Audit 410719

Information on the Federal Program: Federal Award Identification: ALN 14.881 Moving to Work Demonstration Program Federal Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development Pass-through entity: Not Applicable Perspective: During our review of form HUD-50058 and Housing Quality Standards (HQS) prepared and performed by management, we noted a certain error in the performance of timely inspections that was caused by an incorrect interval of the Housing Quality Standards inspections in the system. HQS inspections are required to be performed on a biennially within twenty-four months of the last inspection. Criteria: The Authority must properly design, implement, and maintain effective internal controls to ensure that each unit under HAP contract must be inspected biennially within twenty-four months of the last inspection in accordance with the Administrative Plan and HUD requirements. Statement of Condition: During our review of the twenty-five HUD-50058 forms and Housing Quality Standards inspection, we identified one unit where the HQS inspection was not done timely. After additional testing procedures, we noted 14 units where HQS inspection schedule was not setup correctly which identified the interval of inspection as every 5 years instead of every 2 years. Questioned Costs: Not applicable. Cause: The exception occurred due to a scheduling error by staff, which resulted in the unit being scheduled for its next HQS inspection five years after the prior inspection rather than within the required two-year inspection period. Effect or Possible Effect: The units might not be inspected within the required two-year period, resulting in noncompliance with applicable HQS inspection requirements. Repeat Finding: Not a repeat finding. Recommendation: We recommend that management periodically review the HQS inspection schedule to ensure that all units are properly scheduled for inspection within the required two-year period and follow up on any inspections that are approaching or past due. Views of Responsible Officials: The Authority acknowledges lack of compliance with applicable Housing Quality Standards (HQS) inspection requirements caused by staff error in selection of an incorrect inspection interval in the tracking system for a limited number of Project Based Vouchers (PBV) that were being converted to tenant-based vouchers, resulting in seven units ultimately not being inspected within the required twoyear timeframe. Vancouver Housing Authority performed over 3,360 inspections in 2025, including biannual inspections, move-in inspections, special inspections, and quality control inspections. The voucher department pulls and analyzes reports at least quarterly to schedule inspections due based upon last completed annual inspection date, to review for inspections that were not completed in the expected timeframe, and to review inspection results and assign randomized quality control inspections. The units referenced below did not pull into the regularly run inspection reports because the software logic used the incorrectly selected inspection interval and thus the inspections did not flag as "missed" in the software. During 2023-2024, VHA processed conversion of 110 PBV into tenant-based vouchers; in some cases, those voucher holders stayed in the same unit post-conversion. When these units were converted out of PBV, VHA staff failed to adjust inspection intervals from five to two years in the tracking system for 14 of 110 units. Unlike tenant-based vouchers, HQS inspections for PBV units are not required for each unit every two years. Instead, a sample of at least 20% of the PBV units within each PBV contract are selected for inspection and as long as the failed initial inspection rate of that sample is less than 20%, no additional inspections are required. Therefore, inspection intervals for PBV units are set to every five years in the tracking system. The incorrect inspection interval at time of PBV to tenant-based conversion resulted in seven units not being inspected within the required two-year timeframe. The interval selection was corrected in the software in July 2026. Inspections were completed for all units in the same month. VHA staff have since implemented additional procedure for checking annual inspections, have updated internal compliance to review inspection and unit specific requirements during a PBV to tenant-based property conversion, and have updated reporting expectations to include an additional annual report to verifying inspection intervals are assigned correctly.