Senior Community Service Employment Program

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on several issues discussed in its work on the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP), focusing on the: (1) amount of SCSEP grant funds provided to each of the national sponsor grantees; (2) amount of federal funds the national sponsors' grant agreement budgets designated for headquarters administration, local administration, enrollee wages and fringe benefits, and other enrollee costs; and (3) indirect cost rates and the amount of grant funds budgeted as indirect costs for each national sponsor in its grant agreement.

GAO noted that: (1) the program received $435 million for program year 1997 and that the same national sponsors that were receiving grants when GAO last reviewed the program continued to receive grants throughout the 1990s; (2) these national sponsors also continued to receive the same proportion of the overall program funding as they had in earlier years, with the states receiving the remainder; and (3) furthermore, the amounts budgeted for the four major cost categories and for indirect costs in program year 1997 were similar to what they were when GAO last reviewed the program.