The nation's largest and most expensive AmeriCorps program - the Teaching Fellows project at the City University of New York - doesn't meet the essential AmeriCorps criterion of filling an "unmet" need and the federal government should halt the program and recover up to $75 million that has spent on the project over the past six years, a new audit report found.
But the Corporation for National and Community Services (CNCS) disagrees with the findings of its inspector general and says it won't ask for the money.
In two associated audits released late Thursday, Inspector General Gerald Walpin found that applicants to the Teaching Fellow program often didn't know it was an AmeriCorps program, that they weren't swayed to sign up because of the nearly $10,000 in educational funds they could receive, and that it was impossible to determine if the money was going to the fellows or directly into the school's coffers.
Citing President Barack Obama's admonition to "scour" federal budgets to determine if "taxpayers are getting their money's worth," Walpin, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said in a strongly worded 17-page letter to the university and CNCS officials said that there was no "cause and effect" from the millions spent on the teaching fellows.