The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited the Housing Authority of the County of Salt Lake Public Housing Capital Fund grants for fiscal years 2011-2014.  We initiated this audit due to the amount of funding the Authority received during our review period.  The Authority is the highest funded public housing agency in the State of Utah.  The objective of our audit was to determine whether the Authority properly followed HUD’s and its own procurement requirements when entering into contracts.

The Authority did not properly procure its goods or services.  All of the Authority’s 25 contracts that were greater than $2,000 from 2011 to 2014 lacked evidence of most if not all parts of the procurement process.  The Authority had over $734,000 in unsupported procurement actions.

We recommend that the Director of the Denver Office of Public Housing require the Authority to (1) provide support for $734,074 in procurement actions executed without proper documentation or repay the unsupported amounts from non-Federal funds, (2) develop and implement detailed policies and procedures to ensure that staff and management properly complete all aspects of the procurement process, and (3) obtain procurement training for its staff to improve proficiency in the procurement processes.