Finding Text
Finding 2022-001 ? Housing Choice Voucher Tenant Files ? Eligibility ? Internal Control over Tenant Files ? Noncompliance and Significant Deficiency Housing Choice Voucher Program CFDA #14.871 Criteria: The Code of Federal regulations, the Housing Authority?s Administrative plan, and specific HUD guidelines in documenting and maintaining the Housing Choice Voucher tenant files. Condition & Cause: Our Review of one hundred (100) HCV tenant files revealed that there were nine (9) errors of noncompliance noted during the audit. This represents a 9.00% sample deviation rate across the total population. The errors consisted of failure to calculate tenant income correctly, failure to have a third party verify tenant income correctly, and improper year-to-date analyses. All nine (9) errors were income related. During the audit, it was noted that the Authority experienced a significant amount of turnover in the HCV department. Additionally, COVID-19 made it difficult to find and retain new staff. Recommendation: We recommend that the Agency conduct a thorough tenant file audit of existing tenants in the HCV program to determine whether there are any misstatements of rental income. We also recommend that the Agency increase their monitoring and review of the HCV program files to determine whether occupancy specialists need additional training or procedures added to ensure compliance. Our experience with agencies that increase monitoring and review of the files is that there are dramatically decreased error rates. Questioned Costs: None Repeat Finding: No Was sampling statistically valid? Yes Views of responsible officials: The PHA agrees with the results of the audit and recommendations.