An audit released Tuesday by Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel shows the city's anti-gang programs are making progress, but the city spent more than a half million dollars to evaluate program, and it might as well have been money down the drain.
The Mayor's Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development has a $26 million budget.
Is it money well-spent? That's what the city wanted to know when it hired the Urban Institute under a $525,000 contract.
But the controller found the institute failed to determine the program's effectiveness.
Greuel wrote a letter to Mayor Villaraigosa, the city attorney and City Council members saying "this is unacceptable."
But the audit, a follow-up to an earlier examination by Greuel's predecessor, Laura Chick, did praise the anti-gang programs for progress made in implementing the findings of the 2008 audit.
