AmeriCorps watchdog faces $3.7 million budget cut

WASHINGTON -- The beleaguered watchdog of the AmeriCorps national service program will take another hit next month, as budget cuts by Congress will force it to lay off nearly three quarters of its staff.

Acting Inspector General Kenneth Bach has told Congress he has curtailed open investigations, and may not be able to look into allegations of wrongdoing in the $1 billion Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS).

At least 19 investigators, auditors and support staff will be laid off March 17.

"The impact is profound. Come that date, our oversight — which has already slipped — will be over. Period," said William Hillburg, a spokesman for the inspector general who will also lose his job.

The investigations have sometimes been politically charged. The office is looking into allegations that AmeriCorps volunteers improperly engaged in advocacy work for Planned Parenthood, and previous reports have questioned volunteer programs run by politically connected mayors.

Bach says the $3.7 million cut came as a surprise, and it's unclear who in Congress inserted the provision. Three GOP senators called on Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds national service, to restore the cut. Harkin, while calling the cuts "unfortunate," pointed the finger at House Republicans, who voted to eliminate AmeriCorps and its inspector general entirely as part of the annual appropriation bill.

Obama's 2013 budget includes $5.4 million for the inspector general — a $1.4 million increase from 2012 but still a cut from $7.7 million in 2011.

The office has been without a permanent head since 2009, when President Obama fired inspector general Gerald Walpin. His firing came after he criticized a Justice Department settlement with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, who had been accused by Walpin's investigators of using AmeriCorps volunteers as chauffeurs, personal assistants and political operatives. Johnson, a Democrat, campaigned for Obama.

Members of Congress from both parties decried the firing, but the White House said Walpin had been acting erratically.

Bach, the acting inspector general, has complained to Congress that the Justice Department often won't prosecute volunteer fraud because the cases "lack jury appeal" or fail to meet a dollar threshold. He now says he's worried his independence will be diminished.

"Independence is almost a moot point with cuts of this magnitude," said Jake Weins, an investigator with the non-profit Project on Government Oversight. "The office is essentially going to have to go into hibernation for a year and start planning for the future."

Last year, auditors criticized what they called "undue influence" by former CNCS vice chairman Stephen Goldsmith in the awarding of 200 volunteers through the New York City Mayor's Office after previous applications had been rejected. Goldsmith, a Republican, intervened in favor of the city and later became the city's deputy mayor. The city's lawyers said the audit report relied on "unsupported innuendo."

Two senators, Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have asked the inspector general to investigate the corporation's grants to Planned Parenthood. TheWall Street Journal reported last year that AmeriCorps-supported volunteers in New York were being used to train "reproductive health activists" in violation of federal law. The corporation also told congressional committee staffers that an AmeriCorps volunteer in Tacoma, Wash. served as an abortion clinic escort.