News

HUD plans to release an updated version of PIC this coming weekend. When you log into PIC on Monday, you will see version 6.2. This new version brings a couple of changes that will be helpful to your PIC compliance effort. For Tenmast’s QuicPIC and TransNet clients, this version will also require us to update these programs again.

One of the most important changes for Low Income Public Housing programs is a change to the way that PIC manages the ‘Unit Status’ of each unit in PIC when you vacate a unit. Currently, submitting an End of Participation or a Other Change of Unit for a transfer removes the family from the unit in PIC, but the Unit Status in PIC is marked as “Not Reported.” Unless you manually change the Unit Status to “Vacant,” that unit will count against you, so to speak, when HUD performs the monthly Delinquency calculation.

With PIC release 6.2, HUD will change this process. Starting next Monday, when you submit an End of Participation or Other Change of Unit for a Public Housing family, the Unit Status for the unit in PIC will automatically change from “Occupied” to “Vacant.” You will no longer have to manually change the Unit Status at the end of every month. This means that the monthly Delinquency calculation for Public Housing programs will be accurate, starting with May data, without you having to make manual changes in PIC.

Keep in mind, there will continue to be circumstances when you may need to manually change the Unit Status in PIC. For example, if you take a unit “offline” because of a rehab project or due to damage to the unit, you should change the Unit Status to select the appropriate “reason” for the change which is consistent with the condition of the unit. As part of version 6.2, HUD will also change some of the “reasons” you can select for a vacancy Unit Status.

Another area of change with version 6.2 is how PIC will process invalid Tenant IDs, including last name, birth dates and Social Security Numbers. Currently, PIC accepts most records as long as the SSN for each family member is not a “garbage” number, like all “9s.” Then, within 30 days after accepting the record in PIC, the system compares the Tenant ID data to the Social Security Administration’s database. If any of the Tenant ID information on the 50058 record fails to match exactly what is in the SSA database, the record is marked in PIC as invalid and the next record you submit with the invalid Tenant ID will be rejected.

With PIC version 6.2, the PIC process of marking records as invalid will change. Now, when the SSA database returns a mismatch on last name, birth date or SSN, the record will be marked as “possibly” invalid, and any record with the same invalid Tenant ID submitted to PIC in the next 90 days will only return a “warning” error. If the invalid ID is not resolved within that 90 period, any additional records with the invalid ID information will be rejected with a fatal error as they are today. In other words, HUD created a new 90 day “waiting period” for invalid Tenant IDs in PIC to give the system a chance to resolve a possible error.

This 90 day warning process for invalid Tenant ID’s will apply to any 50058 record marked as having an invalid Tenant ID for any reason. But keep in mind that if the invalid problem is not resolved in the 90 period, PIC will begin to reject any new records received after that period until the problem is resolved.

Version 6.2 will also begin to limit the type of characters that PIC will accept as part of a family member last name. With the new version, PIC will only accept commas, hyphens, periods, and apostrophes in addition to the alphabetical characters in a last name. In reality, this may not change the way PIC error-checks your records, but we mention it to you because it is a change to the PIC technical information from HUD.

In order for QuicPIC and TransNet to continue to catch all of your PIC errors as it does today, we must update the programs. For LIPH programs, we just updated you last week to address changes in the development and building numbers in PIC. Now we will have to provide you with another program update to address the changes to PIC in version 6.2.

We will have to test the changes to QuicPIC and TransNet next week after HUD installs the version 6.2 on PIC. So we plan to have the program releases available to our clients on 5/19/2008.

Last week, HUD published PIH Notice 2008-11, which revises HUD’s procedure for assessing the 50058 PIC submission rate for Public Housing programs. Under this new rule, HUD changes the formal PIC assessment to a quarterly assessment period instead of annual assessment period for Public Housing programs. The notice emphasizes that you still must maintain your submission rate each month, not just the month of the assessment.

PIH Notice 2008-11 is posted on the Library page of our Web site. Click the Library link in the navigator on the left, or click this link directly:

     PIH Notice 2008-11 - Reporting Requirements and Sanctions Policy

Starting on March 31, 2008, all Public Housing programs will be assessed each calendar quarter to determine what their PIC Delinquency rate is. If your program is below 95%, your agency will receive a delinquency notice the month following the assessment date. So for example, delinquency notices for the March 31 assessment will be sent by e-mail to the failing agencies in April.

If you receive a delinquency notice from the quarterly assessments, PIH Notice 2008-11 adds certain “Demonstration of Compliance” scenarios which you may be able to use to appeal the failed assessment. The scenarios include:

1. If a unit or units were occupied through most of the month, but you submitted an EOP before the end of the month (which marked the unit as ‘not reported’ in PIC), you can add those units back, so to speak. If that increases your rate to 95%, you have the basis for an appeal.

2. If you have demo/dispo units, but the units still appear in PIC as “online” because HUD hasn’t removed them yet, and removing them from the inventory would increase your rate to 95%, you have the basis for an appeal.

3. If you changed the unit status on a unit to a status that is not an occupancy status, and the change requires Field Office approval (e.g., creating an employee unit), but the Field Office didn’t approve the change yet, you can appeal if removing those units from your inventory would increase your rate to 95%.

4. If PIC rejected 50058 records due to a Social Security Number or name conflicts (but not a birth date conflict, apparently) with the Social Security Administration records, you can appeal if giving your agency credit for those records would increase your rate to 95%.

Any appeal of a delinquency notice must be e-mailed to PIH_50058_Assessment@hud.gov and to your Field Office representative no more than 10 days from receipt of the notice. The appeal must include documentation of the adjustments you claim meet one of the above criteria.

Sanctions under PIH Notice 2008-11 include HUD withholding a percentage of your monthly operating subsidy. If you receive a delinquency notice, HUD will reassess your program each month after that until you demonstrate compliance with the 95% goal. According to the notice (as well as current law), the amount of the subsidy that is withheld as sanctions will be returned to the agency once the agency demonstrates that it is in compliance.

Prior to this notice, agencies located in hurricane Rita and Katrina areas have been exempt from the previous 95% PIC submission requirement. PIH Notice 2008-11 removes that exemption and those agencies must now achieve at least a 95% submission rate for their Public Housing programs each month.

What does this mean for your 50058 management process? In short, you still must maintain a PIC submission rate above 95% each and every month, but the formal assessment process has been changed to a quarterly process from an annual process for Public Housing programs. So you must track your PIC submission rate each month. (We spelled out the procedure for doing that in a Guide we wrote on ‘Calculating Your Own Submission Rate.’ If you want a copy, just contact us.)

At Tenmast, we have been developing solutions for managing PIC submission rates for 8 years. We offer the only training in the industry that teaches you how to solve all PIC error problems and maintain a 100% submission rate each and every month. We also are the only company in the industry that has had a dedicated, highly skilled team of PIC Specialists which, for the past 8 years, has provided PIC Cleanup, PIC Coaching and PIC Management services for hundreds of Housing Authorities across the country.

In 2002, our team of PIC Specialists produced what some have described as the most useful software program in the housing industry. Unlike any other software in the industry, QuicPIC and TransNet have the unique ability to identify all PIC errors BEFORE your 50058 records are submitted to PIC. The distinct advantage of this program is that you no longer submit 50058 records to PIC with errors. The programs identify exactly what the error is and provide instructions on how to correct the errors. And these programs contain a unique reporting feature that generates a report at any time that tells you exactly what 50058 record errors are keeping you from achieving a 100% submission rate.

If we can help you maintain your PIC submission rate at 100% each and every month, please contact us.

Last year, we explained to you that you are obligated to have a PIC submission rate of at least 95% each and every month or you will be sanctioned by HUD. Actually, having less than 97% (not 95%) of your units occupied in PIC each and every month will result in loss of operating subsidy, because starting last year, HUD allocates the operating fund based on occupancy data in PIC.

In the earlier bulletin, we recommended that you get in the habit of downloading an MTCS Transaction Report from PIC at the end of EVERY MONTH and compare that to a list of households under lease (or units occupied) from your software system. This will ensure that your occupancy rate in PIC remains above 97% each month and that you can prove it to HUD if you receive an inappropriate allocation next year. We have written a guide to explain how to do that.

The guide is posted on the Library page of our Web site. Click the Library link in the navigator on the left, or click this link directly:

     Guide for PIC Submission Rate (Public Housing) (Revised 1/31/2008)

The MTCS Transaction Report we recommend that you download MUST be downloaded at the end of every month. For example, you cannot download the January report from PIC two or three months from now and get the data you need. These reports are essential for you to know what your actual PIC submission rate is at that time. It is preferable that you download that report today or tomorrow, so the report is an accurate reflection of your 50058 and occupancy status in PIC as of the end of January.

In an earlier bulletin, we explained that HUD has changed the 50058 assessment process in PIC for Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher programs. The assessment process will be performed by HUD quarterly, starting with the 1st quarter of 2008. In other words in April, HUD will assess the PIC submission rate for your HCV program for the months of January, February, and March of this year.

Your HCV program must have a PIC submission rate of at least 95% each and every month, or you will be sanctioned with the loss of Admin Fees.

In the earlier bulletin, we also recommended that you get in the habit of downloading an MTCS Transaction Report from PIC at the end of EVERY MONTH and compare that to a list of households under lease from your software system. This will ensure that you remain above 95% and you can prove it to HUD if you receive a sanctions letter at the end of the quarter. We have written a guide to explain how to do that.

The guide is posted on the Library page of our Web site. Click the Library link in the navigator on the left, or click this link directly:

     Calculating Your REAL PIC Submission Rate - Section 8 HCV

The MTCS Transaction Report we recommend that you download MUST be downloaded at the end of every month. For example, you cannot download the January report from PIC two or three months from now and get the data you need. These reports are essential for you to know what your actual PIC submission rate is at that time.

Last year we told you that HUD was determining your Capital Fund allocation based on building and unit data in PIC. At that time, we told you that HUD required that you certify in PIC the accuracy of your building data as part of that process. HUD recently published PIH Notice 2008-7, which advises you that you must certify your building and unit data in PIC for the 2008 Capital Fund allocation as well.

The deadline for completing the building and unit certification this year is February 22, 2008.

We have posted PIH Notice 2008-7 on the Library page of our Web site. We have also posted HUD’s Guide for completing the certification process. Click the Library link in the navigator on the left, or click these links directly:

     PIH Notice 2008-7

     Data Certification Guide

If you find building and unit data discrepancies during the certification process, we understand that HUD sent you instructions for submitting those discrepancies to your Field Office. If you need a copy of those instructions, please call your Field Office.

The monthly PIC update that HUD performs on the first Friday of every month was completed this past Friday. This update includes the PIC Delinquency Report for December, but it appears that something went wrong with the process this weekend. Most December Delinquency rates for Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) programs that appear in PIC today are wrong.

We are confident that HUD is aware of the problem and is working on a solution. We’ll notify you when the errors are corrected.

We’ve noticed a couple of changes to the PIC system with the release of version 6.1 last week that we wanted to mention to you. First, we assume that you use the HA Query Report often to verify whether adult applicants have lived in Public Housing or HCV programs before. We also assume that you use HA Query to research the current 50058 record in PIC for any household, particularly when you are resolving a PIC error. Well, HUD has moved the HA Query Report from the Reports tab in the PIC Viewer to its own sub-module.

Now when you log in to PIC, you will see the HA Query report listed as a sub-module below the ADHOC Report on the main menu screen. When you click on the HA Query link from the main menu, you will see the same HA Query screen you used previously. Just enter the SSN (or multiple SSNs separated by commas) and click Search to identify the current 50058 record in PIC with that SSN listed as the Head of Household.

A couple of other minor changes we have noticed include changes to the Development sub-module screen and the Reports sub-module screen. The Developments tab in the Developments sub-module displays some additional data about project status, but otherwise the information about developments, buildings, and units (including AMPs) is the same. (Remember that HUD plans to update this area of PIC again next year when it migrates from the “old” development numbers to the “new” development numbers in March.)

The Reports sub-module now displays the tabs in different order than before, but otherwise the reports contained on the tabs are the same.

Just a reminder. Normally HUD updates the reports in the PIC Reports sub-module once a month on the first Friday of the month with data as of the end of the previous month. Because HUD updated PIC last week, HUD did not update the reports in the PIC Reports sub-module with November 30 data last Friday as normal. Instead, HUD plans to pull the data for the November 30 update this Friday, December 14.

The reports that are updated in the PIC Reports sub-module include the Delinquency Report. So you have until this Friday at about 4:00 pm EST to submit November (or prior) 50058 records to be included in the November Delinquency Report.

Please be advised that HUD plans to update the PIC system to version 6.1 starting on Friday, December 7. The PIC system will be unavailable from about 4:00 pm that afternoon until the update is completed. It is expected that the system will be back online first thing the following Monday morning, December 10.

Monthly Data Pull Delayed One Week

As you know, HUD normally pulls the data from PIC on the first Friday of the month to update all of the reports in the Reports sub-module in PIC as of the end of the prior month. These reports include the Delinquency Report. December 7 is the first Friday in December, and HUD would normally pull the data and update all of the reports as of November 30. But because of the need to update the system on that date, HUD will not perform the monthly data pull in December until Friday, December 14. This means that you can upload November (or earlier) 50058 records to PIC up until December 14, and they will still be included in the Delinquency Report calculation for November.

The Contents of PIC Release 6.1

The technical documentation for PIC release 6.1 indicates that you will see at least a few changes in the system. For example, this release will add Unit Status reports for Public Housing units that show more status information, including “not reported” units.

For those of you who have Moving To Work (MTW) programs or receive families from MTW agencies, this release is designed to correct problems you may have experienced getting records into PIC when families move between those agencies. In fact, you may experience additional errors when submitting records to PIC for families who are living at MTW agencies. For the first time, PIC will “throw an error” when you submit a record with any family member who is in PIC at an MTW agency. Previously, PIC only generated an error for the head of household. The MTW side of PIC will begin to process portability transactions between MTW agencies like it currently handles portability between non-MTW agencies. For example, PIC will accept a Port-in record from a receiving MTW agency even though the Initial MTW agency hasn’t submitted a Port-out record. But PIC will not do this between an MTW agency and a non-MTW agency. If a family ports from an MTW agency to a non-MTW agency, the MTW agency still MUST submit an End of Participation record and the “receiving” non-MTW agency must submit a New Admission record.

An important change that will help non-MTW agencies when dealing with a family that moved from an MTW agency is that the HA Query report will include MTW records in its search parameters. So non-MTW agencies will be able to run an HA Query Report to identify an MTW agency that submitted the last record to PIC and whether they submitted an EOP as required. MTW agencies will also see an ADHOC report option added to their side of PIC.

PIC Development Number Changes

A few months ago, we told you that HUD also plans to change the “old” Public Housing development numbers to a “new” development number that incorporates the current AMP numbers. HUD also plans to add functionality that will allow Public Housing programs to submit proposed changes to the building groupings in their AMPs for HUD approval. Although HUD is making preliminary changes to the building and unit inventory in PIC release 6.1, these changes will NOT appear in the system after this release. HUD plans another PIC release in January 2008, and that release will include the new development number and AMP changes. We will send you another e-mail update when we get closer to those changes.

TransNet and QuicPIC Users

If you are using Tenmast’s TransNet or QuicPIC software, you are aware that those programs interact with the PIC system to perform tasks like error-checking and submitting your records and generating interactive reports like the PIC Status Report. When HUD upgrades PIC to version 6.1 on Monday, December 10, TransNet and QuicPIC will not be able to perform those tasks until we can test the updated PIC system and determine which of the changes affect those programs. As soon as we do that, we will update the programs, test our changes, and send you the program updates.

Based on prior experience with PIC changes, we anticipate that it will take us two weeks from the date HUD makes the PIC changes. So you will not be able to submit records to PIC using those programs from Monday, December 10, until approximately Monday, December 24. If we are able to make the changes more quickly, we will notify you.

Our strong recommendation for all TransNet and QuicPIC users is that you submit all 50058 records that you need to submit with November (and earlier) Effective Dates NO LATER THAN Friday, December 7, at 4:00 pm EST. If you do that, you won’t need to submit any records to PIC for the rest of the month of December.

The following notice appeared on a bulletin board maintained by HUD:

As most of you know, HUD published a notice last year (PIH Notice 2006-24) that established an annual assessment of 50058 submissions to PIC for all Public Housing and Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) programs. In that notice, HUD also set the groundwork for sanctions for any PHA that failed to achieve 95% submission rate in each month preceding the assessment date of June 30. For Public Housing, the sanctions include a 5% reduction in monthly operating subsidy. But the sanctions outlined for HCV programs were not as clear. The old notice stated that PHAs with HCV programs falling below 95% “may have their administrative fee for the calendar year reduced or offset in an amount determined appropriate by HUD.”

Last week, HUD published PIH Notice 2007-29, which changes the PIC assessment schedule for HCV programs and imposes more specific sanctions against agencies that fall below the minimum 95% submission rate in any month.

New Assessment Cycle For HCV

Starting March 31, 2008, HUD will conduct QUARTERLY assessments of all HCV programs. For example, for the months of January, February and March, 2008, HUD will calculate the submission rates for all HCV program and send notices to those agencies that have fallen below 95% in any of those months. HUD will perform similarly scheduled assessments on June 30, September 30, and December 31, 2008, for your HCV program as well.

Although this new plan does not change the rule that your program must be at or above 95% each and every month, it changes the assessment frequency, and the frequency that HUD will impose sanctions on your program, from once each year to four times each year. Also, HUD’s sanctions approach for HCV programs has been clarified somewhat. PIH Notice 2007-29 states:

“PHAs subject to sanctions because their reporting rates fell below 95 percent may have their monthly administrative fee reduced or offset in an amount determined appropriate by HUD. In determining whether, and to what extent, HUD will reduce or offset the administrative fees, HUD will consider such factors as the magnitude of the deficient reporting rate and the number of months that the reporting deficiency persists. All HCV sanctioned funds will be permanently recaptured and will not be returned to the PHA once its reporting rate is in compliance.” (Emphasis as it appears in the notice.)

Since HUD uses data from the Voucher Management System (VMS) to calculate your submission rate, the recent notice also states that failure to submit quarterly VMS data will result in automatic sanctions for all three months in the quarter being assessed.

Delinquency Calculation Problems Addressed

As we have shared with you in the past, there are two fundamental flaws in the way HUD currently calculates your HCV Delinquency Rate in PIC. The little bit of good news in this notice is that HUD will attempt to correct that process.

The Delinquency rate should be calculated by dividing the number of current 50058s in PIC by the number of families you have under lease in your jurisdiction. The first number is pulled directly from the PIC system and HUD gets that one right each time. The problem is with the second number, because HUD actually doesn’t know how many HCV families you have under lease at any given time. So HUD uses VMS data to “estimate” that figure. The two flaws in this approach are:

1. The VMS data used in the Delinquency Report at the end of each quarter is four months old, so HUD is comparing current 50058 data in PIC to four-month-old “lease” data in VMS. If the number of HCV families you have under lease changed in that period of time, your Delinquency Report as calculated in PIC will be wrong.
   
   
2. VMS is designed to collect utilization data on your HCV program, particularly the amount of subsidy that has been expended during each reporting period. But subsidy payments and the number of families you have under lease are not the same, primarily due to portability. The Delinquency Report attempts to “adjust” for this problem by using another, equally suspect, database. But the result is often wrong.

For the purposes of the new quarterly assessment, PIH Notice 2007-29 indicates that HUD intends to solve the first problem with the calculation, but not the second. The notice indicates that HUD will wait until VMS data has been reported for the assessment period to calculate your submission rate, which is about three weeks after the close of the quarter. With this approach, HUD will be comparing PIC data and VMS data from the same months. (In fact, the data will still be off about one month because VMS data is reported as of the 1st day of the month and the 50058 data in PIC will be pulled as of the last day of the month.)

Unfortunately, HUD will still attempt to make adjustments for portability transactions using portability reporting data on the 50058s in PIC. HUD is aware that this data if often reported incorrectly, or not at all, so the adjustments may result in an incorrect submission rate.

Appealing An Incorrect Delinquency Report

Like PIH Notice 2006-24, the current notice contains provisions for appealing the results of a negative assessment. And like the prior notice, PIH Notice 2007-29 lists the “portability adjustment” calculation problem as the basis for your appeal. According to the notice, HUD will send a notice of your failure to meet the 95% standard within forty days of the update of the VMS data, which means that you will receive this notice about two and a half months after the close of the quarter for which the assessment applies. You will have ten days from receipt of the delinquency notice to submit an appeal.

PIH Notice 2007-29 reiterates the rule that HCV agencies will receive automatic zeros on the five SEMAP indicators that are scored from PIC if their PIC rate is not at or above 95% as of the FYE. In the event your PIC rate is below 95% as of your FYE and you believe it is in error, the notice suggests that HCV agencies submit the appeal data to their Field Offices prior to the SEMAP scoring. In other words, the appeal data should be provided to the Field Office as part of your SEMAP certification submission.

So What Does This Mean?

It means that your HCV program must be at or above 95% each and every month if you want to avoid loss of your subsidy. It also means that you MUST know exactly what your actual submission rate is on the last day of EVERY month so that you are prepared to respond to a delinquency notice. PIC does NOT maintain “snapshots” of your data; if you wait until your receive the delinquency notice two and a half months after the fact, you will not be able to print a report from PIC that list the current 50058s in the system as of the end of the months.

So we recommend that you begin immediately to print a list of current 50058s in PIC on the last day of each month from this point forward. (We recommend you download the MTCS Transaction Report from PIC for this purpose and make appropriate adjustments.) As part of this process, you should also print a copy of the HCV families you had under lease in your jurisdiction on the last day of each month. Dividing the number of records in the first report by the number of families in the second report will produce your “real” PIC submission rate on that date. Put those reports in a file for safekeeping. If you need to appeal a quarterly delinquency notice, you will submit those reports to HUD in support of your appeal.

PIH Notice 2007-29 is posted on the Library page of our Web site. Click the Library link in the navigator on the left, or click this link directly:

     PIH Notice 2007-29 - HCV Requirements and Sanctions

We also will prepare a Guide that explains how to run reports each month to record “snapshots” of your data and calculate your “real” monthly submission rate. If you want a copy, please contact us, and we’ll send it to you.

As you may have noticed, PIC was having problems receiving records this week. It appears that the PIC servers may have run out of disc space. Yesterday, HUD cleaned up the disc(s), and the system was back online. In the meantime, we heard from some clients that records they submitted to PIC this week were accepted at one point, but later could not be found in the system. Although we don’t know if this happened, it is possible that data can be lost from a computer system when the disc is full.

At approximately 4:00 pm this afternoon (Friday, October 5, 2007), HUD will pull data from PIC and update all of the reports in the Reports sub-module for September 30, including the Delinquency Report. So today is the last day to submit data to PIC for the month of September. If you submitted records to PIC this week that are critical for the month of September, we recommend that you review records for a sample of those households in the PIC Viewer and confirm that the records are there.

We continue to field questions from PHAs that want to know when they need to focus on getting their PIC submission rate above 95%. Many of them think their PIC submission rate needs to be at 95% only once a year in the month that HUD conducts its annual assessment. Under HUD’s rules, you are required to maintain current 50058 records in PIC at all times. That means that you must maintain your PIC submission rate at or above 95% each and every month.

What has been unclear until recently is whether your agency would be sanctioned by HUD for being below 95% in months other than the annual assessment month.

As we’ve discussed with you in the past, HUD issued PIH Notice 2006-24 last year and announced that it planned to conduct an annual assessment of the PIC submission rate for all Public Housing and Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher programs. In 2006, the assessment date was September 30, and starting this year the annual submission rate assessment is June 30.

PIH Notice 2006-24 also made clear that HUD would sanction the agencies that failed to meet that standard, including loss of funding. What we didn’t know was whether, as part of the annual assessment, HUD would review your submission rates for the months prior to the assessment month and impose financial sanctions for failure to maintain a 95% rate in those months.

We have now heard from a number of PHAs that received sanction letters from HUD as a result of the June 30 assessment. Based on those letters, it is clear that HUD is reviewing your submission rate each and every month and imposing sanctions for any month that you are not at or above 95% in PIC, not just the assessment month.

So if it wasn’t clear before, your agency must maintain a PIC submission rate at or above 95% each and every month, and you will be sanctioned for any month you are not in compliance.

We published an article this summer which summarized a proposed HUD rule that updated and clarified HUD’s requirements for verification of income and eligibility of non-citizens for HUD housing programs. The article appeared in our July Newsletter, and it can be viewed on the Library page of our Web site (HUD Proposes New Verification Rule). Click the Library link in the navigator on the left, or click this link directly:

     HUD Proposes New Verification Rule

Under the proposed rule, HUD clarifies that, with one very narrow exception for asylum seekers, non-citizens are NOT eligible for assistance under HUD programs. The rule also states that you are required to verify the citizenship status of all applicants and tenants in your programs.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) maintains an online system called SAVE that provides an automated verification of immigration registration status and employment eligibility. You can access this system using a User ID issued by DHS. To obtain a User ID, send a request to Kevin Garner at HUD at kevin_x._garner@hud.gov or call him at (202)402-2057. Your request must include the name and address of your agency and a contact name, e-mail address, phone number, and fax number. Kevin will forward this request to DHS, and you will be notified directly by DHS about approval for your access.

NEW PIC DEVELOPMENT NUMBERS

As we mentioned to you earlier in the summer, HUD plans to convert the current Public Housing Development Numbers in PIC to a “new” development number based on the current Asset Management Project (AMP) numbers. The “new” Development Number will consist of your PHA ID number plus the current AMP number, but without the “P” that is part of the current AMP number.

Beginning in January, 2008, PIC will accept 50058 records with either the current Development Number or the “new” Development Number. As of January, 2009, PIC will only accept records with the “new” Development Number. For Tenmast Software clients, we will work with you to migrate your software system to the “new” Development Numbers sometime next year.

CHANGES TO BUILDING NUMBERS (Applies only to PHAs with duplicate building numbers)

With the current PIC system, PHAs were able to reuse the same building numbers from Development to Development. So some PHAs have “duplicate” building numbers in PIC. As part of the migration process to “new” Development Numbers, HUD decided that all building numbers at a PHA must be unique. Recently, HUD identified approximately 44,000 building numbers in PIC that have duplicate numbers (or 22,000 pairs of matching building numbers) at a number of PHAs across the country. This summer HUD e-mailed those PHAs to notify them that the duplicate numbers would have to be changed. The e-mail included a spreadsheet listing the duplicate building numbers and a new, “unique” building number that HUD recommended to replace each of the duplicates.

The PHAs receiving this spreadsheet had the option of accepting HUD’s proposed unique numbers or changing the proposed numbers to numbers the PHA would prefer and sending them back to HUD. By now, if you received the duplicate building number e-mail from HUD, you have either accepted HUD’s recommended changes or submitted your own set of unique building number changes to HUD.

Once HUD received the new unique building numbers, it changed the duplicate building numbers in PIC with the new building numbers immediately. The problem at this point is that the new building numbers in PIC do not match the building numbers in your software system, so any 50058 record you submit to PIC after that change will be rejected by PIC.

In order to correct this problem, you must change the building numbers in your software system to match EXACTLY the new building numbers in PIC. If you have to change your building numbers in your software, we recommend that you use the following process to ensure that your 50058 can be submitted successfully to PIC:

1. Print a Building Report from the PIC Development sub-module
2. Using the list of changed building numbers that HUD e-mailed you, highlight the changed building numbers on the PIC Building Report
3. Change the building numbers in your software to match EXACTLY the building numbers on the PIC Building Report
4. After you change the building numbers in your software, you must recreate any 50058 record in your system that contains a changed building number AND that has not yet been submitted to PIC (usually records with future Effective Dates)

If you need more detail on how to update building numbers in your software, we developed a Guide to explain this process. For Tenmast Software clients, the Guide contains detailed instructions on how to update the building numbers in WinTen and WinTen² software. If you would like a copy of the Guide, please contact us.