Agency Management of Contractors Responding to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
Abstract
In February 2006, we briefed the staffs of your committees on the results of our review of various contracting issues related to the Gulf Coast hurricanes. We conducted this work under the Comptroller Generals statutory authority in order to assess how three agencies- the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the General Services Administration (GSA)- planned for and conducted oversight of several key contracts in support of Katrina and Rita response and recovery efforts. The briefing document is attached. After we completed our work and briefed your staffs, the House Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina and later the White House issued reports based on their reviews of the various hurricane response issues. These reports contain findings and recommendations intended to address a number of the issues identified in our briefing. Additionally, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has been reviewing these issues, and various inspectors general are proceeding with their reviews as well. In general, while the inspectors general are reviewing a broad range of contracting issues, such as competition and pricing, we focused our efforts on contract planning and oversight. During the course of our work, the agencies informed us that they are taking a number of steps to address the issues that we identified, and we reflected those actions in the briefing where appropriate. Given these developments, we are not making any recommendations at this time; however, we continue to monitor agency actions in this area. We provided this briefing document to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense (DOD), and GSA for review and comment. While DOD did not have any comments, the Corps of Engineers provided some technical clarifications, which we incorporated in the briefing where appropriate.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 16, 2006
- Accession Number
- AD1179339
Entities
People
- Dave Cooper
- Elaine Boudreau
- James Kim
- Jeff Rose
- John K. Needham
- Lisa Henson
- Moshe Schwartz
- Myra W. Butler
- Penny Augustine
- Ralph Roffo
- Sandy Reigle
- Shannon Simpson
- Victoria Klepacz
- William T. Woods
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office