The City of Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) has completed a follow-up to its August 2015 audit of the Department of Family and Support Services’ (DFSS) homeless services. Based on the Department’s responses, OIG concludes that DFSS has begun implementation of corrective actions related to the audit findings.
The purpose of the 2015 audit was to determine how DFSS selected and monitored homeless service providers, called “delegate agencies.” Our audit found that, due to multiple errors in DFSS’s evaluation of Request for Proposal (RFP) respondents, DFSS may not have selected the most qualified agencies. In addition, because of gaps in the audit process, DFSS failed to hold agencies fully accountable for program inadequacies and inaccurate reporting.
Based upon the results of our audit, we recommended that DFSS should,
- improve reviewer training and evaluate its RFP Scoring Tool to determine where it could minimize the probability of human error;
- improve its quality control procedures;
- design its delegate agency audit tool to ensure that all known problems are identified and categorized appropriately and consistently;
- more thoroughly examine the scope and causes of inaccurate performance data; and
- hold delegate agencies fully accountable for misreporting performance data.
In its response to the audit, DFSS described a number of corrective actions it would take.
In September 2016, OIG inquired with DFSS regarding the status of the corrective actions the Department committed to and any other actions it may have taken. On the following pages we have summarized the three original audit findings and recommendations, as well as the Department’s response to our follow-up inquiry.
Based on DFSS’s follow-up response, OIG concludes that DFSS has implemented the corrective actions to address one finding concerning the Department’s audit tool, and has begun implementing the corrective actions to address the remaining two findings regarding RFP scoring and delegate agency performance reporting. Once fully implemented, OIG believes the corrective actions reported by DFSS may reasonably be expected to resolve the core findings noted in the original audit. Based on the agency’s responses, OIG expects this will be accomplished in 2017.