In accordance with the statutory requirements of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act) and standards established by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), we audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Office of the Chief Financial Officer’s (OCFO) compliance with the DATA Act for the second quarter of fiscal year 2017.

In the DATA Act Compliance Audit of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, OIG audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) compliance by assessing (1) the completeness, timeliness, quality, and accuracy of fiscal year 2017 second quarter financial and award data submitted for publication on USASpending.gov and (2) HUD’s implementation and use of the governmentwide financial data standards established by OMB and Treasury. We concluded that HUD OCFO did not comply with the DATA Act for complete and accurate data submissions to USASpending.gov by the statutory May 2017 deadline. HUD underreported a total of $17.9 billion in incurred obligations, $16.9 billion in outlays, and $4.2 billion in apportionments and did not comply with the DATA Act. Specifically, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) operational activity contributed to an absolute value of $17.3 billion in obligations incurred and $16.6 billion in outlays, and Ginnie Mae contributed an additional absolute value of $558.3 million in obligations incurred and $215.8 million in outlays being excluded from the submission. This condition occurred because HUD OCFO did not (1) follow financial data standards required by OMB and the U.S. Department of the Treasury, (2) allocate sufficient financial resources to DATA Act implementation, (3) maintain adequate internal controls, including data reconciliations, and (4) establish governance policies and roles and responsibilities of each entity involved in the agency’s submission to USASpending.gov.  Therefore, the stakeholders and end users accessing the agency’s data on USASpending.gov could not obtain a complete and accurate representation of HUD’s financial positions and performance due to HUD not reporting all activity associated with the U.S. Standard General Ledger accounts for each award.

The results of our audit and recommendations are documented in the Results of Audit section of our report. The five recommendations have the objective of improving HUD’s future compliance with the DATA Act and remediate any issues identified by allocating sufficient resources, establishing a governance structure, ensuring that internal control policies and procedures are developed and implemented, and completing data quality and error resolution for programs that have been excluded from HUD’s second quarter submission.
Related reports: 2016-FO-0802 and 2017-FO-0801.