34 U.S.C. § 12621 — Missing Americans Alert Program

(a) Grant programs. Subject to money being appropriated, the Attorney General — working through the Bureau of Justice Assistance and consulting the Secretary of Health and Human Services — must: (1) Award competitive grants to health care agencies, state and local law enforcement or public safety agencies, and nonprofit organizations. These grants help plan, design, set up, or run local programs that prevent wandering and find missing people with dementia (like Alzheimer's) or developmental disabilities (like autism) who wander from safe places due to their condition. Grant-funded programs may: (A) give prevention and response information, including online training, and refer families or guardians for help; (B) train first responders, school staff, clinicians, and the public — to make wandering safer and less common, help rescue and recover people who wander, and help people recognize and properly respond to missing individuals with dementia or developmental disabilities; (C) train school staff and families in prevention and emergency steps to reduce wandering; and (D) build or improve alert and notification systems to help find missing individuals with dementia or developmental disabilities. (2) Award grants to health care agencies and law enforcement or public safety agencies to help them design, set up, and run tracking-technology programs for people with dementia, or children with developmental disabilities, who have wandered. (b) Applying for a grant. To get a competitive grant under (a), an agency or organization applies to the Attorney General, following whatever time, form, and information requirements the Attorney General sets — at minimum, promising to get help from private nonprofit groups to support the program. The Attorney General must regularly ask for applications by publishing a request in the Federal Register and posting it on the Justice Department's website. (c) Preference. When awarding grants under (a)(1), the Attorney General must favor law enforcement or public safety agencies that partner with nonprofits using person-centered plans that limit restrictive interventions, and that have direct ties to people — and families of people — with dementia or developmental disabilities. (d) Funding. Congress authorized $2,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2023 through 2027 for this section. (e) Accountability rules for all grants. (1) Audits. (A) An "unresolved audit finding" means the Justice Department's Inspector General found, in a final audit report, that a grantee spent grant money on something unauthorized or not allowed, and it wasn't fixed within 12 months of the report. (B) Starting in the first fiscal year after March 23, 2018, the Inspector General must audit grant recipients each year to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, deciding how many grantees to audit. (C) A grantee with an unresolved audit finding can't get more grant money under this section for the next 2 fiscal years after that 12-month period ends. (D) When awarding grants, the Attorney General must favor applicants who had no unresolved audit finding in the 3 years before applying. (E) If a barred grantee gets grant money anyway during its 2-year exclusion, the Attorney General must put that money back into the Treasury's General Fund and try to recover the repayment cost from the grantee. (2) Nonprofit rules. (A) "Nonprofit organization" means one described in section 501(c)(3) of title 26 and tax-exempt under section 501(a). (B) The Attorney General can't give a grant to a nonprofit that keeps money offshore to dodge the tax in section 511(a) of title 26. (C) A nonprofit that uses special procedures to presume its executive pay is reasonable must disclose, in its grant application, how it set that pay — including who reviewed it, what comparison data was used, and records of the decision. The Attorney General must make this disclosure public on request. (3) Conference spending. (A) Justice Department funds under this section can't pay for a conference costing more than $20,000 unless the relevant agency head gives written approval first. (B) That approval must include a written estimate of every cost — food, drinks, audio-visual equipment, speaker fees, and entertainment. (C) The Deputy Attorney General must report yearly to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees on all approved conference spending. (4) Yearly certification. Starting in the first fiscal year after March 23, 2018, the Attorney General must send Congress's Judiciary and Appropriations Committees a yearly certification saying whether: (A)(i) all Inspector General audits from (1) were finished and reviewed; (ii) all required exclusions under (1)(C) happened; and (iii) all required reimbursements under (1)(E) were made; and (B) listing any grantees excluded that year. (f) Avoiding duplicate grants. (1) Before giving a grant, the Attorney General must compare it against other grants already given to see if they overlap in purpose. (2) If the Attorney General does give the same applicant multiple grants for a similar purpose, a report must go to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, listing all such grants and their total dollar amount, and explaining why multiple grants were given.