Federal Reports

We audited the multifamily Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) program at the Northline Point Apartments. We selected Northline Point in accordance with our goal to review the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) multifamily housing programs and because of a request from HUD to audit the property based on extensive findings from its project-based contract administrator’s management and occupancy review. This is the fifth audit in a series of Office of Inspector General, Region 6, reviews of multifamily Section 8 PBRA programs. Our objective was to determine whether the owner administered its Section 8 PBRA program in accordance with applicable requirements.We found that the owner did not administer its Section 8 PBRA program in accordance with applicable requirements. Specifically, the owner billed HUD for at least 51 tenants whose eligibility it could not adequately support and subsidized uninspected units. These conditions occurred because the owner and its identity-of-interest management agent did not implement appropriate controls and lacked proper oversight of their staff, which allowed onsite managers to engage in questionable practices and mismanage the program. As a result, the owner received more than $1 million in housing assistance payments for tenants whose eligibility and unit physical condition standards it could not support. Further, the owner could not assure HUD that its certifications for reimbursement were based on accurate information, which could adversely affect the program.We recommend that the Southwest Region Director of Multifamily Housing require the Northline Point Apartments’ owner to (1) support or repay HUD more than $1 million for tenants whose eligibility the owner could not support; (2) perform annual inspections as required; and (3) implement appropriate controls to ensure that tenants are eligible, housing assistance subsidies are accurate, tenants are properly moved and transferred, transactions are properly coded, units are inspected as required, and tenant files contain all required documentation.

The All of Us Research Program (All of Us) is a major component of the Precision Medicine Initiative. All of Us is responsible for building a national research cohort of more than 1 million participants who will provide their personal health information to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) so researchers, providers, and patients can work together. Ensuring that participant data are securely maintained is paramount to retaining the participants' trust and participation in All of Us.

We investigated an allegation that an official at the Southern Campaign Parks Group (SOCA), National Park Service (NPS), an artist, and a park friends group conspired to set up the purchase of one of the artist’s paintings via a 2015 transaction with the friends group so that the artist could avoid a Federal tax garnishment. We also investigated the timing of the art purchase that seemed to coincide with a funding increase in the cooperative agreement between the friends group and Kings Mountain National Military Park (KIMO), a park within SOCA.We found that the SOCA official directed the NPS’ acquisition of a $39,000 painting by the artist in 2015 and structured the purchase using the friends’ group as a broker for the sale even though the friends’ group did not own the painting. This structure allowed the artist, the painting’s true owner, to avoid a Federal tax garnishment that would have been imposed on him had he sold the painting directly to the NPS. The SOCA official admitted to coordinating the transaction with both the artist and the friends group, which included dictating that the friends group receive a $4,000 fee for its role in the transaction.In addition, we found that NPS contracting officials and KIMO staff did not follow Federal regulations and U.S. Department of the Interior procurement policies during the acquisition of the painting; specifically, the NPS and KIMO should have purchased the painting through a competitive bidding process rather than using sole source procedures.We also found that KIMO increased the annual funding to the friends group’s cooperative agreement by $25,000 around the same time the SOCA official began coordinating the purchase of the painting, but we found no direct connection between the friends group’s role in acquiring the painting and the increase in funding. We did find, however, that KIMO staff improperly extended the period of performance of the cooperative agreement without authorization from contracting officials.The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina declined prosecution. We provided this report to the NPS Deputy Director Exercising the Authority of Director.