Oregon Audit Reports

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Issue Date: September 21, 2009
Audit Report No.: 2009-SE-1803
File Size: 179.26KB

Title: Capacity Review of the Warm Springs Housing Authority, (ARRA), Warm Springs, Oregon

In accordance with our goal to review funds provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), we conducted a capacity review of Warm Springs Housing Authority's (Authority) operations. Our objective was to determine whether the Authority has the capacity to adequately administer Recovery Act funding.

Our limited review found no evidence indicating the Authority lacks the capacity to administer its Recovery Act funding. However, we are concerned that the authority's accomplishments will not be sustained without a commitment to future management and to the continued improvement of its internal control environment. A qualified executive director and a functional board of commissioners are necessary to establish the organization's internal control environment; its integrity and ethical values; its commitment to competence; and its framework for planning, directing, and controlling operations.

We recommended that the Northwest Office of Native American Programs staff provide technical assistance to and monitor the progress of the Authority's activities and to request the tribal council hire an executive director and appoint qualified members to the board of commissioners.

Issue Date: January 9, 2009
Audit Report No.: 2009-SE-1001
File Size: 245.68KB

Title: The Housing Authority of Douglas County, Roseburg, Oregon, Needs to Strengthen Its Internal Controls

At the request of HUD's Region X Office of Public Housing, we audited the Housing Authority of Douglas County, Oregon, (Authority) to determine whether the Authority procured goods and services in accordance with HUD regulations and its procurement policy, accounted for HUD funds in accordance with HUD's administrative requirements and managed its Housing Choice Voucher program in accordance with HUD regulations.

We found the Authority had internal control weaknesses that resulted in incomplete procurement documentation, inadequate source documentation, inaccurate housing assistance calculations and payments, and unallowable expenditures. The Authority spent more than $2,000 on charitable donations and social events that were unallowable. We recommend that the Region X Office of Public Housing require the Authority to implement procedures and processes to remedy the internal control weaknesses and to repay the ineligible expenditures from non-federal funds.

Issue Date: October 30, 2007
Audit Report No.: 2008-SE-1001
File Size: 222.33KB

Title: Accounting for Program Income from NAHASDA-Assisted 1937 Act Housing Projects at Warm Springs Housing Authority, Warm Springs, Oregon

We audited Warm Springs Housing Authority (Authority) as part of our review of the Office of Native American Programs' guidance on calculating program income for United States Housing Act of 1937 (1937 Act) housing projects assisted by the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act of 1996 (NAHASDA). The objective of the audit was to determine whether the Authority calculated program income for NAHASDA-assisted 1937 Act properties in accordance with applicable U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidance, regulations, and requirements and to observe uses of revenue from NAHASDA-assisted 1937 Act properties.

The Authority did not have an adequate accounting process and system in place to accurately allocate income from 1937 Act properties receiving Indian Housing Block Grant program assistance between the 1937 Act and Indian Housing Block Grant programs. It failed to track cumulative NAHASDA modernization expenses for each property as required by PIH Notice 2000-18, section 3.4 and did not allocate the property's share of income attributable to the NAHASDA Indian Housing Block Grant program. Further, it did not properly credit insurance proceeds and did not have a system to track restricted nonprogram income removed from its Mutual Help program. This condition occurred because the Authority had not made it a priority to establish an accounting system to allocate income attributable to the 1937 Act and Indian Housing Block Grant programs. As a result, it inappropriately removed more than $1.4 million in low-income housing receipts from HUD monitored NAHASDA affordable housing activities during the period 1998 to 2006. Additionally, the Authority used restricted funds to pay for $204,456 in unsupported travel expenses. The low-income housing receipts removed from the program with HUD's consent were used to repay monitoring findings related to unsupported compensation of housing officials and unsupported travel expenses. Other uses of nonprogram income included unallowable bad debt, personal expenses on Authority credit cards, miscellaneous HUD-rejected expenses, and maintenance of tribal housing outside the NAHASDA program.

We recommend that HUD require the Authority to (1) establish an accounting system that allocates income attributable to the NAHASDA program and documents the total cost of NAHASDA-funded rehabilitation and capital improvements, by 1937 Act unit, from 1998 forward or return $1.4 million, which was previously withdrawn from 1937 Act revenue as nonprogram income, to the NAHASDA program; (2) reconcile insurance proceeds and ensure that they are credited to NAHASDA-eligible activities for any policy paid using NAHASDA funds or policies covering NAHASDA-assisted units; (3) establish a separate accounting for Mutual Help program proceeds of sale to ensure proper restriction on the use of those funds, and (4) complete repayment of $204,456 in unsupported travel expenses questioned during a 2003 Office of Native American Programs monitoring review.

Issue Date: January 9, 2005
Audit Report No.: 2005-SE-1003
File Size: 449KB

Title: Oregon Housing and Community Services, Salem OR Non-Insured, Subsidized Multifamily Projects

We audited Oregon Housing and Community Services (Oregon Housing) as a followup to our recent audit of Uptown Towers Apartments, which found that, with Oregon Housing's approval, the owner and/or the management agent engaged in many practices HUD considers unallowable.

The overall audit objective was to determine whether Oregon Housing fulfilled its monitoring duties under the terms of the Annual Contributions Contract and Risk-Share Agreement and ensured that distributions of project funds conform to HUD requirements.

Issue Date: March 26, 2004
Audit Report No.: 2004-SE-1003
File Size: 1.62MB

Title: Uptown Towers Apartments, Portland, Oregon HAP Contract No. OR160039003 Master ACC Contract No. S-0029

We have completed an audit of Uptown Towers Apartments (Project), a HUD-subsidized project in Portland, Oregon. The purpose of our audit was to determine if:

· The Project owner received repayment of ineligible construction loans and capital contributions from Project funds;
· Commercial space income has been treated as Project income or owner's contribution;
· Commercial income has been paid out to the Project owner;
· The management agent has been receiving excessive management fees; and
· Certain Project expenses were eligible and benefited the Project.

Our audit found no repayments of construction loans. We determined that repayments of capital contributions from Project surplus cash to the owners were eligible. We also found that the Project's commercial income was properly treated as owner contributions or income, and that payments to the owner from the commercial income are allowable. However, the management agent received excessive management fees paid from residential income for the management of the Project's commercial income. Further, ineligible partnership expenses were paid from Project funds and some of those expenses were paid without supporting documents in sufficient detail to show whether they were partnership or Project expenses.

Issue Date: January 9, 2004
Audit Report No.: 2004-SE-1002
File Size: 3020KB

Title: Scheller Hess-Yoder and Associates Non-Supervised Loan Correspondent Portland, Oregon

Issue Date: October 31, 2002
Audit Memorandum No.2003-SE-1001
File Size: 263KB

Title: Congressionally Requested Audit of the Outreach and Training Assistance Grants (numbers FFOT98024OR and FFOT00032OR) and Intermediary Technical Assistance Grant (number MTMORPEG00019) awarded to the Community Alliance of Tenants, Portland, Oregon

The Community Alliance of Tenants (CAT) is the recipient of two OTAG grants totaling $410,000. Our audit found that CAT generally segregated its lobbying expenditures from the grants, but inadvertently charged $434 and other indeterminable costs to the OTAG grants for prohibited lobbying activities. In addition, CAT did not fully comply with the cost principles of Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-122 in its classification of direct and indirect costs, and other instances of non-compliance with A-122. As a result, CAT used grant funds for lobbying and other ineligible activities, and may have over or undercharged the OTAG grants for indirect costs. Also, the grants were charged $6,493 in ineligible and $45,751 in questionable direct and indirect expenses. Our report contains recommendations to address the issues identified in the report and other recommendations to strengthen management controls over the grants.

Issue Date: July 17, 1996
Audit Case Number 96-SE-212-1001
File Size: 61KB

Title: DB&B, Inc., Albany, Or

Based on the results of our audit, we concluded that DB&B, Inc., owner of Western Terrace and Colonial Court South Apartments, disregarded HUD requirements and instructions in order to save funds for prepayment of their HUD insured mortgages. As a result of DB&B, Inc.'s disregard for HUD requirements, residents lived in substandard conditions and $93,495 of HUD funds were used for ineligible or unsupported expenses.