Correction: Improper Government Payment/Error Rate Transparency Heating Up; HUD Should Welcome.

Correction: I corrected text below to read that NET over payment errors were 1.6%, after underpayments were subtracted from over payments.
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In late November the President issued a new Executive Order that will require Internet publication of improper payment data by federal agencies by May 2009. The Executive Order is HERE.

A Government Executive news story HERE includes a PDF table HERE showing error rates for select agencies and programs.

You will see that HUD's 3.5% error rate (total gross errors/total dollars spent) compares very favorably to error rates for other federal programs. (Gross Error rates include both over and underpayment, if underpayments were subtracted from overpayments, HUD rental assistance NET overpayments would be only 1.6%--$453 Million out of $29 Billion in payments).

In contrast to the low error rates for HUD and many other programs check out HIGH program error rates for:

Program	Error Rate	Total Errors
Medicaid	9.6%	$18,075
Unemployment	10.3%	$12,283
Earned Income Tax Credit	25.5%	$12,250
Medicare Advantage	15.4%	$12,010
SSI.	12.1%	$5,437
School Lunches	16.4%	$1,551
HUD Rental Assistance	3.5%	$1,022
VA pensions	11.2%	$425
Homeland Security Grants	18.8%	$261
Disaster Assistance Loans	20.9%	$169

(Why improper payments for Defense contracting do not appear at all on the list is a mystery to me).

Detailed HUD data on improper payments is found within the FY 2009 PAR that I recently posted about; discussion about HUD improper payments start on page 343. Note that HUD income reporting errors are on the rise and will likely receive increased attention in the future.

All in all I think this is a VERY good tool that should improve transparency and allow easier comparison between error rates in different programs.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.