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GAO-05-288R 1 (2005-03-10)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaamof0001 and id is 1 raw text is: im Accountability * Integrity * Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 March 10, 2005 The Honorable Russell T. Davis Administrator Rural Housing Service U.S. Department of Agriculture 1400 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, D.C. 20250-1300 Subject: Information Resource Management Internal Control Issues Dear Mr. Davis: In a recently completed report for Chairman Robert W. Ney, we evaluated how the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Rural Housing Service (RHS) makes eligibility determinations for its rural housing programs.' As part of that review, we used 2000 census data to determine the populations of the rural areas that received RHS housing program loans and grants. We obtained information on the RHS loans and grants provided to communities, from October 1998 through April 2004, from databases maintained by USDA's Information Resource Management (IRM) in St. Louis, Missouri. As with any system, the accuracy of the data and the process used for entry affects reliability and usefulness for management and reporting purposes. During our review, we identified several issues that raised concerns about the accuracy of the information in the IRM databases. For example, while we originally intended to geocode (that is, match) 5 years of the national RHS housing loan and grant portfolio to specific communities, the time needed to ensure the reliability of the data required us to limit much of our analysis to five states (Arizona, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Ohio). This report is a follow-up on our report to Chairman Ney, and its purpose is to discuss the implications of the data issues for your management and reporting functions. In this report, we describe (1) the types of inaccuracies we encountered with the RHS data and (2) what, if any, reviews and systems controls are in place to detect or control database errors. We also make recommendations intended to improve the accuracy of RHS loan and grant databases. 'GAO, Rural Housing: Changing the Definition of Rural Could Improve Eligibility Determinations, GAO-05-110 (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 3, 2004). GAO-05-288R Internal Controls

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