U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
2023-002 Reasonable Rent - Housing Choice Voucher Program – Assistance Listing No. 14.871
Recommendation: The City should review its system of internal control related to the
policies and procedures in place to mitigate the risk of noncompliance with ...
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
2023-002 Reasonable Rent - Housing Choice Voucher Program – Assistance Listing No. 14.871
Recommendation: The City should review its system of internal control related to the
policies and procedures in place to mitigate the risk of noncompliance with documentation
requirements for rent reasonableness determinations.
Explanation of disagreement with audit finding: There is no disagreement with the audit
finding.
Action taken in response to finding: With similar prior audit findings, the PHA has been
frustrated that their software retained evidence that rent reasonableness determinations
were conducted as required, but unfortunately the software did not retain sufficient details
for the auditors to conduct the required review. During 2023 the PHA updated their
procedures to require that staff manually save (print-screen) the previous rent
reasonableness details to the tenant file in the software before they conduct the new rent
reasonableness determination.
Additionally, the PHA opted to contract the services of McCright & Associates LLC, which is
a HQS servicing company that provides housing quality inspections for initial, and annual,
and special inspections. In particular, SEMAP indicator ii. Sound determination of
reasonable rent for each unit leased is ensured by McCright & Associates Rent
Reasonableness report, which uses a property appraisal model comparing the subject
property to three comparable properties. This data is provided to the PHA on each unit
inspected. Housing staff downloads, prints, and uploads the rent reasonableness report to
each tenant file to remain compliant with PHA specific protocols.
The instances of non-compliance found during the 2023 audit occurred prior to the
implementation of these new procedure so staff believe that appropriate steps have been
taken to address this concern
Name(s) of the contact person(s) responsible for corrective action: Steve Schaer
Planned completion date for corrective action plan: The City believes the necessary
corrective actions have been taken as of August 2024.