The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Office of Inspector General audited HUD's Enterprise Income Verification (EIV) system. HUD implemented the EIV system nationwide for public housing authorities to use to identify and reduce tenant income and subsidy errors within the Section 8 and public housing programs. Our objective was to determine whether HUD provided adequate guidance and training to its EIV coordinators and housing authority users.

We found that HUD provided adequate guidance and training to its EIV coordinators and housing authority users. However, EIV users did not always take advantage of HUD's EIV training and guidance. Since use of EIV is not yet mandatory, HUD did not require housing authorities to ensure that their users take EIV training prior to granting them access to the EIV system. As a result, housing authority users may not fully understand EIV's capabilities and their responsibilities when using the system.

We recommend that the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Housing and Voucher Programs consider enhancing existing requirements to require housing authorities to certify that their EIV users have received EIV training prior to granting access to the EIV system. The housing authorities would keep the certifications on file and have them available for review.