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The Authority Made Housing
Assistance Overpayments of
$7,523 and Underpayments of
$7,197
We reviewed 71 program recipient files from our sample plus files of three
employees who received program assistance for a total of 74. Thirty-five files (47
percent) contained at least one of the following incorrect calculations: income,
housing assistance payments, total tenant payments, utility allowance payments,
and/or utility allowances. The incorrect calculations resulted in $7,523 in housing
assistance overpayments and $7,197 in housing assistance underpayments.
(These amounts may change after the unsupportive costs have been reconciled.)
Appendix E of this report details all of the housing assistance payment errors
identified.
Review of the Authority’s calculations and documentation contained in the tenant
files (for example, third-party verification forms and paycheck stubs) showed that
the Authority’s procedures were not always effective in ensuring that rent and
subsidies were calculated correctly. For example, the following errors were made
by the program coordinators: underestimating annual income by not using all the
information provided by the tenants’ employers, not including child support when
estimating annual income, and using the biweekly method to calculate income
when documentation in the file clearly indicated that the tenant was paid weekly.
The errors were missed because the Authority did not have quality control
procedures in place to ensure that inaccuracies would be detected.
HUD Handbook 7420.10g, chapter 6, describes the guidelines for calculating rent
and subsidies. Chapter 22 of the handbook describes the quality control
procedures necessary for ensuring that the calculations are correct. Specifically,
chapter 22 requires housing authorities to establish quality control procedures to
ensure that staff’s daily decision making on tenant eligibility and tenant rent
complies with program regulations and is based on accurate information.
Additionally, the procedures should include adequate training of staff and
monitoring of their performance.
The Authority can reduce the risk of error associated with calculations of rent and
subsidies by implementing quality control procedures as required by HUD
Handbook 7420.10g, chapter 6. The quality control procedures should include
training and periodic reviews of the work done by program occupancy technicians
to ensure that income, rent, and subsidies are properly documented.
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