During this reporting period, TDCJ continued to lack communication from the TDCJ finance department, alerting the person managing the grant about how much remains to be spent in each grant. The grant manager is poised to use the funds but does not want to over or under-spend. The coach is going to reach out to TDCJ. The other struggle has to do with the organization around PREA. The Safe Prisons Program is housed within TDCJ. However, the PREA Coordinator is also the PREA Ombudsman and is not employed by TDCJ, but by the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. In this role, the PREA Coordinator is technically the external reporting option, but also has her fingers in the other PREA reports so is not really separate like the external option is supposed to be. The person overseeing the grants has shared that the PREA Coordinator has come in and required investigators to change the findings on investigations, but refuses to put her name to the reports. As someone who works for the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, she is not supposed to be part of operational decisions within TDCJ, but she is very much involved in that way. What the coach has been told is that no one within TDCJ wants to rock the boat and either tell the PREA Coordinator not to get involved or to move the PC position back under TDCJ. In fact auditors have verbally said they are not in compliance, but refuse to put it in an audit report. The PREA Coordinator position should be firmly within TDCJ and NOT the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. This would allow the PREA Ombudsperson to operate independently as intended. The coach will meet with directors overseeing the Safe Prisons Program in a coming call and will press this issue with them then. There should also be some involvement of the PREA Management Office, otherwise this set-up will continue. This grant is slated to close in March 2025. TDCJ intends to close out then with the intent of spending any remaining funds.
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