Has Your State Agency, Investor, or Management Company Ordered You to Get Compliance Certified?

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8 min read

By Elizabeth L. Moreland, NCP-E, SCS, HCCP, SHCM, FHC

Tax Credit Advisor, March 2009: Proper compliance is essential for the success of every low-income housing tax credit property. Increasingly, the individuals whose job is to ensure, review, or oversee tax credit compliance – property managers, corporate supervisors, etc. – have one or more compliance professional designations. What are these different designations? How do they differ? Which are most appropriate for a particular individual? Here, compliance expert/trainer Elizabeth L. Moreland provides a road map and guidance through the alphabet soup of multiple designation programs.

You’ve been told that you now need to get yourself or your staff certified in low-income housing tax credit compliance. It’s the new push today in the housing credit industry. It makes sense. You run an important aspect of this affordable housing program and the industry is demanding that you be certified in what you do. What does this mean? And, more importantly, how do you meet this mandate?

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you now have multiple possible ways to meet this mandate. There are multiple certifications to choose from and none are difficult to obtain!

This is also the bad news. Having to understand and pick from multiple certification options can be confusing and difficult. This article is designed to make this task easier, by describing the different available housing credit compliance certification programs, the steps involved in getting certified, and how to determine which one or ones are appropriate for you.

First, you need to determine which certification or certifications are right for you. This can be done simply by looking at your level of responsibility within the housing credit program.

Some of you are site professionals, working on the ground at a tax credit property. You interact daily with applicants and residents, making decisions at the property level. As part of this, you determine whether applicants are eligible to occupy a tax credit unit initially and later on – at recertification.

On the other hand, some of you are managers or supervisors. Your role is to be the troubleshooter, the problem solver. This means you have to know a lot about the housing credit program. Not just the site compliance rules, but also the rules regarding allocation, development, and other financing.

Site Level Responsibilities

If your main responsibilities are at the site level, you should be focusing on one of the four housing credit compliance site certifications available today. These include: my firm’s Site Compliance Specialist (SCS) designation; Quadel’s Tax Credit Compliance Systems (TaCCs) designation; the National Center for Housing Management’s Tax Credit Specialist (TCS) designation; and the National Affordable Housing Management Association’s (NAHMA’s) Specialist in Housing Credit Management (SHCM) designation.

Each of the preceding certification programs are similar and require passing an exam to be certified. In the Certification Exam Summary Chart (see TCA March 2009, p. 18), I have outlined the requirements for each of these different certifications.

Using the Site Compliance Specialist, or SCS, certification as an example, the steps to earn this designation are simple.

First, you must pass an exam – in this case, the Site Compliance Exam. This exam is comprised of 50 questions divided into five Testable Areas. To pass you must answer 40 of the questions correctly. The Exam is graded as a pass or fail. If you pass, you immediately earn your SCS designation.

To prepare for the Exam you can take the courses available at the Housing Credit Online Training Center. These five current courses range from a basic introductory course, to a comprehensive course (Housing Credits 245: Site Compliance Specialists) which focuses on all five testable areas of the Exam.

If you are new or inexperienced, you should take all of the courses at the Online Training Center including Housing Credits 245. When finished, you should be fully prepared to take the Exam.

If you have some work experience and aren’t sure if you need all of the courses, start with the Compliance Assessment. By doing so, you can ascertain exactly what courses you need to concentrate on in order to pass the Exam. The Compliance Assessment is a series of questions scored to identify your current level of site compliance knowledge. By comparing your score to an Industry Proficiency Chart you can determine where your current knowledge matches up against the industry-acceptable knowledge standards. If you score below any of the standards in a particular section, you are directed to take the particular course at the Online Training Center that will give you the necessary information to become proficient in that particular standard. After you have completed the course(s) indicated by the Compliance Assessment, you will be ready to take the Site Compliance Exam. Once you pass, you will receive certification as a Site Compliance Specialist.

If, on the other hand, you already meet all of the industry proficiency levels indicated by your score on the Compliance Assessment, you are immediately ready to take the Site Compliance Exam. This Exam can be taken online, at www.housingcreditexam.com.

The preceding example has shown how the Site Compliance Specialist designation is earned. Consult the Certification Exam Summary Chart (TCA March 2009, p. 18) for the requirements for the other three programs. The SHCM exam can be taken through one of the local Affordable Housing Management Associations (AHMAs); the TaCC exam, taken through Quadel Consulting; and the TCS exam, taken through the National Center for Housing Management (NCHM).The training and/or exam for the SHCM site-level designation (and for the HCCP supervisor-level designation, below) may also be taken through approved private trainers and organizations.

Note: All four site-level designations described above have very similar requirements, so it’s a matter of choosing which one best fits your schedule and budget.

Supervisor or Troubleshooter Responsibilities

If you are a supervisor, regional manager, compliance director/ manager, asset manager, or anyone who desires to take on one of these positions sometime in the future, you should be focusing on one of the following available national certification designations: my firm’s National Compliance Professional (NCP) designation; the longstanding Housing Credit Certified Professional (HCCP) designation, administered by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB); and the Certified Credit Compliance Professional (C3P) designation, administered by Spectrum Seminars. The Chart on has the requirements for each.

The steps to earn one of these three designations are a bit more entailed then earning a site compliance designation…But then again, so is your level of responsibilities. Most of these require passing both an exam and an experience requirement (or certain amount of classroom time).

All of the steps to earn one of these supervisor level designations are different, but similar in scope.

For example, the C3P or Certified Credit Compliance Specialist designation offered by Spectrum Seminars is obtained by attending one of Spectrum’s two-day C3P courses and passing the exam offered at the end. A current schedule can be found at Spectrum’s website at www.spectrumseminars.com. To pass the exam, you must correctly answer 80 of the exam’s 100 total questions. By completing the course and passing the exam, you will be awarded your C3P designation. The cost of obtaining the designation is included in the price for the course and exam.

The other requirements to earn these national designations are specific to the designation. These may include a minimum amount of classroom hours, a minimum number of years of experience, and/or the completion of a Membership Application. Most of these national certifications also require payment of an annual membership fee (ranging from $50 to $179), plus continuing education requirements that must be met to keep the designation current. For example, to renew your C3P designation, you must earn three continuing education credits through any nationally recognized training firm and pay a $50 renewal fee. It should be noted that this renewal fee is waived if the continuing education is earned through a Spectrum Seminars workshop. Be sure to review the Chart on page 19 to ascertain the other supervisory level designation requirements.

Conclusion

When seeking a national designation or certification, you should first do a bit of research to determine which particular process will best fit your schedule, education and experience level, and budget. Also, be sure to look into the benefits you will receive from the administrating organization once you have earned their designation and become a member.

All of the designations discussed here are fantastic and will give you deserved respect and accolades as a housing credit compliance professional. In this vein, more is better when it comes to being certified, as the multiple designation programs available illustrate. By being certified, you contribute not only to the strength of your property and organization, but also to the strength of the housing credit program overall.

Elizabeth Moreland is a nationally recognized trainer, consultant, and compliance expert, as well as President of the Housing Credit College and founder of the NCP Membership Group (www.taxcredit. com; www.housingcredits.com; www.housingcreditcollege.com; www.nationalcompliancepro.com.) She may be contacted (including with questions) at elizabeth.moreland@ housingcredits.com.