Watchdog Urges Treasury to Tighten Oversight of Rental Aid Program
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The Treasury Department says it is already working on new processes to audit payments made by state, local and tribal governments under the $46.5 billion initiative.
The Treasury Department says it is creating processes to audit tens of billions of dollars in federal emergency rental assistance that states, localities and tribal governments are giving out.
The department said it is working on developing the procedures as the Government Accountability Office on Thursday released a report criticizing Treasury for not having policies in place to tell whether state and local governments are overpaying landlords or giving aid to renters who do not qualify for the help.
“Without a process for conducting effective post-payment reviews or recovery audits for the ERA programs, Treasury’s ability to consistently identify and recover overpayments made by grantees—including those resulting from potential fraud—may be delayed or impossible,” the GAO report said.
The Treasury Department is administering $46.5 billion in rental assistance Congress appropriated between its $2.3 trillion fiscal 2021 spending bill and the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act stimulus measure. As of Nov. 30, 2021, the department had dispersed $37.7 billion of that money to grantees, including states and localities, which have, in turn, sent $17 billion to landlords, renter households and utility providers.
According to the GAO, the Treasury Department “is designing processes to gather data about recipients and overcome challenges in data access and data gathering and plans to implement a recovery audit process.”
In addition to criticizing Treasury, the watchdog agency recommended that the Office of Management and Budget issue guidance on how the rental assistance payments should be audited, particularly after OMB classified the program as “high risk.” The OMB told the GAO that it neither agrees nor disagrees with the recommendation.
Kery Murakami is a senior reporter for Route Fifty based in Washington, D.C.
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