Federal Supply Service Not Buying Goods at Lowest Possible Price

Some contractors charge the government more for their products than they charge commercial customers who buy smaller or comparable quantities of those products.

Prices charged the Federal Supply Service (FSS) by 5 of 12 multiple award schedule contractors were much higher than prices charged other customers. This was probably because FSS did not have procedures for considering the total purchases expected under a contract when evaluating offers and prices. As a result, FSS did not obtain the volume discounts normally available to other customers. Had it done so, the government could have saved about $1.2 million on purchases totaling $11.2 million from the five contractors. Although sales from FSS contracts amounted to $840 million, contractors' proposals were rarely independently audited. Sales and discount information submitted on 6 of 15 contract proposals was not accurate, current, or complete. Therefore, the pricing information used by FSS in evaluating offers and negotiating prices may have been inaccurate.

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.

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