Topic: Implementaion Costs and Non Compliance Penalty

The Adam Walsh Act: Implementation Costs and Penalty for Non Compliance: For some time many folks have been professing the argument that, it would be better for states to pay the 10% Byrne Grant penalty than to pay the costs of implementing AWA. Recently we have explored these arguments -in depth-, and have written a paper on our findings, unfortunately our research shows that these arguments are incorrect, there is no correlation between the two state expenses. See: "Revisiting SORNA's Implementation Cost and Non Compliance 10% Penalty Arguments" by eAdvocate Today we are left with a series of questions, that only the SMART Office can answer and they are being mighty quiet. However, they did issue this public statement on 7-29-2011: “We can’t say for sure at this point, we have packets arriving in droves,” said United States Department of Justice (DOJ) Spokeswoman Kara McCarthy. “It may take up to three months for us to go through all of the packets we have received.” We see two key questions unanswered: 1) Did ALL states file -annually- for "Implementation Grants" as required by AWA? If not, are they still eligible to file today given they likely did file for an extension? (Note: the SMART Office has granted extensions to come into compliance, and that automatically extends the period those states can file for a "Implementation Grant." See HERE for 2010 -and- HERE for 2011) 2) Were there any caps or other limitations built in the "Implementation Grants" so that states could not recover whatever they projected as their costs to implement SORNA in their state? There isn't much more that can be said, in August of 2011, we wait. For now, have a great day and a better tomorrow. eAdvocate (BACK to the Top Page)