S.Amdt. 4327

This amendment, proposed by Ms. Ernst to bill H.R. 6644, aims to add a section focused on identifying fraud in housing and rental assistance.

The amendment seeks to change the bill by adding the following requirements:

• Payment Assessments: The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development must include a compliant improper payment assessment for project-based and tenant-based assistance in the fiscal year 2027 financial report. This includes creating a detailed plan and timeline for testing and reporting these estimates.

• Fraud Notifications: The Secretary must notify the Inspector General within 60 days if certain determinations are made, such as when the amount of housing assistance payments or grants, or the number of owners, landlords, or agencies receiving assistance, increases by more than 100 percent in a single year for a specific ZIP code and county equivalent.

• Inspector General Audits: Starting two years after the Act is enacted and every year after, the Inspector General must identify programs or areas where payments or providers increased by at least 400 percent over the previous five years and audit them for fraudulent activity and compliance.

• Oversight and Reporting: The Inspector General must certify the Secretary's assessment methodology and conduct a separate fraud risk assessment for the roughly $50,000,000,000 spent annually on rental assistance. This report must identify high-risk nodes in the payment chain and analyze how previous system enhancement funding was used.

• Funding: The amendment specifies that no additional funds are authorized to be appropriated to carry out these requirements.