“That’s the point. That’s what smells. HUD is a symptom of an inability to learn from history that we keep paying a price for,” Bill Bergman of watchdog Truth in Accounting said of the federal department with a $50 billion annual budget.
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials refuse to explain why they haven’t fixed poor accounting practices and useless financial books their inspector general (IG) has been exposing for four years.
It’s not clear whether HUD officials understand what they’re doing is wrong because, their spokesman, Brian Sullivan, told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group that “HUD does apply generally accepted accounting standards.”
Not so, said the IG, whose most recent audit found 11 “material weaknesses,” seven “significant deficiencies” in internal controls, and five instances of “noncompliance with applicable laws and regulations.”
The laundry list of accounting failures, “were due to an inability to establish a compliant control environment, implement adequate financial accounting systems, retain key financial management staff, and identify appropriate accounting principles and policies,” the IG said.
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