Report 2018-037 Recommendation 7 Responses

Report 2018-037: California Department of Housing and Community Development: Its Oversight of Housing Bond Funds Remains Inconsistent (Release Date: September 2018)

Recommendation #7 To: Housing and Community Development, Department of

To ensure that HCD appropriately monitors BEGIN as required by statute, regulations, and program guidelines, HCD should immediately collect and review all required reports, and it should follow up with recipients to obtain any missing reports. If the reports reveal a problematic trend, such as a recipient not disbursing funds, HCD should take appropriate corrective action with the recipient.

1-Year Agency Response

Since outreach efforts began, a total of 69% of the outstanding reports have been received, as of July 2019. Current efforts are being focused on pursuing the collection of any required reports for the 2019 FY. The BEGIN program has no active funding and will have no future funding rounds. Therefore there is no mechanism to restrict future funding for this program to grantees that are non-compliant with reporting. See the attached write up detailing the efforts HCD has made to collect outstanding 2017/2018 FY compliance reports, and the measures that the department has taken to prevent similar issues in the CalHome program moving forward.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

If HCD continues to collect required reports and follow up with recipients to obtain missing reports, it will implement our recommendation.

6-Month Agency Response

HCD continues to engage in outreach efforts for Reuse and Annual Report submittals. The following statistics reflect collection rates as of 2/6/19: BEGIN Reuse Reports 66% received (as of 02/06/19). Additional outreach will be done for remaining non-compliant jurisdictions, with a compliance deadline of 3/29/19. An alternate compliance policy is being developed to address compliance issues in declared disaster areas, and remedy through appropriate due date revisions. Non-compliant grantees will be ineligible for future funding.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

HCD is actively calling grantees to collect annual reuse reports and is at approximately 60% submittal rate for reuse reports. Review of the reports is ongoing to determine corrective actions that may need to be taken.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2018-037

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.