Report 2017-129 Recommendation 12 Responses

Report 2017-129: Department of Rehabilitation: Its Inadequate Guidance and Oversight of the Grant Process Led to Inconsistencies and Perceived Bias in Its Evaluations and Awards of Some Grants (Release Date: July 2018)

Recommendation #12 To: Rehabilitation, Department of

To ensure that evaluators have the information necessary to sufficiently and fairly assess and score applications, Rehabilitation should develop training by December 2018 that can be tailored to each grant and includes at minimum the following topics:

-The purpose and relevant regulatory requirements for the grant.

- Instructions on how to score applications, including an applicant's financial information, and direction that they must provide comments to support their scores.

Rehabilitation should provide this training to evaluators before allowing them to score applications.

Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2020

The Department revised the GSM in October 2018 to include these recommendations and implemented these practices during the Department's first RFA solicitation process after Report 2017-129 was published. These changes are contained in the GSM Interim Guidance: October 2018.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Fully Implemented

Rehabilitation demonstrated that for its most recent grant, it included the relevant regulatory requirements in its RFA, which it provided to evaluators during its orientation and training session. It also provided evaluators with scoring instructions, which included how to score an applicant's financial information and that evaluators must provide comments to support their scores.


Annual Follow-Up Agency Response From October 2019

The Department is in the process of developing confidentiality procedures applicable to the grant solicitation process and will carry out these practices in future grant solicitations.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Annual Follow-Up Status: Pending


1-Year Agency Response

The Department has revised the GSM to include these recommendations and will carry out these practices in future grant solicitations.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Pending


6-Month Agency Response

The Department has revised the GSM to include these recommendations and will carry out these practices in future grant solicitations.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending


60-Day Agency Response

The Department has revised the GSM to include these recommendations and will carry out these practices in future grant solicitations.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending


All Recommendations in 2017-129

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.