The D.C. Housing Authority is allegedly responsible for spending nearly $1 million in illegally sole-sourced contracts awarded to a software company, attempts to skirt oversight, and other concerning actions, according to an internal review from the agency’s compliance office.

DCHA procured the first contract in 2019 under the agency’s previous director, Tyrone Garrett. However, the audit alleges the current administration is conducting “additional mismanagement and malfeasance of their own” under Director Brenda Donald, according to The Washington Post, which first reported on the audit this week.

The internal review was issued on Nov. 1, prompted by a scathing 72-page federal audit from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last month that accused the federally funded Housing Authority of major failures and called for reform across the agency. Among its long list of findings, the federal report called for an investigation into DCHA’s awarding of $875,260 in contracts to the Tysons-based software developer Verbosity “without any competition in violation of its procurement policy.” DCHA used Verbosity software for its police force and other uses, per the Post.

Petuna Cooper, vice president of DCHA’s Office of Audit and Compliance, then conducted an internal review. Cooper found that the agency had awarded $967,260 in contracts with Verbosity since 2019 without a full and competitive bidding process, as DCHA policy requires. Additionally, the audit cited missing documentation of the contracts in some cases, Washington City Paper reported.

The review accuses Donald’s staff of splitting the larger sum into two smaller emergency contracts to avoid scrutiny from the board of directors.

DCHA claims one of Donald’s “top priorities” is to make operational changes across the agency, according to an emailed statement Wednesday. One of those changes includes making sure staff follow competitive procurement policies. DCHA says its executive staff identified a number of services that the agency paid for without a contract or competitive process under previous leadership — including the services from Verbosity — and that staff were asked to determine which of these services were necessary. Those services would later be obtained through a legal bidding process, the statement says.

The DCHA leadership team determined that the agency needed to continue use of a police tracking and deployment software “to provide uninterrupted services” as part of a settlement with the D.C. attorney general.

“To support this, the agency issued a short-term, sole-source emergency contract until a competitive procurement could be issued publicly,” the statement reads. “It was the first actual contract issued for these services.”

The auditor disputes this explanation of events. Cooper argues that Donald’s staff had “ample time” to go through the required competitive process to issue a new contract, per the Post. She was also critical of the documentation provided for the review, including a justification memo for the emergency contract, claiming it may have even been “falsified.”

“I stand by what we did,” Donald told the Post, “and it was exactly the right thing to do.”

Cooper also reported the firm ThinkBox overcharged the agency by more than $2 million in payments dating back to 2018 for a contract related to DCHA’s Energy Capital Improvements Program, due to “calculation errors.” ThinkBox denied the accusations in a statement to City Paper, and the internal audit revealed that ThinkBox believes DCHA actually owes the firm $4.4 million.

DCHA spokesperson Sheila Lewis told City Paper the agency would hire an “external accounting firm to review all invoices and advise us of any payments outstanding to either party.”

Cooper presented the findings from the audit in a Nov. 3 meeting with the agency’s board of directors, according to City Paper. Director Brenda Donald placed two members of the executive staff on administrative leave, but the board reversed that decision when it learned it didn’t have legal authority to request such a measure.

The issues found in the audit reflect concerns from D.C. officials about DCHA leadership and a lack of oversight. Mayor Muriel Bowser appointed seven of the 13 board members, as well as Donald, who came out of retirement to help deal with the agency’s longstanding troubles. But D.C. officials have demanded greater change following the release of the HUD report — including calls for a “complete leadership overhaul” and the removal of At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds as chair of the housing committee.

Donald has mostly responded by defending herself.

“These things didn’t happen overnight and they can’t get fixed overnight,” she told DCist/WAMU in an October interview. “I just got here a little over a year ago, and I’m moving in on all fronts.”

This story has been updated with a statement from the D.C. Housing Authority.