Improper Payments Comparisons FY 2010; HUD Improper Rental Assistance Payments and Rates Were Far Less than for Key Medical/Food Programs.

The administration has a reduction of improper payments initiative underway that includes a data set of improper payments by agency and program that can be found HERE.

I went in and dug out some data for FY 2010 for some select programs including HUD Public Housing and Rental Assistance programs . This includes public housing, project based, and voucher based rental assistance outlays of $30.015 Billion. 

I prepared two graphs HERE that show the improper payment percentage and dollars for these select programs. 

Some observations:

The improper payment percentage for HUD was 3.1%, or $925 million spent improperly (of $30.015 billion in outlays). HUD's percentage and $$ improperly spent was substantially lower than other well known programs:

• The combined improper payment rate for 3 medical programs [ Medicare Advantage, Medicare fee for service, and Medicaid] was 10.6%, with $70.4 billion spent improperly.
• The combined improper payments rate for 3 food programs [SNAP/"Food Stamps", School Breakfast, and School Lunch] was 6.9%, with $4.278 billion spent improperly in FY 2010.
• The improper payment rate for 3 medical programs was 345% of the HUD rate [245% higher], and the improper payment rate for 3 food programs was 225% of the HUD rate [125% higher].
• The amount of improper payments for 3 medical programs was 76.15 times the amount of HUD improper payments and for 3 food programs the improper amount was 4.63 times the HUD amount.

Note: HUD's 3.1% improper spending rate included 1% that was under spent [payments were lower than they should have been] so FY 2010 net overspending was 2.1% or $630.2 million instead of $925 million; breakouts of under and overspending was not available for all programs so comparisons on net overspending between programs was not possible.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.