Florida Did Not Ensure That Some Providers Complied With Requirements For Determining Eligibility For Its Projects for Assistance in Transition From Homelessness Program

Why OIG Did This Audit

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) awarded States $64.6 million in grant funds for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 under its Projects for Assistance in Transition From Homelessness (PATH) program. PATH programs are funded to support outreach and other services to homeless individuals with serious mental illnesses. Florida was awarded PATH grant funds totaling approximately $4.3 million for the period August 1, 2018, through July 31, 2019 (grant period) and was among the States awarded the most grant funds. This is the third in a series of audits by OIG to ensure the integrity and proper stewardship of PATH grant funds aiming to reduce homelessness.

Our objective was to determine whether Florida complied with PATH program requirements.

How OIG Did This Audit

Our audit covered $4.3 million that Florida received for its PATH program for the grant period. We selected a simple random sample of 70 consumers out of a sampling frame of 2,963 consumers and determined whether they were eligible for the PATH program. We also judgmentally selected and reviewed certain PATH program costs for all 22 PATH providers in Florida.

What OIG Found

Florida complied with PATH program requirements related to certain program costs and non-Federal contributions. However, Florida did not comply with certain PATH program requirements when determining consumers' eligibility in its PATH program. Specifically, 6 of the 70 sampled consumers were inaccurately reported as enrolled in the PATH program or ineligible to enroll in the program.

These errors occurred because Florida lacked adequate oversight to ensure that PATH providers accurately reported PATH program enrollment and maintained sufficient documentation to support that enrolled consumers met PATH program eligibility requirements. On the basis of our sample results, we estimated that 254 of 2,963 consumers were inaccurately reported as enrolled in Florida's PATH program or were not eligible to enroll in the program.

What OIG Recommends and Florida Comments

We made several recommendations to Florida, including that it instructs PATH providers to disenroll ineligible consumers from the PATH program and strengthen its oversight of the PATH program to ensure that PATH services are only provided to eligible consumers.

In written comments on our draft report, Florida did not indicate concurrence or nonconcurrence with our findings or recommendations; however, it described actions it has taken or plans to take to address them. Among its actions, Florida stated that it instructed the associated providers to confirm that the consumers identified in our report were disenrolled from the PATH program. Subsequently, Florida indicated that the providers confirmed that the consumers were not enrolled in the PATH program. In addition, Florida stated that it plans to draft contract documents to instruct PATH providers to conduct quarterly reviews of consumers' case files to determine if consumers are eligible for enrollment in the PATH program and disenroll ineligible consumers.

After reviewing Florida's comments, we clarified our findings to indicate that certain sampled consumers were inaccurately reported as enrolled in the PATH program.