Reports: Investigations

Corporation management reported VISTA Project Sponsor Georgia Center for Nonprofits (GCN), Atlanta, GA, improperly utilized its VISTA members when it directed members to perform staff functions and changed clients for their services.

A hotline complainant reported that members serving with the St. Bernard Project (SBP), Wall Township, NJ, were unsupervised, falsely reporting service hours, and working in unsafe working conditions.

CNCS management reported that it discovered anomalies with the National Service Participants (NSP) accounts in the National Service Trust (NST) database in which AmeriCorps members had been enrolled in Teach for America (TFA) Idaho and Chicago AmeriCorps programs between Grant Years (GY) 2013 - 2017 under multiple NSP accounts with different Social Security Numbers.

CNCS management discovered a temporary CNCS employee hired to serve as a panel member for the 2016 AmeriCorps State and National Grant Review process submitted work products that appeared to have been plagiarized from her follow panel reviewers.

A hotline complainant reported that Senior Resources of Guilford (SRG), Greensboro, NC, officials fraudulently claimed that the Foster Grandparent Program (FGP) Project Director worked a percentage of her time on the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), for which the grantee sought reimbursement.

CNCS management reported possible fraud involving RSVP grantee TCU Community Partnership Inc. (TCU), Conyers, GA, after its management drew down $20,750 of Federal grant funds and failed to enroll any volunteers and fulfill the terms and conditions of the grant.

CNCS-OIG completed its investigation into Hotline allegations that AmeriCorps members assigned to the Martha O'Bryan Center (MOBC), Nashville, TN, a subgrantee of the Volunteer Tennessee (Commission), Nashville, TN, may have engaged in prohibited activities.

This investigation was initiated based on a Hotline allegation that Ms. Meghan Olinger, former AmeriCorps Program Coordinator, Synergy, Education, and Empowerment of West Monroe (SEE), West Monroe, LA, falsely certified education awards for members who had not completed their service hours over the course of her tenure at SEE.

This investigation was initiated based on a hotline allegation concerning a VISTA member who may have engaged in political activities as part of his VISTA service.

Acting on a Hotline complaint, CNCS-OIG investigators determined that VISTA participants at Community in Schools of Hernando County (CIS-Hernando), Brooksville, FL, were assigned direct service tasks beyond the scope of the grant, and displaced employees by performing staff functions.