How Well Do You Know Your State Agency?
In an effort to increase awareness and foster closer partnerships with state housing agencies, NCHM has been researching state agency websites, contacting LIHTC compliance directors, and discussing their compliance training requirements and needs in their states. Since each state agency is given a pretty wide berth in terms of how they will implement and manage the LIHTC program in their state, there is an equally wide spectrum of opinion on compliance education and training. It reminds me a bit of one of my daughters’ favorite childhood books, The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller, where the United States all gather for a convention and spend time comparing their similarities and differences. We will, in fact, be traveling to a similar event later this month, the National Council of State Housing Agencies’s Housing Credit Connect Conference in Chicago, where we are sure to learn even more about the variety of compliance approaches from the state agency folks in attendance.
Since we are a national organization dealing with the gamut of compliance requirements from the 50 states and the territories, I often wonder how well owners and management agents within these states know their state-specific compliance criteria. And even more perplexing is the dilemma for management companies who operate in multiple states…
Did you know that many states require management to have a national compliance certification before they will issue the IRS Form 8609s, which allocate the tax credits, to owners/investors for their properties? There are several that also have ongoing certification requirements in their states. Most states offer some form of state-specific compliance training, which we always encourage our students to attend in addition to our courses to help fine-tune their compliance knowledge explicitly to their state. Do you know your state agency’s training requirements? If not, I recommend you find them out to make sure you are in compliance.
Did you know that most state agencies post their required compliance forms on their websites? A number of years ago, NCSHA published a set of Recommended Practice forms in an attempt to create some level of standardization between the states for verification forms in LIHTC tenant files. The states, in turn, adopted these forms in varying degrees for use at their LIHTC properties. Many states continue to use these forms, or adapted variations of them, and NCHM continues to use them in our Tax Credit Specialist (TCS) and Blended Occupancy Specialist (BOS) courses. Do you know if you are using the appropriate forms required by your state agency at your LIHTC property? A good exercise in research is to consult your state agency’s website which can be found through links on the NCSHA website at www.ncsha.org. You may even discover other items of interest that you did not know.
Finally, we always encourage our students to establish and maintain a good working relationship with your state agency staff. Most agencies encourage their compliance folks to work with owners and managers, not against them as regulatory “gotcha” agents. They should serve as your point of reference for compliance questions, especially with those that exceed the requirements of the federal Section 42 regulations and pertain to state-specific matters. The NCHM eHotline is also a good reference point for LIHTC-related compliance questions for those who hold current certifications.
I am happy to report that I’ve been thinking so much about these questions that I am creating a webinar on state-specific regulatory requirements versus federal regulatory requirements, to be presented on Sept. 9, 2014. I will look forward to having you and all those who are curious about these questions join me to further explore their implications.