All PHAs have to report at least 95% of their VMS unit count to IMS/PIC through the form 50058. In order to successfully gauge your performance with PIC reporting, you'll need:
- An accurate report from your system of the current 50058 for each household, including but not limited to the head of household's social security number (HOH SSN), current action type, and current effective date
- An adhoc report from PIC over the program you are administering, with at least current action type and effective date
- An application that can compare two sets of data, such as Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access
With those items in hand, it's a simple matter of matching up the HOH SSN from PIC with your agency's report. Calculate your PIC reporting rate by dividing the number of matching IDs over the total number of active households in the program.
For example, if your agency's report shows 1,250 vouchers administered, and the PIC adhoc report matched 1,100 SSNs, your reporting rate is 88%. A rate that low will get HUD on your back and limit the ability to use EIV.
Here are some ideas to increase your PIC reporting rate:
Tip #1: Compare often.
Use the PIC adhoc reports to compare with your agency's current 50058 on at least a quarterly basis. Even better, plan a full audit each month to compare your VMS report with PIC.
Tip #2: Group missing families by correction type.
When you've identified the households that are in your agency, but not in PIC, review and group them into categories for correction based on why they're missing. It's easier to fix PIC errors when the correction is the same, rather than individually.
Examples include:
- Port-ins who are still in the initial agency with a later effective date
- Port-outs who have been leased by the receiving agency, but haven't notified your agency
Other, trickier examples:
- HOH changes
- HOH SSN corrections
- Multiple subsidy cases
Lastly, if reporting to PIC MTW, families with current action type 13 — HQS Inspections don't show up in adhoc reports, so speak with your PIC coach to discuss how your PHA will overcome that obstacle.
Tip #3: Utilize the action type 14 — Historical Adjustment.
Under normal circumstances, you want all your 50058 history to be in PIC for each household. Sometimes this isn't possible. A historical adjustment can get someone into PIC, at which point all future 50058s should make it through without a problem.
A code 14 is helpful when:
- Converting from MTCS database to MTW database in PIC
- Moving a participant from public housing to tenant-based program
- Admitting a participant from your waitlist who was already leased in another PHA
Tip #4: Compare to PIC in both directions.
Finding out who's missing from PIC is only half the battle; finding out who's still in PIC, and shouldn't be, is the other half. Usually, these are action type 6 — End of Participant cases that were rejected as fatal errors and never corrected, although SSN corrections can lead to duplicate records if not done properly. If you're over-reporting to PIC, that's generally a sign to HUD that something is wrong.
Tip #5: Don't get void happy.
When starting to clean up PIC or when your quality control review finds multiple incorrect actions, the tendency is to submit a void on each action submitted. Be careful not to submit too many action type 15 — Voids to PIC for one SSN, because PIC will send all actions to the historical database, or just remove their history completely! You don't want to create another problem (missing from PIC) by trying to correct an action from a long time ago.
These tips should help you start identifying the current state of your PIC reporting and correcting any and all anomalies you find.
Senior Analyst Raymond Buhr is the PIC guru for NMA's Chicago team, which administers 17,000 contracts on behalf of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA).
Nan McKay and Associates has provided IMS/PIC reporting solutions to housing authorities throughout the nation. For more information, contact sales@nanmckay.com.
