training day review

welcome to hud's office of public and proper recovery act celebration, my name is nicole, i will be your host today for this event. and it is with great pleasure to introduce to you an individual that everyone

knows, so really no introduction is needed, but i want to introduce you to deputy assistant secretary for the real estate assessment center, david a. vargas. [ applause ] >> good morning, everyone! >> good morning.

>> congratulations, and thanks for being i have the distinct privilege of introducing this morning our general deputy for the office of public and indian housing. when we started dealing with improper payments back in

2003, you know, it is really it is about people in positions of management saying this is important, not only for taxpayers of this country, but also for the people that we serve. when we started working on improper payments, the numbers

were just astronomical housing assistance payments. over a period of time we have been able to reduce improper payments to now less than a billion dollars, thanks to the work that you all are doing with your public housing agencies and the importance

that you're special person in that not only has she worked in the program office, she used to run the housing choice program before she became deputy assistant secretary for field she's seen the program side and the importance of the work

that that entails to the families that we serve. and then she also served when she was in charge of field operations carrying out all the activity that were necessary that were necessary for us to accomplish what we deborah and i go back quite a

ways, since our working days at the department, she understands the work that you have to go through to make this happen, and she is a great supporter, and thanks to her, we are able to set up assessment center. when i requested the

assistance from her office, she was ready, willing and able to help me set this up. this is very important to me, and nicole has done an amazing job getting eiv up and running reviews and so on. i want you to hear directly from her, because she is our

leader in public housing in all our operations, and it is my pleasure to introduce deborah hernandez, our general deputy. >> wow, that was quite an introduction. i wasn't sure he was really referring to me.

but thank you for those kind words, dave. good morning! >> and we don't often celebrate these types of activities. this is often considered the routine and mundane side of the business, but the fact

that the hard work that are that the federal resources are used appropriately, ultimately help us to provide additional housing to those that are in need. we know that your waiting lists at this time and in this economy are long.

so i just want to give you a round of success, and helping hud to implement this program. so let's give ourselves a round of applause. >> on november 2 9th, 2009, president obama issued executive order

reducing improper payments. the purpose of this order was to reduce improper payments by intensifying efforts to eliminate payment error, major feshl programs, including -- federal programs, including public housing and the housing choice voucher

program. this was to be done while continuing to ensure that these programs serve and provide access to their intended subsequently, on july 22nd, 2010, the president signed the improper payment elimination

and recovery act of 2010, which requires federal agencies to report on its actions to recover improper payments. during fiscal year '10, the housing committed resources to an improper payment assessment team, that's the six people

that david identified earlier, that t working with all local hud offices and housing agencies to identify and recover improper payments. in response to the improper payments legislation and various hud office of

inspector general audits, hud's improper payment assessment team consisting of six team members, has established monitoring protocols to identify potential improper payment cases and rely on the efforts of pha's across th

follow up on those cases. today, and i'm speaking for assistant secretary sondra en re-quezas well, i am pleased to commend you, the pha community, for recovering over payments on behalf of a deceased single member

households of the housing choice voucher program during fiscal year 2011. because of your efforts, hud exceeded its fiscal year end goal of a 50% number of deceased single member households. housing agencies in the

regions of new york city, los angeles, atlanta, philadelphia, boston, and last-minute request from had you had headquarters to expeditiously submit form hud 50058 into the pick system to ensure that hud would meet its fiscal year end goals.

in addition to this collaboration between hud and pha's, i commend you all for reducing the number of invalid tenants with social security numbers by 40%. that's a significant accomplishment. this helps improve hud's

computer matching process to provide pha's with income information in the enterprise income verification system. again, this is something not to be taken lightly, having worked on of angles from the field, having come from a field

office, working with housing authorities on these matters. i do know firsthand the level of effort that it takes to do this. we could opt to not do it, we are all very grateful that we have the programs at that we do, and that we understand

the fiscal responsibility that we have towards those programs. so i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you've done, celebrate you're doing, if you've got suggestions on ways in which we can even improve things, we

certainly are open to that. but i really do appreciate what you have done, we like to meet our goals, so that is a big part of it. more i make sure that we are really maintaining the credibility and the integrity of our

programs and making sure overall that we're serving the people that are intended beneficiaries. so once again, the thanks go to you. keep up the good work, there will be more to come in the future, but we want to

continue to reduce these numbers. thank you, again and thank you for having me. >> thank you, deborah. thank you, david. at this time i want to acknowledge milan, he's the the office of public indian

housing voucher program, and he does have to quickly depart, but milan, if you could just, you know, wave ed santiago will zoom in on you. but milan ogdanec was and continues to be the leader ofs office of public housing

voucher program and is dedicated to ensuring that there are adequate policies in place, that will assist in reducing improper payments and i have worked closely for a number of years with milan, and getting this whole improper payment assessment

team off the ground with david vargas. so, you know, milan, thank you for your support, and it is my pleasure for my team to service the office of public housing voucher programs and make sure at the end of the day that eligible families

receive the proper amount of assistance and that there are enough vouchers to go around to eligible families in it and so we are committed to you, milan, and to the general public able to report on your numbers that you are going to make

sure those vouchers are in the right hands to the right people at the right time. so thank you, milan, for your support. moment to acknowledge some other folks that are not a part of the pha community and not a part of the hudster

family, as i like to refer to us as, but hud works in partnership with business partners in the private sector with other federal agencies, and so at this time, i like to acknowledge frank tierra of national technologies corporatio

row, and our eiv information technology team headed by david sandler, our i.t. project manager. >> not sure why my i.t. folks, they always stay in the back, but at the very back of the room, if you guys would just wave to t

guys, i want everybody to see this is the eiv i.t. team. they are the, you know, the brains and the nuts and the bolts behind eivichl -- eiv. so when things are kind of quirky with the system, they are the ones that are doing the

our data control group to make sure that that system is up and running 24/7. so, you know, frank, you've been with us, with eiv for many, many years doing both administrative as well as technical support work, too, to the i.t. teams, to our

business partners, i say thank you for making eiv the success that it has become over the last four years, and, you know, not to toot horns, so to speak, but eiv is the presidential system, so hud takes that honor with great pride.

so that collectively with our business partners, with the social security administration, as well as the health and human services, who feeds the data to hud, we say ssa for working with us, and executing computer matching agreements every 18 months,

and then subsequent 12 months in providing that information available to us, so thank you so >> now of course we've been talking about improper payments, improper payments, what is it, what is it. and, you know, in a nutshell,

we know what improper payments are. money that goes to the wrong person in the wrong amount. but here with us today is hud's chief financial office folks to share with you information on improper payments, and so i would like

to bring frank murphy, who i have had the distinct honor and privilege to wore d.work with over the lags, oh, my goodness, i can't count the years, you know, just years, six years. however many years, but frank murphy is one of the most

dynamic financial officers that i've ever worked with, and it's been a great honor working with frank and his team members, and like to bring frank murphy up to the podium. frank murphy. >> thank you, nicole.

and obviously you have a program that says jerry is the fella. he did t said i'm going to italy, and i thought i really can't top that. so i said i've got a better deal for me, i'm going to come

and talk and celebrate the improper payments that the pha's have made. he is now jealous so we don't have to worry about that alt all. nicole -- at all. n i didn't have it in my notes,

of talking about collaboration, and it was something that has happened from 2003 when we first started this program, and it was collaboration before it became popular, before it became a buzz really, nicole did a great job

of encapsulating exactly what it takes for all of us to be able to get to the level of saying we made success with i don't think i could do any better job of expressing it than she already has. you know the statistics are great that you went from 17%

to less than 3% over the course of that decade, and obviously if omb were in the office they would say that's great progress to date, what we have to keep striving and we know that. i want to take this opportunity to introduce to

you the acting cfo, acting chief financial officer for hud, dave sedari. he's relatively new to hud, in this improper payments initiative. less than a couple of years there. but brings a wealth of

experience from the private sector that is really helping us get to that next level. and without doing too much disservice to dave's to come up with a few of the highlights of his career to give you a sense as to the caliber of folk that we're

dealing with, that leading the effort from the chief financial officer. and at the end of this, i'll be here as well, should we have any questions tore some that's a couple of years, i may have been here. as the acting cfo, the acting

chief financial officer, dave manages the financial management operations for all of hud, includes the preparation of the budget, includes the preparation of the financial statements, making sure systems are intact, and they

are properly talking to one another, and oversees the collective improper payment initiative for both the multi-family housing operation, as well as the phad ha's, so we have the -- pha's, we have the combination of both of those.

served as vice president of multi-family accounting and other support divisions at freddie mac, he was a member of the decision board for multi-family business. as vice president, he was responsible for managing all aspect of the accounting and

controls for the multi-family freddie mac's three main business lines. in addition, he was responsible for accounting for corporate activities. he previously was a senior director of freddie mac's accounting policy group,

sponges i believe for consolidation of -- responsible for consolidation of accounting and structured transactions. before he went to f strategic change management, and at credit suisse first boston in new york.

and during his first five years at credit suisse, he was the cf0 o of the online broker and started as controller before joining credit suisse, he was the vice president of emerging markets, accounting advisory for citibank based in new york, and prior to that,

he was with bankers trust company, where he had a variety of controllership and corporate poigss and actually -- positions and started his career back in the he is a graduate of new york university with an mba in finance, and is a certified

public accountant. but the most important thing for you all to take away, is that he is currently the captain of the ship for the finan at how can we continue to make improvements in the improper payment arena, and continue to

build on the successes we've had over the last decade, which are tremendous, but noting with not even tongue in cheek that behalf of the american taxpayer said that's great, but i need more. the numbers have gone down

dramatically, we're less than a billion dollars in improper payments, but that's still a big number to the average citizen, so we know we need to do more, and so without in further ado or without any elaboration of dave's career, i'll turn it over to the cfo,

dave sedari. >> thank you, frank. how is everybody doing today? good? so, ye that elaborate introduction. i also want to thank the pih management for inviting me to this celebration, it is a

terrific occasion. but most of all, i want to thank you for work and achieving this great reduction and improper payments, and it puts the money directly into the hands of our intended beneficiaries, those who are supposed to g

the money and to get the funding appropriate. it is a significant accomplishment, one you should be very proud of. as frank was saying, and as david mentioned earlier also, hud is one of the leaders it the federal government in

terms of reducing improper payments. we have got our improper payment number down to about 3% or so. which is very low across the governments, well below average. in it fact, one of the best in

the entire gov way. as frank was mentioning, earlier in the decade, our improper payment number for hud as a whole was around 17%. 17% of the payments that we made across hud were improper earlier in the deck atd --

decade. we moved that down to 3%, a tremendous achievement. primarily based on the hard work that we have been doing out in the field and here at headquarters. better for hud. one of the things you may ask,

in addition to the hard work, how did we do it in it gem. because one -- in general. one of the things i'm asked to do across government because of hud's category is to talk about how we did do it. step one, the hard work of the

folks out in the field. without that, couldn't get done. other things that we've done is, we've increased automat of manual activities that we do.|| that creates reliability and

reduces the amount of improper payments that are happening. another thing that we've done, we have shared information with some of the other agencies, in particular, hhs and some others. w information on beneficiaries,

et cetera, creates a consistent number, and therefore we are able to help get funds to the right folks. so that's another way of actually getting the payment number down. and also, we have worked very closely across hud, so in our

case, one of the things that i found, i talked to some of the groups is they say we can't get our improper payment down, we'r something like that. how do we do it. we're working hard. what do we do.

one of the things i found is typically when they have trouble with improper payments, it is the cfo's organization in those that are trying to lead the effort and to get everything one thing that had you had is a tam yal to -- testimonial

to, it has to be hud-wide effort as well as, you know, those out in the field. in other words, everyone in the organization has to chip in to help get these numbers down and get the funds to the right folks. so we are a -- we're a

testimonial today that your hard work is really proving the point and making things better. the other thing i wanted to mention is, well, how important are improper payments in the federal government.

very important. one of the key things that we hear from in fact we had the controller of omb here about a month ago, just talking about that, saying how are we doing, he knows that we're one of the leaders, but we want to

continue to push down the number and conti on it. improper payments across the federal government last year were $125 million -- 1 it -- 125 billion. very big number. hud, we're proud to say, is

less than 1% of that number. as we were saying, our number across hud. but it is a very significant issue, omb is laser focused on it. they have a lot of people folks using -- focusing on it it, talking to all the

agencies, they want to focus on that number. one of the things that controller mentioned when he was here, and this kind of goes directly into the thing at that we're celebrating here, he was saying, you know, we got to think of ways to

continue to get this number down across the government. he said if i come in to work one more time and i he radio that we made more payments to dead people, he says, i'm going to scream. so your work here is directly related to that, getting that

number down, reducing that number. it is exactly on point to what we're trying to do in terms of accomplishing, to get the funds going to the right place. and as you know, as the budgets continue to shrink

across the government for a variety of reasons as know, the -- it is more and more important to channel the funds properly to make sure that we're helping those who we're trying to help. so with that said, i just want to say congratulations, again,

thanks for inviting me, and i wish you continued successes. than >> thank you, dave. and if i could just have paul labrie come up. we will get ready to wrap up our session. paul labrie, the

administrative support manager for the real estate assessment center. paul? >> [ applause ] >> thank you, nicole. i am going to do something dangerous and start by garbling an old saying.

success has made ma and failure is an orphan. let me start by offering my congratulations to all you parents out there for your success, because this clearly, and i would offer despite what omb may offer in terms of caveat, is

inflection point a success. and in recognition of that, we thought it appropriate to recognize those folks who were, as the saying goes, toiling in the trenches, and working day-to-day to make this notwithstanding all your

efforts, there are some folks who quite literally worked this every day. we would like to recognize their efforts at this point. so if we could have the following individuals step forward to be recognized. if you ladies would come up to

stephanie mcqueen, darlene felton, melanie bell, victoria willia williams, is timothy still here? come on up. >> while they are walking up, perhaps you can theme appropriate music, or cue up

appropriate music in your head, theme from rocky might be appropriate. let certificate citation. this certificate of appreciation is issued by the u.s. department of housing and urban development, office of

public and indian housing, real estate assessment center to these individuals for efforts in it identifying or recovering improper payments within hud rental housing assistance programs in fiscal year 2011. issued october 27th,

>> >> ladies and gentlemen, the improper payments team. thank >> thank you. i love my improper payments assessmen they love eiv as much as i do. so we're going to close out

this session with a few remarks from dellton nichols. thank you for everyone for coming out and supporting this event. thank you to cloud nine technologies, thank you, frank tierra, dellton nichols, our deputy director

>> thank you, nicole, angs thanks to everyone for coming out for this wonderful celebration to our partners from the cfo's office, to our contractors, to our from the pha community here, particularly to you for taking time out of your busy

schedule. could you just stand, just for a moment, briefly. the pha because we realize that you are our key partners in this, and accomplishing this would not have been possible without you, and we appreciate you

taking the time out of your busy schedule, doing the great work that and celebrate with us, and we want you to know that we celebrate you this morning, and this day for this thank you so much. >> so at this time we are

going to move right into the refreshments, and the meet and greet, and we can get to know each other just a little bit better, and the refreshments will be right outside the door. so thank you very much.