Finding Text
Condition:
1) Housing assistance payments and tenant payments for four of 40 client files selected for testing were calculated incorrectly due to errors in the amounts used for income or utility allowances.
2) An Enterprise Income Verification (“EIV”) report was not run in timely manner. Due to this, one of 40 client files selected for testing had unreported income. Incorporating the unreported income would have made the client ineligible for the program.
Criteria: Organizations operating the Moving to Work Demonstration Program are required to maintain sufficient internal controls to ensure compliance with eligibility requirement.
Context: A sample of 40 clients with total assistance payments of $66,975 were selected for testing for the year. The testing found 5 files with incorrect monthly housing assistance payments and tenant payment amounts totaling $1,210.
Effect: The housing assistance payments and tenant payments noted above are not made in accordance with program regulations.
Cause: Community Teamwork, Inc.’s internal controls were not operating effectively enough to prevent or detect improper calculation of housing assistance payments and tenant payments.
Auditor's Recommendation: Community Teamwork, Inc. provide additional staff training and implement additional internal control procedures to ensure that required reports are run in a timely manner and assistance payments made on behalf of the clients participating in the program are made in accordance with program regulations.
Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Action:
1) Community Teamwork, Inc. has enhanced the verification process by introducing mandatory second-level reviews for all income and asset calculations for new employees. An extensive staff training program has been initiated that focuses on HUD and EOHLC requirements, with specific attention to the verification and documentation procedures. New employees will undergo a tiered review process where the new employees’ work will be audited by experienced staff until they have met the error compliance threshold. In addition, Community Teamwork, Inc. has updated their internal training protocols to focus on acceptable verification methods, accurate income reporting, and the correct completion of Form HUD-50058 MTW. As part of new protocols, program representatives are required to review the utility breakdown located in the tenant files to confirm that the utility allowance given to the tenant during the annual certification matches with the utility allowance in the tenant file.
2) Director of Intake and Leasing will ensure that the 120-day report is being run in a timely manner.