Justice Department audit probes Refugee Dream Center – what they found

A recent U.S. Department of Justice audit determined that the Providence-based Refugee Dream Center needs to do a better job of tracking how it spends federal funds.

Between 2018 and 2021, the organization received a total of $400,055 in grants intended to aid refugees who are the victims of crimes. There's no indication that it failed to provide those services, according to the audit conducted by the DOJ's Office of Inspector General, which was released on Tuesday.

However, because mandatory pieces of paperwork were missing or deemed inadequate, the Refugee Dream Center needs to "remedy" $456,094, according to the audit report. It's not yet clear what form that will take, or whether the Refugee Dream Center will have to return any funds.

Why did the Refugee Dream Center face scrutiny?

The Refugee Dream Center describes itself as a "post-resettlement refugee agency" that serves 2,600 refugees, helping them to become integrated and self-sufficient. It was founded in 2015 by Omar Bah, a refugee from The Gambia who served as executive director until last year, when he stepped down to run for Congress.

At the time, the organization said that Bah would take on a new role as director of programs and his wife, Teddi Jallow, would replace him as executive director.

Jallow, a fellow refugee from The Gambia, formerly served as the Refugee Dream Center's director of partnership and community building. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Before the change in leadership, the Refugee Dream Center received three grants funded by the DOJ's Breaking Barriers program, "which helps refugee victims of crime break cultural barriers such as stigma, inability to navigate the American society, language challenges, lack of knowledge of relevant places to access services, and misconstrued notions of a victim's rights and protections," according to the acronym-heavy (and jargon-laden) audit report.

Those grants were awarded to the group by the Rhode Island Department of Public Safety's Grant Administration Office, which decides how to distribute the money on the local level.

Federal rules require periodic audits of organizations that receive the grants, which are funded by court fines and forfeited bail bonds. Stephanie Logan, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Inspector General, said in an email that the Refugee Dream Center was not audited in response to specific concerns.

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What did the audit uncover?

Government auditors "reviewed victim case files and witnessed victims receiving services," and got no indication that the Refugee Dream Center was failing to serve crime victims, the report states.

However, they couldn't determine exactly which services were specifically being offered because of the federal grants. The organization tracked its daily interactions with refugee crime victims, but "did not differentiate those being served through its Breaking Barriers program," the audit report says.

Personnel costs were another issue. According to the audit report, 86% of the grant funding went toward staff salaries and benefits. But there wasn't any documentation indicating how many hours of staff time were actually devoted to the federally-funded program, as opposed to the other work that the Refugee Dream Center carries out.

Additionally, the Refugee Dream Center "lacked comprehensive written policies and procedures and did not have well-designed processes to ensure accurate reporting of program progress," the report states. Auditors were also concerned that "there were no formalized policies and procedures related to grant financial management."

To receive the government funds, the Refugee Dream Center had to provide a 20% "match" from other sources, which would have added up to $114,046. Auditors were unable to verify that the organization met that requirement, "because it did not maintain records that clearly indicated the source, amount, and timing for its match contributions," the report states.

What happens now?

The Office of the Inspector General deemed both the $342,048 that went to personnel costs and the $114,046 that was supposed to be available from matching funds to be "unsupported," and recommended that the Refugee Dream Center "remedy" those amounts.

It's unclear whether the organization will have to pay any of that money back. Logan said that was a question for the DOJ's Office of Justice Programs, which supplied the funding, and did not immediately respond to an inquiry.

In a June response to a draft version of the Office of the Inspector General's findings, Jallow said that the Refugee Dream Center has already "taken significant steps to remedy the unsupported costs."

Timesheets have been updated to comply with federal requirements, and "now accurately reflect the daily work routines covered by various grants, including specific references to funders and time periods," she wrote.

Additionally, Jallow said, the Refugee Dream Center has been "actively collaborating" with DPS's Grant Administration Office to address the issue with the matching funds. "Together, we are working towards obtaining grant matching waivers to resolve the unsupported costs associated with the match requirement," she wrote.

Jallow said the organization had also made the other changes recommended in the audit, such as creating a more formalized set of policies and tracking exactly how many crime victims were being served through the Breaking Barriers program.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Justice Department: Refugee Dream Center must better track its spending