens.

· ORR leadership. ORR leadership makes funding decisions. In cases

in which ORR decides to fund all applicants scoring above the cutoff

score, the ORR Director signs off on the decision. In cases in which

ORR decides not to fund an applicant whose application scored

above the cutoff score, the ACF Assistant Secretary reviews the

reasoning for this recommendation and must agree. ORR refers to

these cases as out of rank order decisions. They occur when ORR

decides to “skip” funding an application that received a higher score

and instead fund a lower scoring applicant.

According to ORR, F2 Solutions is responsible for soliciting reviewers and ORR must

approve them.

Appendix II: Office of Refugee Resettlement

(ORR) Grant Review Process

Page 56 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

· ACF Office of Grants Management (OGM) review. OGM conducts a

business review of each application that ORR has approved to

confirm it meets the business and financial requirements listed in the

grant announcement. As part of that review, OGM also reviews the

applicant’s budget proposal, and may assist ORR project officers in

budget negotiations with approved grantees. The Associate Deputy

Assistant Secretary for Grants within OGM gives final approval of

funding decisions if applications were approved in the order they were

scored by the outside panel. In cases in which ORR approves

applications out of order, the Assistant Secretary of ACF gives final

approval.

During fiscal years 2018 and 2019, ORR funded applicants in seven

funding rounds (see table 4).

There was only one funding round during

these 2 years in which ORR did not fund all applications that scored

above the cutoff score.

Table 4: Grant Applications and Outcomes for Applicants Seeking Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Grants to Provide

Care of Unaccompanied Children, FY2018 and FY2019 Funding Rounds

Announcement

closing date

Number of

applications

Number of

applications

approved

Number of

applications

not

approved

Cutoff

score

Range

scores

Range of

scores for

funded

applications

Number of

applications

scoring

above cutoff

score that

were not

selected for

funding

Shelter

May 9, 2019

4-100

82-100

Shelter

November 26,

2018

0-95

69-94

ORR issued an eighth grant announcement for secu re facilities that closed in June 2018,

but did not fund any grantees in response to this announcement.

ORR leadership set a cutoff score in only three of the seven funding rounds in FY2018

and FY2019. In three of the other four rounds, ORR funded all applicants that passed the

initial contractor review. In the fourth, ORR funded the two highest scoring applicants,

deferred funding for an additional seven applicants, and four applicants did not pass the

initial contractor review. ORR officials said that n o cutoff score was required in the other

four funding rounds because all applicants either received high scores from the outside

panel or were screened out by the ORR contractor. In one funding round, ORR did not

fund all applications that scored above the cutoff score. It chose not to fund two

applications from the same organization because the organization had not met its

obligations under a previous ORR grant and a third application because the applicant was

unable to provide evidence that it had a lease or an address for a shelter space and ORR

deemed its budget to be unreasonable.

Appendix II: Office of Refugee Resettlement

(ORR) Grant Re view Process

Page 57 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Announcement

closing date

Number of

applications

Number of

applications

approved

Number of

applications

not

approved

Cutoff

score

Range

scores

Range of

scores for

funded

applications

Number of

applications

scoring

above cutoff

score that

were not

selected for

funding

Secure

November 26,

2018

cutoff

score

Staff Secure

June 29, 2018

cutoff

score

83-97

Shelter

June 29, 2018

0-98

68-98

Therapeutic

Shelter

June 29, 2018

cutoff

score

77-83

Long Term

Foster Care

June 29, 2018

cutoff

score

78-99

95-99

Total

104

Source: GAO review of ORR funding decision memoranda. | GAO-20-609

Note: Seven applications to provide Long Term Foster Care in the June 29, 2018 round w ere

deferred. Range of scores for all applications and funded applications are rounded to the nearest

w hole number.

Applications that w ere not approved included applications that did not pass the initial ORR contractor

review , those that passed the initial contractor review but ORR did not fund because they w ere below

the cutoff score, and those that scored above the cutoff score but w ere not selected for fun ding. They

do not include applications that w ere deferred.

ORR officials said that no cutoff score was required in the other four funding rounds because all

applicants either received high scores from the outside panel or w ere screened out by the ORR

contractor.

ORR received only one application in response to this funding announcement.

Appendix III: Comments from the Department

of Health and Human Services

Page 58 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Appendix III:Commentsfromthe

DepartmentofHealthandHuman

Services

Appendix III: Comments from the Department

of Health and Human Services

Page 59 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Appendix III: Comments from the Department

of Health and Human Services

Page 60 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Appendix III: Comments from the Department

of Health and Human Services

Page 61 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Appendix III: Comments from the Department

of Health and Human Services

Page 62 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Appendix IV: GAO Contacts and Staff

Acknowledgments

Page 63 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Appendix IV:GAOContacts

andStaffAcknowledgments

GAOContact

Kathryn A. Larin, (202) 512-7215 or larink@gao.gov

StaffAcknowledgments

In addition to the contacts named above, Elizabeth Morrison (Assistant

Director), Lauren Gilbertson (Analyst-in-Charge), David Barish, and

Matthew Dobratz made key contributions to this report. In addition, key

support was provided by Susan Aschoff, Sarah Cornetto, Helen

Desaulniers, Margaret Hettinger, Thomas James, Kelsey Kreider, Amy E.

MacDonald, Sheila R. McCoy, Jean McSween, Almeta Spencer, and

Curtia Taylor.

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 64 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Appendix V:AccessibleData

DataTables

Accessible Data for Key Survey Responses on Information-Sharing with the Office

of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) by the 23 State Agencies That Licensed ORR-

Funded Facilities in Fall 2019

State licensing agency survey

respondents

Survey Question

Don’t

Know

Yes

Your agency regularly shares monitoring reports or

findings with ORR

ORR regularly shares with your agency its

monitoring reports or findings about any providers

in your state

Source: GAO survey of state agencies that license ORR-funded providers, conducted October 2019 –

January 2020. | GAO-20-609

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 65 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Accessible Data for Figure 1: Number of Grantee Facilities Funded by the Office of

Refugee Resettlement With and Without Unaccompanied Children in Residence,

July 2020

State

Number of grantee facilities

in state serving children

Number of facilities in state

awarded a grant but not

serving children

Arizona

Arkansas

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Louisiana

Maine

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Mexico

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 66 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

State

Number of grantee facilities

in state serving children

Number of facilities in state

awarded a grant but not

serving children

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

Washington

TBD

· Number of grantee facilities in state serving children (Total=176)

· Number of facilities in state awarded a grant but not serving children (Total=43)

· States with Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)-funded facilities (Total=25)

Source: GAO analysis of ORR data; National Atlas (base map). | GAO-20-609

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 67 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Accessible Data for Figure 2: State Licensing Allegations and Concerns Reported in

Applications for Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Grants to Provide Care for

Unaccompanied Children, Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019.

Graphic: Two Pies Charts

Larger Pie: Total approved applications (58)

· 43, Application does not include information about state licensing allegations or

concerns

· 15

, Application includes information about state licensing allegations or

concerns (Smaller Pie Chart:)

§ 11, Applicant reported that there were no allegations or

concerns

§ 3, Applicant reported that there were allegations or concerns

that were unfounded or addressed

§ 1, Applicant reported that there were allegations or concerns,

but did not specify whether they had been addressed

Source: GAO analysis of applications for ORR grants. | GAO-20-609

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 68 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Accessible Data for Figure 3: State Licensing Agency Monitoring Practices for

Office of Refugee Resettlement-Funded Facilities Providing Care for

Unaccompanied Children, based on Survey Responses in 2019 from 23 Agencies

Monitoring Frequency

Quarterly

Semi-Annually

Annually

Biennially

Total Agencies

4 agencies

3 agencies

15 agencies

1 Agency

Key Monitoring Activities

On-site inspections (23 agencies)

Examples of on-site monitoring activities

· Inspection for compliance with state

· licensing requirements

· Interviews with staff

· Interviews with children

· Review licensing history for ongoing issues

Review of documentation (22 agencies)

Examples of documents reviewed

· Staff documentation (background checks, trainings)

· Children’s case files

Source: GAO survey of state agencies that license Office of Refugee Resettlement-funded providers,

conducted October 2019 – January 2020. | GAO-20-609

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 69 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Accessible Data for Figure 4: State Licensing Agency Survey Responses on

Deficiencies They Found at ORR-Funded Facilities during Fiscal Years 2018

through 2019

· 23, Total state agencies that licensed Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)-

funded facilities at the time of our survey

· 14, State licensing agencies reporting citations at ORR -funded facilities

· 11, State licensing agencies reporting significant deficiencies at ORR -funded

facilities

o 8 of 11, Deficiencies involving allegations of abuse or neglect

o 5 of 11, Concerns regarding child health and safety

o 2 of 11, Deficiencies with the physical building that led to concerns

about child health or safety

o 3 of 11, Other findings that could jeopardize the facility’s license

Source: GAO survey of state agencies that license ORR-funded providers, conducted October 2019 –

January 2020. | GAO-20-609

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 70 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Accessible Data for Figure 5: Communication between Office of Refugee

Resettlement (ORR) and State Licensing Agencies about Facilities Providing Care

for Unaccompanied Children

State licensing agency survey

respondents

Survey Question

Yes

Don’t

Know

Your agency regularly shares monitoring reports or

findings with ORR

Your agency relies on ORR-funded facilities to share

state licensing and monitoring information with ORR

ORR regularly shares with your agency its monitoring

reports or findings about any facilities in your state

Your agency contacts ORR as needed when

significant issues arise

ORR contacts your agency as needed when

significant issues arise regarding any facilities in your

state

Your agency notifies ORR when suspending or

revoking a provider’s license

Other informal communication between your agency

and ORR

Source: GAO survey of state agencies that license ORR-funded providers, conducted October 2019 –

January 2020. | GAO-20-609

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 71 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Accessible Data for Figure 6: Grant Application Review Process

· Screen: Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) contractor screens applications

· Score: Outside review panel scores application

· Review: ORR project officer reviews applications and makes funding

recommendations

· Approve: ORR or Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) leadership

approves funding decisions

· Award: ACF Office of Grants Management conducts business review and

awards funds

Source: Interview s with, and documents from, ORR and ACF Office of Grants Management. | GAO-

20-609

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 72 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

AgencyCommentLetter

AccessibleTextforAppendixIIICommentsfromthe

DepartmentofHealthandHumanServices

Page 1

August 24, 2020

Kathryn A. Larin

Director, Education, Workforce & Income Security Issues

U.S. Government Accountability Office

441 G Street NW

Washington, DC 20548

Dear Ms. Larin:

Attached are comments on the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s

(GAO) report entitled, “Unaccompanied Children: Actions Needed to

Improve Grant Application Reviews and Oversight of Care Facilities” (Job

code 103557/ GAO-20-609).

The Department appreciates the opportunity to review this report prior to

publication.

Sincerely,

Sarah C. Arbes

Assistant Secretary for Legislation

Attachment

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 73 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Page 2

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) appreciates the

opportunity from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to review

and comment on this draft report.

Recommendation 1: The Director of ORR should clarify in its grant

announcements the information and supporting documentation applicants

are required to provide in their grant applications with respect to their

state, eligibility, and allegations and concerns.

HHS Response: HHS concurs with this recommendation.

ORR recently updated four of its Funding Opportunity Announcements

(FOA) to require that applicants be licensed at the time of application in

order to be considered for a grant and provide documentation of state

licensure, including information on capacity, age/sex permitted, and

allowable length of stay. The FOA also requires awardees to report any

allegations/concerns of abuse and/or neglect; and any denial,

suspension, and/or revocation of their and, if applicable, any

subrecipient(s)' licensing to provide child welfare related services. These

requirements are included in the FOAs for secure, staff secure,

therapeutic, and long term foster care beds published by ORR in June

and July 2020. ORR has not determined whether the requirement to be

licensed at the time of application will remain in future shelter FOAs. ORR

will continue to assess whether or not this requirement is reasonable

throughout this next funding and onboarding cycle.

Recommendation 2: The Director of ORR should take steps to develop,

and ensure that officials reviewing grant applications implement, a

process to verify the accuracy and completeness of information reported

by grant applicants on state licensing status, eligibility, allegations and

concerns.

HHS Response: HHS concurs with this recommendation.

ORR grant applications are reviewed and scored by independent subject

matter experts in the child welfare industry. To ensure a fair and objective

merit review process as required by HHS grants policy, reviewers are

restricted from seeking any additional information not included in the

application. Therefore, ORR is unable to require reviewers to verify the

accuracy and completeness of information provided. However, an

assessment of the accuracy and completeness of information reported by

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 74 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

the applicant on state licensing status, eligibility, allegations and concerns

may be performed by ORR Project Officers. Currently, this assessment

occurs after applications have been scored by reviewers and before an

award is made. In addition, Project Officers are trained to engage

awardees throughout the negotiation and on-boarding process to ensure

programs meet all FOA requirements and award special conditions. ORR

will develop guidance to standardize the Project Officer assessment of

the accuracy and completeness of information reported by the applicant

on state licensing status, eligibility, allegations and concerns and

incorporate this guidance into existing training curriculum for Project

Officers.

Recommendation 3: The Director of ORR should ensure that the grant

review process includes a documented review of applicants’ past

performance on ORR grants for those that have previously received

grants to care for unaccompanied children. This could include, for

example, a systematic review of previous quarterly and annual

performance reports and a review of corrective actions issued by all ORR

monitoring staff to all ORR-funded facilities previously operated by the

applicant.

Page 3

HHS Response: HHS concurs with this recommendation.

ORR takes past performance into consideration for all grant award

decisions. This may include information obtained through review of

annual reports, findings form monitoring visits/reports, and other

knowledge obtained through field staff or through grant monitoring. ORR

will expand upon its requirement to review past performance by

developing guidance that specifies what documents must be reviewed

and how to document the review. Once finalized, ORR will incorporate

this guidance into its existing training curriculum for Project Officers for

grant applications.

Recommendation 4: The Director of ORR should clarify in its instructions

to grantees the information they are required to report on state licensing

citations in their quarterly performance reports.

HHS Response: HHS concurs with this recommendation.

ORR will collaborate with the Office of Management and Budget to add a

reporting requirement to grantees’ quarterly Performance Progress

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 75 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Reports for state licensing citations. ORR will also revise Project Officer

monitoring tools accordingly.

Recommendation 5: The Director of ORR should take steps, such as

through guidance or training, to ensure that project officers clearly

understand the requirement that grantees report state licensing citations

at any of their facilities within 24 hours and include state licensing

citations in their quarterly performance reports.

HHS Response: HHS concurs with this recommendation.

ORR has begun the development of various standard operating

procedures related to the grant award process and will include guidance

on the requirement that grantees report state licensing citations at any of

their facilities within 24 hours and include state licensing citations in their

quarterly performance reports. ORR will also incorporate this guidance

into its existing training curriculum for Project Officers.

Recommendation 6: The Director of ORR should work with state

agencies that license ORR-funded facilities to develop a plan for mutual

information sharing, including processes for ORR outreach to states

during the grant application review process and ongoing information

sharing on ORR and state monitoring processes and identified

deficiencies.

HHS Response: HHS concurs with this recommendation.

HHS believes that information sharing between ORR and state licensing

agencies would benefit both parties. However, each state has various

licensing agencies with their own regulations and procedures. Therefore,

implementation of this recommendation is dependent upon each state

agency’s willingness and ability to engage in information sharing with

ORR and may require the assistance of other Administration for Children

and Families (ACF) program offices, such as Children’s Bureau. ORR will

identify information sharing goals and potential mechanisms to facilitate

communication between ORR and state agencies. ORR will also conduct

outreach to other ACF program offices and state licensing agencies.

Recommendation 7

The Director of ORR should ensure that ORR provides and maintains a

current point of contact for each state agency that licenses ORR grantees

to facilitate information sharing regarding ORR-funded facilities.

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 76 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

Page 4

HHS Response: HHS concurs with this recommendation.

ORR will develop and maintain a list of points of contact for each state

agency that licenses an ORR grantee facility.

Recommendation 8: The Director of ORR should develop a plan—

including roles, responsibilities, and timeframes—to guide and focus

ORR’s efforts to meet its goals to:

· Conduct an audit of each facility’s compliance with ORR

standards on preventing and responding to sexual assault, as

required under the Interim Final Rule.

· Conduct on-site monitoring visits to each facility at least every two

years in accordance with ORR policy, and

· Report any noncompliance to the facility within 30 days of the site

visit, in accordance with ORR policy.

HHS Response: HHS concurs with this recommendation.

ORR will publish a five-year contract solicitation to manage and execute

efficient and high quality prevention of sexual abuse (PSA) audits to

ensure compliance with the Interim Final Rule and relevant ORR policies

and procedures. Within the first year of the contract, the contractor is

require to complete PSA audits for all the remaining facilities open and

operating in 2019 that did not receive an initial audit. After the first year of

the contract, the contractor shall conduct approximately 50 to 70 audits

per year, prioritizing the deadlines outlined in the IFR. The ORR PSA

Team will work closely with the contractor, to ensure the contractor is

meeting the PSA audit timelines outlined in the contract and the IFR.

In order to prioritize the health and safety of children, grantee staff, and

ORR staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, ORR has temporarily

suspended on-site monitoring. As a result, it is unlikely that the UAC

Monitoring Team will be able to conduct on-site monitoring for all facilities

due for a biennial monitoring visit in FY 2020. Once it is safe to resume

on-site monitoring, ORR will hire additional monitors to ensure that by the

end of FY 2021 ORR is able to monitor facilities due for monitoring in FY

2020 where the site visit was postponed in addition to facilities due for

monitoring in FY 2021. To meet this goal, ORR estimates that it will need

Appendix V: Accessible Data

Page 77 GAO-20-609 Oversight of ORR-Funded Facilities

approximately one monitor per every 14-16 facilities due for a biennial

visit. ORR has 12 monitors on staff and plans to hire a minimum of four

additional monitors.

During FY 2020, ORR has made significant progress in narrowing the gap

between actual submission times and the 30-day timeframe outlined in

ORR policy. This is evidenced by an analysis ORR conducted of FY 2020

year-to-date monitoring report submissions, which showed that it took an

average of 36 business days to submit the report to the care provider

facility (24 business days to write the report, 11 business days to route

the report for internal ORR clearance and receive approval, and 1

business day to send the approved report to the facility). ORR will

continue to track monitor, and analyze reporting timelines. In addition,

ORR is in the process of developing a best practice resource guide for

UAC monitors to further improve the timeliness of report submissions with

the goal of bringing all report submissions into compliance with the 30 day

timeframe.

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