HUD OIG conducted an evaluation of the information reported by HUD recipients pertaining to the number of jobs created and retained with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Funds.  Our evaluation focused on the job data reported by HUD recipients located in the State of New York and covered the reporting periods from the third quarter of 2009 through the fourth quarter of 2010.  We wanted to determine the accuracy of the information reported by HUD recipients pertaining to number of jobs created and retained with Recovery Act funds.

Our review of five selected HUD recipients disclosed that the methodology of counting the quarterly hours worked for reporting was not consistent among recipients and there were instances of discrepancies between actual hours worked and hours used in the calculation of jobs for reporting to FederalReporting.gov, the Federal website used for reporting Recovery Act spending and performance.  We questioned the accuracy of the job calculations and, in some instances, the data used in these job calculations by recipients, subrecipients, and vendors.  However, due to the small sample size, we could not calculate the impact on the nationwide data.

To fully inform the public regarding job creation and retention activities using Recovery Act funding, it is essential to report accurate data.  We believe that HUD should: (1) ensure that additional review steps and guidance for accurate reporting of job data be implemented and (2) re-emphasize OMB’s guidance in calculating the estimated number of FTE jobs created based on the actual hours worked.