HUD Oversight: Testimony of the HUD Inspector General (EventID=116128)

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Connect with the House Financial Services Committee Get the latest news: https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/ Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HouseFinancialCmte Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FSCDems ___________________________________ On Wednesday, June 21, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. (ET) Housing and Insurance Subcommittee Chairman Congressman Davidson and Ranking Member Congressman Cleaver will host a hearing entitled, “HUD Oversight: Testimony of the HUD Inspector General." ___________________________________ Witness for this one-panel hearing will be: • The Honorable Rae Oliver Davis, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) ___________________________________ The hearing will focus on the findings issued by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) with respect to HUD. The HUD OIG is responsible for conducting audits, evaluations, investigations, and oversight of HUD’s programs and operations. This represents the first time that Ms. Oliver Davis will appear before the Committee on Financial Services. The last time an official from the HUD OIG testified before the Committee was on September 25, 2018, when then-Acting Deputy Inspector General Jeremy Kirkland appeared. HUD Office of Inspector General Background Authorities / Mission The HUD OIG is one of the original 12 offices created in the Inspector General Act of 1978. Currently, there are 73 OIGs overseeing various parts of the Federal government. The OIGs have a dual responsibility to report both to Congress and to the head of the agency (or other entity) that they oversee. The HUD OIG states that its mission is to “…promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in the administration of HUD programs through the use of traditional and innovative approaches.” Under the Inspector General Act, the duties and responsibilities of the OIGs can be summarized as follows: • To provide policy direction for and to conduct, supervise, and coordinate audits and investigations relating to the programs and operations of the agency; • To review existing and proposed legislation and regulations and to report on their impact to the agency’s programs and operations; • To recommend policies for the agency, and to conduct, supervise, or coordinate other activities carried out or financed by the agency; • To conduct, supervise, or coordinate relationships between the agency and other Federal agencies, State and local governmental agencies, and nongovernmental entities in order to promote economy and efficiency and to prevent fraud and abuse, including identifying and prosecuting any participants in fraud or abuse; • To keep the head of the agency and Congress fully and currently informed of efforts concerning fraud and other serious problems, abuses, and deficiencies; and • To recommend corrective actions the agency can take as well as monitor the progress of these actions. The current HUD Inspector General is Rae Oliver Davis. She was confirmed by the Senate and has served in this role since January 23, 2019. Prior to her current position, Ms. Oliver Davis served as Acting Assistant Inspector General for the HUD OIG. She has also worked in senior positions in both the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program as well as the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S. Postal Service. Budget and Structure The OIG is an independent office with its own budget and staffing authority, although it resides within HUD. For FY 2023, the office received $146 million in budget authority and employed approximately 520 full-time equivalent personnel (not including administrative costs associated with disaster funding supplementals). In comparison, in FY 2017, the HUD OIG received $126 million in budget authority and had 593 full-time equivalent employees. This represents an almost16 percent increase in funding during the five-year period. (Of note, the cost per full-time equivalent less non-personnel services has grown from approximately $164,000 to approximately $211,000 in five years.) In comparison, HUD’s budget has grown dramatically during the past 5 years from $51.5 billion in total budget authority in FY 2017 to $75.3 billion in FY 2023. This represents a 46 percent increase in enacted budget authority for the agency during the five-year period. Further, the Biden Administration requested a sharp increase in net budget authority for HUD’s FY 2024 budget to $101.8 billion OIG Recommendations and Enforcement Actions As of March 31, 2023, HUD had 985 outstanding (open), unimplemented recommendations from OIG audit and evaluation reports, with a combined potential cost savings of more than $20 billion. While there the number of open recommendations has declined over the past decade, more work must be done between HUD and the OIG to resolve these longstanding issues to... Hearing page: https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/events/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=410562