NASA Procurement

GAO reviewed the construction contracting practices of NASA's Langley Research Center and EG&G Florida, Inc., which provides maintenance, construction, and construction inspection services. GAO identified several weaknesses in how the contractor's performance was being monitored, evaluated, and documented; the report notes that Langley is planning to implement procedures to correct these weaknesses. GAO recommends that, since all NASA field centers use the same contracting practices, NASA require other centers to review their procedures and, if necessary, take corrective action.

GAO found that: (1) the contract required the use of work orders; (2) the contract authorized the contractor to hire employees to perform the contracted work; (3) the contractor was required to inspect its own construction work, but NASA did not have records showing that all required inspections were performed; (4) NASA plans to move the inspection function to a separate contract due to the potential conflict of interest; (5) NASA construction and evaluation inspections are not adequate support for award fee determinations; (6) NASA does not evaluate the firm's cost efficiency; and (7) the contractor did not have written representations for all subcontracts awarded to small businesses, but all of the subcontractors identified themselves as small businesses.

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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