Auditor General Timothy DeFoor discovered one of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s executive agencies broke its own rules when awarding grants worth nearly $200 million.
Earlier this month, Auditor General Timothy DeFoor released a new audit of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) revealing the department was not awarding grants competitively – despite advertising they were.
The Auditor General’s investigation focused on the Community Conservation Partnerships Program (C2P2), a nominally competitive grant program designed to provide funding for parks, recreation, and conservation to local governments and community organizations. DCNR, an executive agency that reports to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, disbursed nearly $200 million in grant funding between 2021 and 2023.
The audit found that despite advertising the grant program as competitive, top DCNR executives “grants to applicants who missed application deadlines, funded projects that were ranked lower than others or ignored the ranking all together,” DeFoor said.
The Auditor General flagged this practice as it could encourage lobbying and “outside pressure” in the grant-awarding process and chided DCNR management for making “its own rules,” which “diminishes the integrity of a grant program.” DeFoor added, “We’re saying that the way that this was structured, it led to the opportunity for political influence because the processes were not followed, which opens the door for political influence.”
DeFoor’s office found DCNR had “failed to adequately oversee inspection, documentation, and reporting requirements” for the C2P2 program, which is funded by federal taxpayer dollars. The Auditor General’s team outlined several recommendations for DCNR, namely following their own rules.
DCNR disagreed with the results of the audit, claiming that some projects that scored lower under the competitive metrics were awarded money ahead of higher-scoring applicants because the program was running out of funds and the lower-scoring projects cost less money.
DeFoor assumed office in 2021 and was reelected to his second term as Auditor General in 2024. The former Dauphin County Controller is the first African American elected to statewide office in Pennsylvania history and the first Republican to serve as Auditor General since 1997.
