Oral Testimony of Wendy Spencer CEO, Corporation for National and Community Service House Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training

Madam Chair and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for inviting me to testify today.  I welcome this opportunity to discuss our commitment to accountability and good stewardship of taxpayer dollars.

Today 345,000 Senior Corps and AmeriCorps members are serving in 50,000 locations across the country.  These dedicated Americans serve in tough conditions to meet pressing local needs like tutoring and mentoring at-risk youth... responding to disasters...supporting veterans and their families, and much more – all while recruiting millions of additional volunteers to serve alongside and multiply their impact.

National service invests in local solutions.  It provides human capital support to increase the impact of nonprofits and faith-based organizations. Governor-appointed State Service Commissions decide where most AmeriCorps resources are invested.  Local groups recruit, select, and supervise their members.  Mayors and county leaders are important partners.

Congress created our agency years ago to empower citizens, solve problems and expand opportunity.  Our agency is built on smart, common sense principles: local control, competition, public-private partnership, and a focus on results – and it’s working.

I share the Committee’s view that our agency has a responsibility to ensure federal funds are well-managed. That has been my priority from Day 1.  We have built a culture of accountability and strong systems for monitoring and oversight.  These systems are working.  Misconduct is very rare, and when it happens, we take strong action.

Accountability is more than compliance.  It also means achieving our mission.  We are investing funds more effectively to drive community impact - by using evidence, increasing competition, and measuring performance.

My written testimony details our comprehensive, risk-based system to prevent and detect issues and enforce our rules.

• We start before a grant is ever made by doing a financial scan and reviewing past performance.
   
• Every direct grant is monitored for fiscal and programmatic compliance. 
   
• Every year, our staff conducts a risk assessment of our entire portfolio of grants to inform our monitoring plan. Grantees identified as having risks receive site visits or desk reviews –3,200 in the last 5 years.
   
• If issues are discovered, we enforce our rules.  That can mean requiring corrective action plans, placing funds on hold, reporting activities to the Inspector General, or suspending or terminating a grant.  

In recent years, we have strengthened our monitoring and oversight in many ways, through expanded grantee and staff training; better use of financial data; increased controls on fixed-amount grants; improvements to our grants management system, better communication with our grantees and members, and more. 

Several initiatives are currently underway:

• We recently hired a highly qualified Chief Risk Officer – the first in our agency’s history and one of only a few positions like it in the federal government. 
   
• This executive will lead an office that oversees all of our risk assessment programs – an integrated, coordinated approach to better manage our resources and decision-making. 
   
• We are ahead of the curve in developing an Enterprise Risk Management program to help us take a holistic view of risk.
   
• We are updating our grants management IT system.  A key component will be to enhance and validate our grantee risk model.  This will enable us to move from compliance-focused monitoring to a more nimble and targeted risk-based approach.

Given the priority we place on accountability, we were deeply disappointed that a grantee authorized national service participants to engage in prohibited activities.  We immediately referred this matter to the Inspector General for investigation.  Once the results were known, we suspended the grantee from enrolling new members, directed them to hire an independent oversight monitor, and required them to take other corrective actions.  The Inspector General stated our response was robust. 

The IG concluded that the non-compliance was extremely limited in scope, involving 6 of the nearly 1,600 members serving under this grant over 3 years.  It’s important to put that in perspective.  That is 6 members out of more than 1 million national service positions in the same period. 

In fact, since this Subcommittee’s hearing five years ago, there have been nearly 2 million AmeriCorps and Senior Corps positions granted.  Members have served 820 million hours.  They have made an extraordinary contribution to our communities and nation.

I hope my testimony today assures the Committee of our commitment to accountability and our interest in doing more.

We look forward to working with you to further strengthen the impact of national service, and as I always say to Members of Congress, I welcome your advice and guidance