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CJPA director says Title 5 grant is no longer available to the territories

This used to help community & village programs, including aumaga
fili@samoanews.com

Criminal Justice Planning Agency director Keith Gebauer has reiterated that there isn’t any more federal funding available from the US Department of Justice to help with community and village programs, which has been helpful to local village groups, or aumaga in past years.

Gebauer appeared last week before the House Judiciary Committee to explained funds CJPA gets from USDOJ as well as answering a wide range of questions, which includes the issue of why there are no more funds available under Title 5, which used to help village aumaga.

Several lawmakers believe that Gebauer is not doing enough to bring back this federal grant program, which no longer exists — since the time of the late CJPA director, Ala’alamua Filoiali’i, several years ago.

Gebauer explained that since day one when he took over the directorship post in early 2013, the Title 5 funding has been the number one request from lawmakers, pulenu’u, and village leaders who run aumaga in various villages.

“There isn’t a week that goes by that someone doesn’t come to try and find some help through this grant program,” Gebauer said and noted that Alaalamua “did a fantastic job in being able to draw those funds down and apply for those grants” in the past.

He said this was the first thing he did when he became director was to check on the status of Title 5 funding for American Samoa.

Gebauer says the last time the Title 5 grant was open for application was in 2011; and every time USDOJ opens its grant application — which typically opens from March to June — this particular grant is not available for American Samoa to apply, he said and noted it is a formula grant.

“Unfortunately since 2011 that funding hasn’t been available for us to apply for. Since we can’t apply for it, there is no way for us to draw those funds down,” he explained. “We did some of our own research and prior to 2011, the total number was somewhere in the $200 million for all states and territories.”

Then around 2011, it was down to about $25 million he said.

“Since it hasn’t opened up for the territories specifically I would imagine that it’s unauthorized or not reauthorized or just not available for us to apply to,” he said and stressed, “I check it every year, because I know how beneficial it is for the villages in particular, the aumaga, and prevention of juvenile delinquency, especially in our culture.”

“I know this goes a long way to building pride and building a sense of maturity for our youth in our villages,” he said, adding that he is not sure if Title 5 is available to states but “it’s not available for us.”

Gebauer also said he will continue to check every year when USDOJ funding opens up on the Title 5 grant, and he will also check if this same grant is available to states.

Responding to other questions from the committee, Gebauer said some of the challenges faced by CJPA in administering the millions of dollars in USDOJ grants are reporting of how the grants are used by sub recipients.

“Very often that is part of the challenge, I also understand that all our sub recipients have their own daily challenges that they have to adhere to,” he explained. “But the conditions we receive for the funds from our grantor are the same conditions that we apply to our sub recipients.”

Despite these and other challenges, the head of the CJPA said, “I feel very comfortable with the working relationship that we have with our sub recipients as we move forward. So that should be an issue that should be minimized as we continue to move forward.”