National Science Foundation: Steps Taken to Improve Contracting Practices, But Opportunities Exist to Do More
Abstract
The NSF spends more than $400 million of its $7 billion annual budget acquiring goods and services in support of its mission to promote science and engineering. Much of this spending involves exploration activities in remote locations throughout the world, such as the Arctic and Antarctic. GAO examined the extent to which NSF uses key contracting practices in three phases of the acquisition process: (a) acquisition planning, (b)contract award, and (c) post-award contract monitoring. GAO selected and reviewed a nongeneralizable sample of11 contracts or orders with at least $3million in funding obligations for fiscal year 2011, which accounted for about 70 percent of NSFs total contract obligations for that year. Although all11 contracts and orders received funding during fiscal year 2011, some were awarded more than 7 years ago. Some were awarded more recently. We reviewed each of the 11 contracts to determine the extent to which they reflected the use of key contracting practices based on the Federal Acquisition Regulation, our prior work, and NSF-OIG findings. GAO also reviewed NSF contracting policies and met with NSF contracting and program officials.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2013
- Accession Number
- AD1179347
Entities
People
- William T. Woods
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office