The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands has made improvements in its administration of loans but has not yet put in place the majority of recommendations made three years ago by the state auditor, according to a report released Friday.

The report by acting Auditor Jan Yamane noted that DHHL has implemented five of 20 recommendations her office made in 2013 to address gaps discovered when the department’s lending programs were examined.

The agency has taken initial action on the remaining 15 recommendations but has not actually implemented them, according to the report.

DHHL provides loans to beneficiaries — those who are at least 50 percent Native Hawaiian — for housing on department land they lease for residential, ranching or farming homesteads. The agency is considered a lender of last resort, issuing loans deemed high risk because of the borrower’s finances and credit history.

Yamane’s office in 2013 found that DHHL’s failure to adequately address a growing delinquency problem posed a solvency risk to the agency. According to that report, about $83 million of more than $588 million in loans, including those made by DHHL directly to beneficiaries and those issued by other institutions but backed by the agency, were delinquent as of June 2012. That represented a 14 percent delinquency rate.

Friday’s report did not indicate whether the rate had improved.

A DHHL spokeswoman said the department was reviewing the report and declined to comment.

In reviewing the status of the 2013 recommendations, Yamane said that the Hawaiian Homes Commission, which oversees DHHL, has not established a risk management plan and does not have direct involvement in adopting policies or procedures related to issuance of direct loans and delinquent loan collections.

But the department has more clearly identified staff responsibilities, established financial requirements for direct-loan applicants and reassessed and lowered interest rates to provide financial relief for borrowers and to help identify qualified loan candidates, according to the report.

As of November DHHL had nearly 5,000 loans valued at more than $611 million in its portfolio.

The vast majority of those loans were issued by lending institutions but are insured or guaranteed by DHHL.

About 940 of the loans, or nearly a fifth, are direct, according to the report. Direct loans pose the highest and most immediate risk to DHHL, mainly because the borrowers typically are rejected by several other lenders before turning to the agency as a last resort.

The direct loans also include those insured or guaranteed by DHHL that have reverted to the agency for collection because of serious delinquencies.

DHHL takes on high-risk loans to further its mission of getting Hawaiians onto homestead lands.

The auditors determined that, as of June, 237 direct loans were delinquent. That’s about 25 percent of the November total.