Kelly's pledge of cooperation is a marked change for PHA, which has had a history of contentious dealings with HUD and had failed to comply with a subpoena on the housing sites, which was issued last summer. A subpoena was issued last month on payments to lawyers.
Last week, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R., Iowa), the ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, sought billing records from 20 law firms that had worked for PHA.
On loan from New York City, where he holds a similar job, Kelly started work five weeks ago after the firing of Carl R. Greene amid revelations that PHA secretly paid three women $648,000 to settle sexual-harassment complaints against him.
Kelly has said that he would rein in the authority's use of outside law firms, which have been paid $33 million since 2007. And he said in an interview Tuesday that he would hire his own outside auditors to review certain aspects of PHA's finances.
He also said he would be creating an internal audit-and-compliance unit at PHA that would report to him and to the PHA board. This would allow him to "muscle up" oversight at the agency, he said, and to let "my commissioners know that I am reevaluating the Housing Authority's role."
On Thursday, he told the authority's five commissioners that "revelations over the past several months have uncovered deep internal problems that overshadow PHA's reputation as a provider of affordable housing."
This has "eroded [the] confidence of our residents and employees, elected officials, and the public at large," he added.
In both audits, HUD staff has had to deal with outside lawyers hired by PHA, which has slowed its progress.
Kelly said that, during his coming meeting with the inspector general, scheduled for Feb. 1, he hoped to clarify what further information auditors needed.
