Federal Reports

The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation Office of Inspector General (OIG) contracted with the independent public accounting firm RMA Associates, LLC (RMA) to conduct a review of DFC’s compliance with Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 (PIIA) for fiscal year (FY) ending September 30, 2024. The review was conducted in accordance with 1) the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Memorandum M-21-19, Transmittal of Appendix C to OMB Circular A-123, Requirements for Payment Integrity Improvement and 2) OMB Circular A-136, Financial Reporting Requirements, May 30, 2024. Our review period was from February through April 2025. RMA also reviewed DFC’s risk assessment process and efforts in preventing and reducing improper payments (IPs) and unknown payments (UPs). Our objective was to determine if DFC complied with PIIA for fiscal year 2024.

HUD did not comply with PIIA because it did not report compliant improper and unknown payment estimates for the Office of Public and Indian Housing’s Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (PIH-TBRA) program and the Office of Multifamily Housing Programs’ Project-Based Rental Assistance (MF-PBRA) program.   These were HUD’s two largest program expenditures, totaling more than $50 billion in fiscal year 2024.  This noncompliance is significant because this is the eighth consecutive year in which HUD has been unable to produce PIH-TBRA and MF-PBRA improper and unknown payment estimates, and that deficiency has contributed to HUD’s noncompliance with improper payment laws for 12 consecutive years.  

These programs present payment integrity challenges because they entail thousands of program administrators outside of HUD processing large volumes of payments using nonstandarized processes, and supporting documentation needed for testing is not maintained at HUD.  The lack of a detailed approach to resolve these systemic challenges, including coordination by leadership, has prevented HUD from making the progress needed to achieve compliance.  

 We also determined that HUD did not comply with the Do Not Pay Initiative (DNP) as required by the Payment Integrity Information Act of 2019 because it did not consistently use DNP for prepayment verification.  This occurred in large part because the computer matching agreement between HUD and Treasury, related to DNP, expired in 2019 and has still not been renewed.  Additionally, we found HUD’s governance of DNP implementation to be weak.  Without this computer matching process in place and because of weak governance around DNP implementation, HUD’s risk of improper payments increased.  At least $212 million of HUD funds were technically improper payments since the funds were paid to at least 11 entities that did not have an active registration on SAM.gov. 

OIG evaluated the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights’ efforts to ensure compliance and accountability among USDA agencies and staff, in accordance with applicable civil rights laws and regulations.