Delays in Implementing the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Accounting System for Its Mortgage Insurance Program

Highlights

GAO reviewed the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Mortgage Insurance Accounting System (MIAS), which is currently under development to support the Department's multibillion dollar mortgage insurance program. The new accounting system is essential to improve the mortgage insurance activities of HUD. The primary users of the new system's data will be the Assistant Secretary for Administration and the Assistant Secretary for Housing. The data will be used to fulfill accounting requirements, to provide more effective techniques and procedures to accomplish fiscal servicing, and to perform mortgage insurance functions promptly. The system's development has cost the Government in excess of $23 million over the $4.6 million originally estimated and more than 4 years delay in implementation.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected	Recommendation	Status
Department of Housing and Urban Development	The Secretary of HUD should require adequate studies of future design tasks to fully establish their magnitude and complexity, and specify that any future contracts for such tasks contain a detailed description of the task to be performed.	Closed Please call 202/512-6100 for additional information.
Department of Housing and Urban Development	The Secretary of HUD should instruct the project managers to consider all feasible alternatives when making any future design changes and document the basis for alternatives selected.	Closed Please call 202/512-6100 for additional information.
Department of Housing and Urban Development	The Secretary of HUD should have the system's design elements integrated and tested sequentially, as appropriate, to ensure that unforeseen problems are identified and corrected as quickly as possible.	Closed Please call 202/512-6100 for additional information.
Department of Housing and Urban Development	The Secretary of HUD should formalize a system for accumulating the system's development costs required for management purposes and ensure that the system contains appropriate controls to provide accurate accumulation of all relevant costs.	Closed Please call 202/512-6100 for additional information.

Full Report

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Topics

Housing

Federal agency accounting systemsFinancial managementLoan accounting systemsSystems analysisSystems evaluationSystems managementSystems designAccounting systemsMortgage insuranceHousing