Navy Procedures Used in Awarding a Solicitation at the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, CA

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed certain Navy procedures used to award a solicitation under a contract which will affect family housing maintenance, warehousing and supply operations, and vehicle operation and maintenance functions now being performed by Federal civilian personnel at the Naval Weapons Center (NWC) in China Lake, CA.

GAO found that the NWC estimate of the in-house cost to perform the necessary functions was about $2.8 million less than the contract cost. However, when appeals from both the low bidder and Federal civilian employees were made, a Naval review board ruled that the Navy would save about $364,000 by contracting the services. GAO found that differences in computing the costs of repositioning, retraining, and laying off the Federal civilian employees whose jobs would be affected by the contract award greatly affected the cost estimates. GAO questioned the fact that the appeals officer who was responsible for the decision on the low bidder's appeal reviewed his own decision in the appeal filed by the Federal civilian employees and that new data related to the first appeal could not be reviewed in the second appeal.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Robert M. Gilroy Team: General Accounting Office: Procurement, Logistics, and Readiness Division Phone: (202) 275-4268