Two of the original Senate cosponsors of the Drug Free Communities Act (DFC) have written a harshly critical letter to drug czar John Walters, questioning his office's handling of the program and demanding a raft of information on the process used in the latest round of grantmaking, which saw a number of prominent community anti-drug coalitions lose their funding.

The letter from Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Joseph Biden (D-Del.) largely echoed complaints from Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) and its members, who said that the FY2005 funding process defunded 63 groups without notice and for unclear reasons, and placed another 88 on probation on similarly shaky grounds. "I hope ONDCP will reconsider its approach and give all the grant recipients a full and fair review," said Grassley.

"Our findings thus far indicate the actions taken by your office were not fair, impartial or in accordance with the Act," Grassley and Biden wrote to Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), on Oct. 18. "We are shocked and dismayed that ONDCP would de-fund more than 60 coalitions and place 88 more on probation based on arbitrary reasons and without a transparent, fair process. While we have no complaint about ONDCP de-funding inadequate or unworthy programs, we have a real concern that a great number of hardworking coalitions with impressive track records of results and solid peer review scores were de-funded in the process this year."

John Carnevale, a drug-policy consultant and former ONDCP staffer, said a preliminary analysis of the peer-review scores generated by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shows that of the 63 programs defunded by ONDCP, 7 had SAMHSA peer-review scores of 90 or better, 13 scored between 80 and 89, and 17 scored between 70 and 79. In total, 37 of the 63 defunded programs received scores of 70 or above (58 percent), he said.

Grassley and Biden also requested that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) conduct an investigation into the FY2005 DFC grantmaking process.

"Ultimate Objective of Reducing the Number of Grantees"

The Grassley/Biden letter pointedly questioned the process used by ONDCP to review DFC grant applications. "It seems that the process relied more on qualitative and subjective data than it did on the peer-review scores that have guided the decision making process in past years," they wrote. "Further, it seems that the review panel placed extraordinary emphasis on ONDCP's new mandate that no coalition spend more than 20 percent of its budget on direct services and, in fact, placed 88 coalitions on probation for violating this policy.

"Nowhere in the Act does it specify that coalitions are only permitted to use 20 percent of their DFC funds on direct services," the senators wrote. "We feel that this is an arbitrary rule that ONDCP decided to impose this year with the ultimate objective of reducing the number of grantees eligible for continuation funds."

ONDCP did not respond to repeated requests to comment directly on the Grassley/Biden letter. However, the agency did release a statement in which Mary Ann Solberg, ONDCP's deputy director for demand reduction, said she was "shocked and concerned" when she learned that coalitions were protesting the grantmaking process.

"Every decision made about this program is made toward achieving the goals of the program as defined in the Drug Free Communities Act of 1997," she wrote. "...We believe that as a result of our policies and the fair grant-review and funding decisions made this year, we have the strongest set of grantees in the eight-year history of the program."

Scores, Procedures, and ID of Reviewers Requested

Grassley and Biden demanded that ONDCP provide to them all peer-review scores generated through the DFC grantmaking process, along with any other criteria used to make funding decisions either in addition or in lieu of the scores. The senators also requested copies of any notices sent to coalitions that were found to be out of compliance with DFC requirements, any notices given to coalitions or Congress about the 20-percent standard for direct services, and the identities and qualifications of the panel convened by ONDCP to review the DFC grants after the peer-review process had been completed.

The Grassley/Biden letter requested a response from ONDCP by Oct. 28; the agency did not meet that deadline, although ONDCP did send Grassley a letter stating that the agency was working on the request.

CADCA, which earlier announced its intention to seek information on ONDCP's decision-making process via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, will now wait to see what the Grassley/Biden inquiries yield, CADCA President and CEO Arthur Dean said. However, a number of the de-funded coalitions reportedly are submitting individual FOIA requests to ONDCP in order to get their own peer-review scores and other information.