GAO | The Contracting Education Academy

May 9, 2019 By AMK

FEMA showed weak mastery of contracts during hurricane response and recovery

Four agencies providing disaster relief following the triple hurricanes and California wildfires of 2017 failed to keep proper records of contracts with suppliers, rendering it impractical for the Government Accountability Office to fully track $5 billion in spending.

GAO’s report released on Wednesday examined 23 sample contracts let after the disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard and the Defense Logistics Agency. Its conclusion: the full extent of contracting related to the 2017 disasters is unknown due to Homeland Security Department’s irregular schedule for closing contracts and inconsistent use of standard contracting codes.

Disaster relief contracts for everything from ready-made meals to tarpaulins can be awarded prospectively—before anyone knows the date of a coming act of God—or after the storm or fire has rendered thousands homeless or living in damaged property.

But among the contracts studied as of June 30, 2018—following a record-setting displacement of 15 percent of the U.S. population from several natural events—GAO reviewed the three-fourths of the obligations that were let by FEMA and the Army engineers and found that the Homeland Security Department violated procedure with early closures of what are called national interest action codes. Those numbered codes, administered by the General Services Administration, allow agencies to track data on contract actions related to national emergencies, and are available on the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation to provide governmentwide insight into response and recovery efforts.

Keep reading article at: https://www.govexec.com/contracting/2019/04/fema-showed-weak-mastery-contracts-during-hurricane-response-and-recovery/156541/

May 8, 2019 By AMK

GAO wants to build capacity to focus on science and technology, cybersecurity

The Government Accountability Office is on track to achieve its optimal workforce capacity of 3,250 full-time employees this year, but it’s still having trouble keeping up with the quantity of lawmaker requests around new technologies and cybersecurity.

Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO Gene Dodaro told the Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch subcommittee that those are two of GAO’s four major priorities for 2020, where it needs to increase capacity to meet rising demand.

The agency requested a funding increase of $57.8 million more than it received in fiscal 2019, for a total of $647.6 million, in order to build these capacities. Dodaro reminded lawmakers that in 2018, actions on GAO recommendations saved the government $75.1 billion, a return on investment of more than $124 for every $1 GAO received in funding.

Keeping up in science and technology

Part of that increased budget, Dodaro said, would go toward the agency’s new Science, Technology, Assessment and Analytics Team, built on top of the capabilities that GAO already has. That’s part of his first priority: Increasing the speed and capability of GAO to evaluate science and technology issues for Congress. Dodaro said technological changes are happening more rapidly now, and the agency needs to be able to keep up.

“The emergence of science and technology issues is transforming the way that we are learning, communicating, educating,” Dodaro said. “It’s changing the very face of warfare in the future, whether you’re talking artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cryptocurrencies. Blockchains are changing the nature of how financial transactions are conducted, and financial advice.”

But the bright, shiny tech buzzwords of the moment aren’t the only things that fall under GAO’s science and technology umbrella. Dodaro said GAO also looks at antibiotic-resistant bacteria, weapons systems like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, healthcare, 5G and nanotechnologies.

“With the expansion of our team in this area, we can help Congress avoid spending millions of dollars that aren’t going to produce the technologies everybody thought it was going to produce,” Dodaro said.

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/hearings-oversight/2019/04/gao-wants-to-build-capacity-to-focus-on-science-and-technology-cybersecurity/

May 3, 2019 By AMK

GAO: Agencies must consider information gathered by reverse auction providers

What are federal contractors supposed to do when FedBid (now Unison) requests additional information related to a proposal and the awarding agency ignores that information in its awarding decision?

GAO recently held that the agency must consider all information gathered by reverse auction providers.

In BCW Group, LLC, B-417209, 2019 WL 1398813 (Comp. Gen. Mar. 27, 2019), BCW protested the Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs’ award to another offeror. The award was the result of a reverse auction conducted by FedBid, on behalf of the agency.

The reverse auction was for work related to procurement, installation, and maintenance of Promethean ActivPanels, or other similar products. BCW’s bid included a general verification that it complied with “all terms listed by the Buyer[,]” but the bid did not specifically state that it included the required one-year maintenance. At the close of the reverse auction, a representative of FedBid reached out to BCW asking the following:

Is your bid price correct, complete (meaning all items requested are included in your bid) and inclusive of all costs the Buyer would incur if your bid is selected?

In response, BCW confirmed that the price included, among other things, “once a year maintenance for 3 years on the panels I install.”

The agency subsequently reviewed the five submitted bids and chose a different offeror because BCW’s offer, although lower priced, did not specifically mention the required maintenance. The agency did not review the exchange between FedBid and BCW, where BCW confirmed that maintenance was included in its offer, because the contracting officer was “not aware that FedBid” had the post-bid exchange with BCW regarding the maintenance issue. BCW protested that its lower priced bid should have been accepted because it met the procurement requirements.

Keep reading article at: www.smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gao-agencies-must-consider-information-gathered-by-reverse-auction-providers

April 10, 2019 By cs

GAO: Revised analytic approach needed by DoD to support force structure decision-making

To adapt to growing threats, the Department of Defense (DoD) says it must urgently change.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) looked at DoD’s process for providing senior leaders with the information they need to adjust the size and capabilities of the U.S. military to meet top defense priorities.

Senior leaders are not getting the information they need to make these important decisions.

In GAO’s March 14, 2019 report, they recommend addressing the following challenges:

It is difficult to develop a common “starting point” for force structure analysis.
The military services’ analyses largely supported the status quo.
There was no way to compare options and identify trade-offs across DoD.

The GAO finds that DoD’s analytic approach has not provided senior leaders with the support they need to evaluate and determine the force structure necessary to implement the National Defense Strategy. DoD’s analytic approach — Support for Strategic Analysis (SSA) — is used by the services to evaluate their force structure needs and develop their budgets. However, GAO found that SSA has been hindered by three interrelated challenges:

Products are cumbersome and inflexible. Although DoD guidance states that SSA products are to be common starting points for analysis on plausible threats, including threats identified in strategic guidance, DoD has not kept the products complete and up to date in part because they were highly detailed and complex and therefore cumbersome to develop and analyze.

Analysis does not significantly deviate from services’ programmed force structures or test key assumptions. Although DoD’s guidance states that SSA should facilitate a broad range of analysis exploring innovative approaches to mitigate threats identified in the strategy, the services generally have not conducted this type of analysis because guidance has not specifically required the services to do so.

DoD lacks joint analytic capabilities to assess force structure. Although DoD guidance states that SSA is intended to facilitate the comparison and evaluation of competing force structure options and cross-service tradeoffs, the department has not conducted this type of analysis because it lacks a body or process to do so.

GAO’s report notes:

DoD efforts to revise its analytic approach are in the early stages and have not yet identified solutions to these challenges. Moreover, DoD has attempted reforms in the past without success. Without a functioning analytic process that addresses the above challenges, senior leaders do not have the analytic support they need to prioritize force structure investments that would best manage risk and address the threats outlined in the National Defense Strategy.

See the GAO’s full report and recommendations here: https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-385

April 1, 2019 By cs

GAO says DoD needs to collect data on space acquisition workforce

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report indicating that the Department of Defense (DoD) does not routinely monitor the size, mix, and location of its space acquisition workforce.

However, data GAO collected and aggregated from multiple DoD space acquisition organizations show that at least 8,000 personnel in multiple locations nationwide were working on space acquisition activities at the end of 2017.

Military and civilian personnel comprise the majority of the overall workforce, while contractor and Federally Funded Research and Development Center personnel also provide support.

DoD recently announced it plans to establish a new Space Development Agency and a United States Space Command. DoD reportedly plans to spend about $65 billion from fiscal year 2019 to 2023 on space acquisition programs — including satellites, launch vehicles, ground components, and user equipment. DoD’s space acquisition personnel perform a variety of activities, such as preparing and reviewing acquisition documents, to manage or oversee programs that develop or procure space capabilities.

According to GAO, several factors hinder DOD’s ability to collect data needed for a comprehensive view of its space acquisition workforce:

DoD does not maintain a complete list of its space acquisition programs.
DoD’s workforce data systems are not configured to identify personnel working on space acquisition activities.
DoD space acquisition personnel are dispersed across organizations and some personnel support both space and non-space programs.

Without complete and accurate data, GAO believes that DoD will be unable to assess gaps in the overall capabilities of the space acquisition workforce. GAO recommends the identification of space programs and the collection of workforce data to better position DoD to ensure that the appropriate space acquisition personnel are assigned to the new Space Development Agency and the United States Space Command.

GAO also believes that comprehensive data on the space acquisition workforce would be beneficial to support DoD’s efforts related to its recent legislative proposal regarding the establishment of the United States Space Force.

Read GAO’s full report here: https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/697574.pdf