Chippendale said that as a “small government Republican,” he had opposed the creation of the Executive Office of Housing in 2023. And now ”there is a clearly demonstrable redundancy between the two agencies,” he said, citing overlaps in tax credit allocation, policy implementation, and program administration.
Chippendale said the proposed audit is “not a reflection of hostility, distrust, or personal criticism of the agency or its staff.” Rather, he said, “It’s about ensuring that significant resources entrusted to us and to RIHousing are being used efficiently, effectively, and strategically.”
RIHousing CEO Carol Ventura responded in a letter to legislative leaders, saying that every state has a housing finance agency but they all operate differently. And, she said, “Because our state has relatively few housing-focused public entities, RIHousing carries a much broader range of responsibilities than most of our peers in other states.”
RIHousing handles everything from helping people buy a home for the first time, to financing affordable housing developments, to administering federal rental assistance, she wrote. About 1 in every 10 Rhode Island households have been helped through one of the agency’s 59 programs, she wrote.
“We operate efficiently,” Ventura wrote. “We are audited independently. We are transparent to the public — the people of Rhode Island. And, most importantly, we are providing safe, stable, and affordable homes for Rhode Islanders throughout the state.”
The agency’s programs have never been more important than they are now amid the housing crisis, she said.
“We welcome this hearing as an opportunity to reaffirm who we are, what we do, and how we serve our communities with transparency and impact,” Ventura wrote. “Rhode Islanders can and should have full confidence in how their statewide housing finance agency operates.”
Chippendale said RIHousing manages about $205 million in State Fiscal Recovery Funds, which are one-time federal funds authorized by the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021.
But he said RIHousing is overstating how many new units of housing are being produced with that money by labeling projects as “new development” even when they include a mix of rehabilitation work and new construction.
“Accurate and transparent accounting of one-time federal dollars is lacking,” the House Republican caucus said in an executive summary of its research.
Chippendale said RIHousing’s annual financial audits only confirm whether money was spent in accordance with allowable categories. But he said those audits cannot determine whether projects were cost-effective, whether funds were used strategically, or whether reporting is accurate.
So, he said, he is calling for a performance audit that would analyze whether this public funding is being used “wisely, efficiently, or strategically.”
Chippendale said he realizes that the state auditor general’s office is busier than “a one-armed man in a paper-hanging contest.” So if that office cannot conduct a performance audit, he’d like to see the state hire an outside firm. He did not provide an estimate of the cost, but he said any cost “would pale in comparison” to just one of the projects that RIHousing is handling.
Chippendale did not ask the Joint Committee on Legislative Services to vote on his proposal Friday, but he said he’d like the committee, which is controlled by Democrats, to take up the proposal at its next meeting.
“This is not a stunt,” Chippendale said. “This is a legitimate and earnest attempt to draw attention to something that I think, if we do execute, we will have the best housing financing agency authority in all of New England. And we will properly and robustly serve the people of Rhode Island because we just haven’t seen our needle moving in 30 years.”
House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi, a Warwick Democrat who chairs the committee, urged Chippendale and RIHousing officials to communicate with each other before the next committee meeting “so that next time we do meet, we can take appropriate action, if any, at that time.”
“We’ll give everything a honest and fair review,” Shekarchi said. “I know I speak for every member of the committee, that we’re deeply concerned about all taxpayer dollars. We want to make sure we’re doing the right thing, but we don’t want to do things that we don’t have to, either.”
Read more Globe Rhode Island stories on housing and homelessness in Rhode Island.
Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @FitzProv.
