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Review of Alleged Improper Contract Awards in OI&T's Service, Delivery, and Engineering Office

Report Information

Issue Date
Report Number
15-04231-223
VA Office
Acquisitions, Logistics, and Construction (OALC)
Information and Technology (OIT)
Report Author
Office of Audits and Evaluations
Report Type
Audit
Recommendations
0
Questioned Costs
$0
Better Use of Funds
$0
Congressionally Mandated
No

Summary

Summary
OIG conducted a review based on an anonymous allegation to assess whether a senior level Service, Delivery, and Engineering (SDE) official from VA’s Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) coerced Technology Acquisition Center (TAC) contracting officers to violate Federal competition requirements when awarding contracts to perform a study of SDE operations. We did not substantiate the allegation that the contracting officers were coerced to violate the Federal competition requirements. Furthermore, we determined that the contracting officers complied with Federal competition requirements under the FAR when they awarded the contracts. In June 2014, a TAC contracting officer awarded a task order valued at approximately $972,000 to a Federal Supply Schedule contractor for a study of SDE operations. The contracting officer met the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) competition requirements for orders above the simplified acquisition threshold of $150,000. In January 2015, another TAC contracting officer awarded a task order valued at approximately $4.5 million to the same contactor to complete the study. The initial task order was for a period of 3 months while the second task order was for a period of 13 months. The first task order only required 2 major deliverables while the follow-on task order required 11 major deliverables as a result of an expansion and implementation of the original effort. The FAR allows for limiting competition in the interest of economy and efficiency if the new work is a logical follow-on to an original Federal Supply Schedule order. The contracting officer met the requirements under the FAR related to limiting competition for orders exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold.
Recommendations (0)