The Legislative Audit Bureau makes 21 recommendations to the Department of Administration.

Emergency Rental Assistance Program (p. 5)

We recommend the Department of Administration:  

1. modify the Emergency Rental Assistance program’s manual to require individuals to provide a signed lease and income documentation whenever that information is available; (p. 11)
2. instruct community action agencies and Energy Services, Inc., to require individuals to provide signed leases and income documentation whenever that information is available; (p. 11)
3. instruct community action agencies and Energy Services, Inc., to obtain up-to-date income documentation or income attestation forms; (p. 12)
4. modify the rental attestation form to require individuals to attest in writing that they are unable to provide signed leases, if leases are unavailable; (p. 12)
5. modify the income attestation form to require individuals to attest in writing that they are unable to provide income documentation, if such documentation is unavailable; (p. 12)
6. modify the Emergency Rental Assistance program’s manual to indicate that applications should be prioritized for individuals who live in households that have incomes no more than 50.0 percent of the county median income or that include one or more individuals who have been unemployed for 90 days; (p. 13)
7. inform community action agencies and Energy Services, Inc., about these modifications; (p. 13)
8. determine whether individuals received Emergency Rental Assistance program benefits for the same rental and utilities costs that six local governments covered with their emergency rental assistance funds; (p. 14)
9. report to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee by August 26, 2022, on the extent to which individuals received program benefits for rental and utilities costs that were also covered by the six local governments and the status of its efforts to recoup such program benefits; (p. 14)
10. ensure that community action agencies take the corrective actions that it had identified from its reviews of case files; (p. 20)
11. review a sample of case files from landlords that received large amounts of program funds or rented to large numbers of households with individuals who received program benefits; (p. 20)
12. identify instances when individuals may have received program benefits for longer than permitted by federal law and adjust future payments or require repayments as necessary; and (p. 20)
13. require community action agencies and Energy Services, Inc., either to provide it with information on possible conflicts of interest or attest in writing each month that they had no conflicts of interest. (p. 20)

Emergency Solutions Grant Program (p. 21)

We recommend the Department of Administration:

14. obtain complete written Emergency Solutions Grant program policies from all continuums of care or, as necessary, from entities. (p. 26)

We recommend the Department of Administration report to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee by August 26, 2022, on:

15. the extent to which Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds for the Emergency Solutions Grant program have been spent through June 2022; and (p. 27)
16. the numbers of individuals and households served through the Emergency Solutions Grant program by Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds through June 2022. (p. 27)

We recommend the Department of Administration:

17. always select the Emergency Solutions Grant program case files to review at each entity; (p. 29)
18. require lead agencies and entities to redact confidential information before emailing such information; (p. 29)
19. randomly select the month of program expenditures for which it requests supporting documentation; and (p. 29)
20. require lead agencies to indicate in their monthly reimbursement requests the extent to which such requests have been reduced because one or more entities had identified unallowable costs that had been previously reimbursed. (p. 29)

Audit Follow-Up Reporting

21. We recommend the Department of Administration report to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee by August 26, 2022, on its efforts to implement all of these recommendations.