Senior Community Service Employment: Program Delivery Could Be Improved Through Legislative and Administrative Actions

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its findings on the Department of Labor's Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). GAO noted that: (1) consistent with Older American Act (OAA) provisions, Labor distributes SCSEP funds through noncompetitive grants to national organizations and state agencies which in turn use the funds to finance community service employment projects; (2) Labor has agreed to submit future SCSEP grants to its Procurement Review Board for review; (3) contrary to OAA provisions, Congress has required Labor to award 78 percent of SCSEP funds to 10 national sponsors and 22 percent to state agencies; (4) Labor also distributes funds to the national sponsors based on a hold harmless OAA provision that requires it to maintain the 1978 level of activity; (5) Labor's distribution of SCSEP funds among and within states does not correspond to the size of each state's disadvantaged elderly population; and (6) under Labor regulations, grantees can charge certain administrative expenses to the other costs categories and thus exceed the statutory 15-percent limit on administrative costs.