HUD Did Not Always Comply With the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010

We audited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) fiscal year 2019 compliance with the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA). Our audit objective was to determine whether HUD complied with IPERA reporting and improper payment reduction requirements according to guidance from Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-123, appendix C.Fiscal year 2019 marked the seventh consecutive year in which HUD did not comply with IPERA. In fiscal year 2019, HUD did not comply with two requirements, and one requirement was not applicable. Specifically, HUD did not (1) always publish improper payments estimates for all required programs and (2) meet the reduction targets for its Federal Housing Administration-Single-Family Insurance Claims (FHA-SFIC) program. These conditions occurred because HUD did not yet have an effective process to comply with all IPERA requirements, although it acquired help from a contractor.No recommendations were made because (1) open recommendations from prior years will help HUD remediate the repeat finding of not always publishing improper payments estimates if implemented and (2) OMB relieved HUD from reporting improper payments, which included meeting a reduction target for the FHA-SFIC program beginning next fiscal year.