Federal Reports

Final OIG Letter to OMB on FTC Charge Card Risk Assessment

The following is the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) Annual Work Plan (AWP) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026. The OIG conducts audits and evaluations to prevent and detect fraud and abuse and promote the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of HUD’s programs and operations. 

The AWP highlights audits and evaluations the OIG will initiate in FY 2026, as well as ongoing projects that continue from prior years. All of the projects span HUD programs and operations and take into account HUD’s Top Management and Performance Challenges we identified through our past oversight work, HUD’s priorities as described in its Annual Performance Plan for FY 2026, and recommendations for action we issued to HUD that remain open. The projects also encompass mandatory audits and evaluations required by laws or regulations. 

We organized the AWP by focus areas that correspond to the challenges described in our Top Management and Performance Challenges Report. These focus areas are:

• Improving Business Operations: Modernizing IT Systems and Streamlining Procurement 

• Protecting Taxpayer Funds from Fraud, Waste, and Abuse

• Modernizing the Management of Grant Funds 

• Ensuring the Availability of and Access to Affordable and Quality Housing 

We are committed to providing objective oversight to protect taxpayer funds from fraud and waste and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of HUD’s programs and operations. As with any plan, the AWP is subject to periodic review and revision to address emerging programmatic issues, priorities, and resource changes and to respond to HUD requests or legislative mandates. One area of developing oversight is the OIG’s work in support of safer homes and communities as mandated by the President’s Executive Orders and Presidential Memoranda.

The Office of Inspector General engaged the independent public accounting firm Harper, Rains, Knight, & Company, P.A. (HRK) to conduct the annual Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) evaluation and complete the FY 2025 Inspector General (IG) FISMA Reporting Metrics.  

The objective of the evaluation was to assess the effectiveness of the Commission's information security program and practices for FY 2025.  HRK determined the Commission’s maturity levels were consistently implemented and its information security program and practices were effective.

HRK identified one new finding with three corresponding recommendations.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

Independent auditors have declined to issue an opinion on AmeriCorps’ financial statements for the ninth year. They issued a disclaimer of opinion reporting 11 material weaknesses and two significant deficiencies and added three new recommendations. The auditors, however, verified that AmeriCorps took appropriate actions to close 5 of the 77 prior year recommendations. As a result of this audit, there are now 75 open recommendations.

All eleven of the material weaknesses are recurring, three of them since FY 2017, five since FY 2018, one since FY 2021, and two since FY 2022. AmeriCorps included in its Annual Management Report a Statement of No Assurance, acknowledging that its system of internal controls does not currently provide the necessary level of assurance towards the effectiveness of internal control over operations, reporting, and compliance. This is the sixth consecutive year that AmeriCorps has issued a No Assurance statement. 

AmeriCorps acknowledged the disclaimer of opinion and expressed concurrence to eight material weaknesses and two significant deficiencies. However, AmeriCorps did not concur with three material weaknesses. AmeriCorps did not specify which material weaknesses it agreed or disagreed with in its response to the report. AmeriCorps’ response is included in its entirety in Exhibit D of the audit report. The 75 recommendations will remain open until corrective actions have been fully implemented.

The National Service Trust holds the funds set aside to pay the education awards of national service members who successfully complete their service terms. Responsibility for the education awards that have been earned or will be earned in the near future is the largest liability on AmeriCorps’ financial statements at $278 million. 

AmeriCorps has been unable to produce auditable financial statements for the last nine years. This year, independent auditors issued another disclaimer of opinion, reporting five material weaknesses and one significant deficiency and added two new recommendations. The auditors, however, verified that AmeriCorps took appropriate actions to close 4 of the 32 prior year recommendations. As a result of this audit, there are now 30 open recommendations. 

KPMG LLC conducted an annual independent audit to determine the effectiveness of the DOI’s FY 2025 FISMA programs and practices.