HUD’s Travel Cards Were Used for Illegal, Improper, or Erroneous Purchases and Were Not Always Used When Required

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General audited HUD’s compliance with the travel card program requirements for fiscal year 2018 based on our risk assessment. Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD travel cards were used for potentially illegal, improper, or erroneous purchases and whether travel cards were used when required. We found that out of a sample of transactions that we identified as high risk, HUD’s travel cards were used for 166 illegal, improper, or erroneous purchases totaling nearly $23,000. In addition, 19 employees used their personal sources of payment instead of the government travel card in violation of the Federal Travel Regulations. We recommend that the Office of Chief Financial Officer (1) coordinate with the related program offices, the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer, and the Office of Employee Labor Relations to take appropriate actions against the employees identified in this report; (2) improve controls to ensure the proper use of the travel cards and prevent or detect employees who did not use their government travel cards when required; and (3) provide employees with appropriate training on the issues identified in this report and ensure that all cardholder training is up to date.