We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of lead in the water of multifamily housing units based on our goal of strengthening the soundness of multifamily housing.  The audit was part of the activities in our fiscal year 2019 audit plan.  Our objective was to determine whether HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing Programs had sufficient policies, procedures, and controls to ensure that households…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) controls over employee benefits expensed at public housing agencies (PHA) due to a previous external review of the Waterbury, CT, Housing Authority, which determined that employee benefits expensed were unsustainable.  Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD ensured that employee benefits expensed at PHAs were reasonable. Analysis of PHA data showed that…

This memorandum report summarizes survey and interview results on the impact mandatory telework is having on U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) operations. The HUD Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted surveys and interviews to evaluate HUD’s use of agency-wide telework in response to the novel coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The study was designed to provide insights into the types of obstacles that impeded HUD…

The Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) external peer review team (Review Team), conducted the required external peer review of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General (HUD OIG). The Review Team conducted this external peer review in accordance with the CIGIE Inspection and Evaluation Committee guidance as contained in the Guide for Conducting Peer Reviews of Inspection…

We reviewed the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Continuum of Care Program (CoC) award review process based on an anonymous hotline complaint alleging problems with the CoC competitive award process.  The objective of our review was to determine whether HUD performed its CoC competitive review and award process in accordance with NOFA program requirements, focusing on ranking and scoring CoC projects.…

We audited the risk to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) General Insurance-Special Risk Insurance (GI-SRI) Fund based on our ongoing effort regarding HUD-insured Section 232 mortgages.  Our objective was to determine whether HUD used financial and credit history variables for its cash flow model used to estimate and reestimate the credit subsidy for the cohorts of mortgages within the Section 232 program.HUD did…

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) oversight of public housing agencies’ compliance with the Lead Safe Housing Rule.  The audit is part of the activities in our fiscal year 2019 audit plan.  The audit objective was to determine whether HUD had adequate oversight of public housing agencies’ compliance with the Lead Safe Housing Rule.HUD did not have adequate oversight of public housing agencies’…

The Office of Inspector General is initiating an evaluation of the Office of Public and Indian Housing (PIH) and the Office of Multifamily Housing Program (Multifamily)’s policies for radon. We will determine the extent to which PIH and Multifamily’s radon policies protect residents from the hazardous health effects of exposure to indoor radon. I have included our evaluation design, which gives more information about our planned work.

In 2016, we began a series of audits in accordance with our goal to review the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) multifamily housing programs.  We issued five reports detailing violations found at Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) properties in HUD’s Southwest Region.  This assignment is a rollup of those five reports.  In addition, we reviewed HUD’s controls to ensure that its housing assistance…

We are required to audit the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) annually in accordance with the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 as amended. Our objectives were to express an opinion on the fair presentation of HUD’s consolidated financial statements and report on HUD’s internal controls over financial reporting and compliance with select provisions of applicable laws,…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited HUD’s compliance with the purchase card program requirements for fiscal years 2017 and 2018 based on our risk assessment. Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD maintained accurate records of cardholders and transactions; HUD employees took purchase card training when required; and HUD purchase cards were used for illegal, improper, or…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited HUD’s compliance with the travel card program requirements for fiscal year 2018 based on our risk assessment.Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD travel cards were used for potentially illegal, improper, or erroneous purchases and whether travel cards were used when required. We found that out of a sample of transactions that we…

This topic brief summarized the current status of all information technology (IT) and privacy program recommendations issued to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by the Office of Inspector General’s Office of Evaluation, Information Technology Evaluations Division (iTED) from Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 through 2019.  The report breaks down numbers of recommendations by functional areas and analyzes the progress made…

This management alert identified that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is failing to meet basic records management and privacy requirements for over 1 billion records containing PII.  Specifically, HUD is unable to identify, categorize, and adequately secure all of its electronic and paper records that contain personally identifiable information (PII).  These issues were identified during the fiscal year (FY)…

This report presents the results of our audit of FHA’s principal financial statements and notes for the fiscal years ending September 30, 2019 and 2018, including our report on FHA’s internal control and test of compliance with selected provisions of laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements. In our opinion, FHA’s fiscal years 2019 and 2018 financial statements were presented fairly, in all material respects, in accordance with the U.S…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured loans from fiscal year 2018.  Our audit objective was to determine whether FHA provided insurance on loans that were made to ineligible, delinquent Federal tax debtors. We found that FHA insured at least 56,376 loans worth $13 billion, which were not eligible for insurance because they were made to…

In February 2018, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) received multiple complaints alleging that HUD’s Secretary, Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., may have violated federal appropriations law by causing the Department to purchase a new set of dining room furniture for his secretarial suite at a cost in excess of $31,000. Due to Secretary Carson’s position as a presidentially-appointed…

We completed a corrective action verification (CAV) of recommendations 1A and 1C from prior OIG audit report 2015-LA-0001 (issued April 20, 2015).  The CAV was initiated based on preliminary analysis, which identified potential ineligible partial claims.  The prior audit determined that the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) claim payment system failed to identify two types of ineligible partial claims.  As part of its…

Topic briefs are a tool we use to keep officials within the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) informed of challenges so that its leadership can be better prepared to address them.  This topic brief describes our observations of the time it takes the Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) to complete risk-based scoring.  HUD implemented its risk analysis process to help CPD field offices identify and…