Report 2021-125 Recommendations
When an audit is completed and a report is issued, auditees must provide the State Auditor with information regarding their progress in implementing recommendations from our reports at three intervals from the release of the report: 60 days, six months, and one year. Additionally, Senate Bill 1452 (Chapter 452, Statutes of 2006), requires auditees who have not implemented recommendations after one year, to report to us and to the Legislature why they have not implemented them or to state when they intend to implement them. Below, is a listing of each recommendation the State Auditor made in the report referenced and a link to the most recent response from the auditee addressing their progress in implementing the recommendation and the State Auditor's assessment of auditee's response based on our review of the supporting documentation.
Recommendations in Report 2021-125: Regional Housing Needs Assessments: The Department of Housing and Community Development Must Improve Its Processes to Ensure That Communities Can Adequately Plan for Housing (Release Date: March 2022)
| Recommendations to Finance, Department of | ||
|---|---|---|
| Number | Recommendation | Status |
| 6 | To ensure that the population projections it provides to inform HCD's needs assessments are as accurate as possible, by February 2023 Finance should review its projections for the counties with the most significant projection inaccuracies and adjust its methodology as necessary based on 2020 Census data and other information. |
Fully Implemented |
| 7 | To ensure that the household formation rates that it provides HCD are appropriate, Finance should, by February 2023, conduct a comprehensive review of its assumptions about the household formation rates it uses in projections, and it should document that review. |
Fully Implemented |
| Recommendations to Housing and Community Development, Department of | ||
|---|---|---|
| Number | Recommendation | Status |
| 2 | To ensure that its needs assessments are accurate and do not contain unnecessary errors, by June 2022 HCD should institute a process to ensure that its staff performs multiple reviews of data in its assessments, including data that staff members input and councils of governments submit. |
Fully Implemented |
| 3 | To demonstrate that its needs assessments are complete and address all relevant factors, by September 2022 HCD should establish a formal process to document its consideration of all factors required by state law in its needs assessments. |
Fully Implemented |
| 4 | To ensure that it adequately supports the vacancy rate adjustments it makes to needs assessments, by February 2023 HCD should perform a formal analysis of healthy vacancy rates and historical trends to inform those adjustments. |
Pending |
| 5 | To ensure that it does not reduce its needs assessments based on inappropriate information provided by councils of governments, by June 2022 HCD should develop a formal process to review the appropriateness of councils of governments' proposed comparable regions, including identifying the criteria it will consider when reviewing councils of governments proposals. HCD should use this formal process and criteria to consistently evaluate the appropriateness of the proposals to ensure that they identify regions with healthy housing markets. |
Fully Implemented |
| Recommendations to Legislature | ||
|---|---|---|
| Number | Recommendation | Status |
| 1 | To provide HCD additional clarity and guidance in conducting its vacancy rate adjustments, the Legislature should amend state law to clarify whether HCD should continue to use a healthy vacancy rate that includes both rental and owned housing or whether it should determine and use separate healthy vacancy rates for owned housing and rental housing. |
No Action Taken |