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B-130515 1 (1970-07-10)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabkrj0001 and id is 1 raw text is:          RESTRCTED -Not to be released ou'tsooe - -
         Accounting Office except on the basis of specific approval
         by the Office of Legisative Lison, a record of which is kept
   Sby' the Eiistribution sectiag,%, P-.bhicatans Branch, OAS 7/ 7
                    COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES
                              WASHINGTON D C 20548



B-13                                     RELEASEDJU1097
                                                         JUL 10 1970



Dear Mr. Chairman

     We have reviewed certain activities of volunteers of the Volunteers
in Service to America (VISTA) assigned to the Northeast South Dakota Com-
munity Action Program, Inc. (agency), a community action agency at Sisseton,
South Dakota, funded by the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). The re-
view was undertaken pursuant to a Decembet 30, 1969, telephone request
irom Mr. W. E. O'Brien of your Committee staff. Mr, O'Brien's request was
initiated because of information received by Senator Karl Mundt that the
volunteers assigned to the agency (I) were not productively employed, (2)
were misusing Government-owned vehicles assigned to them, and (3) were a
disruptive influence on the community.

     Our review covered those aspects of the volunteers' activities that
had been called to our attention and did not include an evaluation of the
efficiency with which the agency administered its programs or the extent to
which the program objectives were being achieved. Our review 3f VISTA vol-
unteers' activities covered the period from July 1968, when the first volun-
teer was assigned to the agency, through February 1970, when our fieldwork
was completed. We reviewed pertinent OEO and agency documents and held
interviews with OEO and agency officials, volunteers assigned to the agency,
local political leaders, local police, newspaper and business officials,
and a number of area residents.

     The majority of our work was performed at the agency at Sisseton, how-
ever, we also performed work at the OEO Denver, Colorado, Regional Office
and obtained pertinent vehicle records from the General Services Administra-
tion (GSA) regional office in Kansas City, Missouri, and the GSA motor pool
in Bismarck, North Dakota.

     The agency was formed in 1966 to serve Day, Marshall, and Roberts
Counties, an area of about 3,000 square miles in the northeast section of
South Dakota. Within this area is the Sisseton-Wahpeton Indian Reservation,
In August 1968 the agency reported to OEO that the total population for the
three-county area was about 30,000. On the basis of agency information, we
estimated that the total Indian population, on and off the reservation, was
about 2,500.

     From the time of its first grant in April 1966 through February 1970,
OEO provided the agency with funds totaling about $1.1 million for commu-
nity action programs. In July 1968, OEO approved the agency's first VISTA
project and assigned two volunteers to the agency to assist in planning

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