The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

GSA OIG, Office of Government Ethics Taking Steps Towards Open Government

By SCOTT AMEY

POGO recently learned about two agencies that are promoting an open government agenda that will help the public learn more about contractors and government officials.

First, the General Services Administration (GSA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) established a website that helps you track down records of state suspensions and debarments. This website is a great resource for the public as well as federal contracting officers who are charged with checking the responsibility records of federal contractors. The GSA OIG is actually assisting the GSA, which is required to include state cases in the Federal Awardee Performance & Integrity Information System(FAPIIS)—a list of contractors and grantees with criminal, civil, and administrative misconduct. That system closely mirrors POGO’s Federal Contractor Misconduct database—a centralized database of contract and non-contracted related misconduct.

However, when FAPIIS was created, the government opted to postpone the inclusion of state cases “until a subsequent phase of FAPIIS.” The GSA OIG is providing a great public service because state and local governments utilize GSA programs to buy goods and services. The website is easy to use—pick a state on the interactive map and click to see the list of excluded contractors. Not all states have such a list. In addition, some of the state data is several years old, so there might have to be some additional fact-finding, but it’s great to see a more unified front when it comes to avoiding risky contractors. Although perusing multiple federal and nongovernmental websites isn’t ideal, it is currently the only way for governments to ensure that they are buying goods and services from responsible contractors.

Paid in Full: The Ongoing Effort to Accelerate Contractor Pay Day

By NEIL GORDON

Every once in a while, POGO will hear from a federal contractor--usually a very small company--complaining about not getting paid on time or for the full amount owed by an agency or another contractor. But now, a proposed rule could help address this problem, and bring more robust data to the federal government's contractor responsibility database. 

The Prompt Payment Act (PPA) requires federal agencies to pay their contractors on time, or else face late payment penalties. The PPA generally requires the government to pay contractors within 30 days of receipt of proper documentation. A memorandum issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in September shortens the payment window with regard to small business contractors to 15 days.

Subcontractors, however, still have to wait until the prime contractor gets paid before they do. So, accelerating the payment of prime contractors should also speed up payments to subcontractors, right? Not necessarily.

10 Standout Posts from 2011

By BRYAN RAHIJA

As we've noted recently, it's been a heck of a year here at POGO. Beyond publishing reports, developing a database, and sending letters to policymakers, we also authored some 900 blog posts, which ranged from one-liners to gargantuan near-reports. Here are ten posts that, for one reason or another, stood out to me this year.

Whether you clicked or commented, tweeted or tumbled, or liked or lurked, thank you for making POGO's blog part of your 2011.

Report Highlights More Problems in IRS Contracting

By NEIL GORDON

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is not doing a sufficient job of vetting its contractors according to a new audit report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). TIGTA's findings indicate that billions of taxpayer dollars may be at increased risk of contractor fraud, waste, or abuse.

The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires that federal agencies award contracts only to contractors that are responsible (i.e. honest, ethical, and capable of performing the contract on time and in a satisfactory manner). However, TIGTA found that 60 of the 88 contract files it reviewed (68 percent) did not contain sufficient documentation to support IRS contracting officers’ determinations of responsibility.

“The IRS does not have an effective process to ensure that contracting officers’ determinations of present responsibility are adequately conducted and documented in compliance with Federal Acquisition Regulation requirements,” the report concludes. “As a result, the IRS has an increased risk that procurements may be awarded to nonresponsible contractors…potentially leading to additional costs to the federal government due to subsequent default, late deliveries, or other unsatisfactory contractual performance.”

Move Over, FAPIIS--POGO Freshens Up Its Contractor Misconduct Database

By NEIL GORDON

The federal government's largest contractors have paid $25.3 billion in fines and penalties for everything from A to Z: from improper accounting practices to selling the government defective Zylon body armor. These and more than 1,400 other misconduct instances can be found in the Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD), which has now been updated with fiscal year 2010's top 100 ranking.

The top 100 features 7 new contractors, including international accounting firm Deloitte LLP, package delivery company United Parcel Service (UPS), and linguistic services provider Mission Essential Personnel. The FCMD now includes misconduct information on 160 of the federal government’s largest suppliers of goods and services.

The top 100 contractors received $276 billion in contracts last fiscal year, accounting for slightly more than half of the $536 billion in contracts awarded that year. As of today, these 100 contractors have accumulated 821 misconduct instances. Thirty-eight of the top 100 have zero or one instance, a reminder that misconduct need not be accepted as a cost of doing business with the federal government.

As has occurred in the past, the USAspending.gov data on which the top 100 ranking is based contains errors. Therefore, you will see double listings for Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman.

Among the instances you will find in the FCMD:

New Features Added to Government's Contractor and Grantee Responsibility Database

By NEIL GORDON

Almost six months have passed since the public debut of the government's contractor and grantee responsibility database, the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, or FAPIIS. POGO was initially less than thrilled with FAPIIS, but we were optimistic that it would improve over time.

Although the public FAPIIS website still has the same drab, clumsy overall look and feel–and still provides no user guide–POGO is pleased to see the addition of two new user-friendly features. The most noticeable new feature is the “Get All Awardee-Entered Proceedings Information” button on the bottom of the search screen. Given that there was already a button for quick access to all government-entered information, this addition seemed like a no-brainer. Clicking this button retrieves an Excel-exportable list of “Convictions / Findings of Fault” and “Other Acknowledgements of Fault” instances for all contactors and grantees. No longer do you have to guess where civil/criminal/administrative misconduct records reside for a contractor like Lockheed Martin, which has hundreds of listings in FAPIIS. In addition, search results now contain direct links to the contractor’s or grantee’s FAPIIS listing, which spares you having to constantly navigate back to the search page.

POGO quickly found contractor-entered data for several contractors in our Federal Contractor Misconduct Database, including Bechtel, Chugach Alaska Corp., Honeywell International, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Novartis, SAIC, and United Technologies. Unfortunately, the quality of this data leaves much to be desired. For example, here’s the description provided by Honeywell for one “other acknowledgement of fault” instance:

POGO Urges More Sunshine With Regard to Contractor Misconduct Reporting Rule

By NEIL GORDON

Last week, POGO submitted a public comment to the General Services Administration (GSA) in response to a proposed extension of a Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provision requiring contractors to disclosure certain contract-related misconduct. Since December 2008, the FAR has required contractors to timely disclose to the government credible evidence of criminal violations related to a federal contract or subcontract, violations of the civil False Claims Act, or significant contract overpayments or else be subject to suspension or debarment.

Despite a few misgivings, POGO has publicly supported the mandatory reporting requirement ever since it was first proposed back in November 2007. Based on what we’ve seen and heard since then, it seems to be working as intended. POGO blogged in September 2009 about reports that contractors were taking the new requirement very seriously.

Unfortunately, the government has never provided a comprehensive accounting of the mandatory disclosure program’s successes, failures, strengths, and/or weaknesses. This is in marked contrast to its willingness to share with the public an array of information about the implementation and enforcement of other federal laws and regulations, such as the False Claims Act and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. POGO’s public comment proposed a reasonable solution. Every agency’s Inspector General should be required to periodically report such statistics as the number and types of disclosures the office receives, the actions taken in response to those disclosures, whether any contractors were suspended or debarred for violating the requirement, and, most importantly, how much money is being recovered.

The mandatory disclosure requirement is a win-win for contractors and taxpayers. It forces contractors to strengthen their ethics practices and fosters a good working relationship with the government. It benefits the government and taxpayers by encouraging the early detection and reporting of contract-related problems before they worsen and lead to costly enforcement actions, poor contract performance, contract terminations, and the loss of taxpayer money to fraud, waste, and abuse. We believe that compiling and sharing statistics about the implementation and enforcement of the mandatory disclosure requirement would increase government transparency and accountability and enable the government to determine if the requirement is achieving its intended objectives.

Neil Gordon is a POGO Investigator.

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Behind the Music: CCR

By NEIL GORDON

A notice posted in the Federal Register last month provides a unique look at the CCR. (No, not these guys.)

Any company, organization, or individual who wants to do business with Uncle Sam must first register in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR). The CCR is the primary database for collecting information about all federal contractors, grantees, and other federal assistance recipients.

The CCR organizes that information into 260 data fields, many of which have been deemed off-limits to the public as per Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which protects "trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person [that is] privileged or confidential." The Federal Register notice lists all 260 data fields and their FOIA status. Non-exempt CCR data (fields 1 – 155 and 157 – 164) can be downloaded as Microsoft Excel-readable "extracts" posted on the Acquisition.gov website. (Warning: these files are more than 100 megabytes in size and might not work in some versions of Excel.)

POGO is most interested in CCR fields 255 through 260: civil, criminal, and administrative "proceedings" contractors and grantees are required to report in the new FAPIIS database. As explained in the Federal Register notice, these data elements are still considered FOIA-exempt even though they are now disclosed on the public FAPIIS site. (Data entered after April 15, 2011 will be posted on the public site; data reported before April 15, 2011 is supposed to be made available through a FOIA request.) Similarly, fields 250-254, covering executive compensation, are also exempt but are now reported, under certain conditions, on USAspending.gov.

We are puzzled by the exemption status of some of the fields. For example, why are address and point of contact information regarding a recipient's parent company considered privileged or confidential? Sadly, this is par for the course for a government that thinks contractors' past performance reviews should also be withheld from the public.

Neil Gordon is a POGO investigator.

FAPIIS: An Inauspicious Debut, But Starting to Show Signs of Life

By Neil Gordon

It’s been two weeks since the federal government’s contractor and grantee responsibility database, the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) went live on a public website. As you might recall from our initial review, we were not very impressed. This is how we summed up our feelings to Bloomberg Government:

The public version of FAPIIS certainly looks like and feels like a database that the government doesn’t want the public to see or use.

Other users were even less impressed—and more blunt. The Sunlight Foundation said FAPIIS “may be the worst government website we’ve ever seen.” OMB Watch called it a “steaming pile.” And here’s a quick rundown of the initial reactions from POGO’s blog readers:

• “an insult to the American public”

• “a waste of time and money”

• “This database sucks.”

Knowing this overwhelmingly negative public response would spur immediate corrective action from the General Services Administration, POGO decided to pay FAPIIS another visit. The site still looks the same—the same drab design, broken security certificates, and clunky search engine—but contractor and grantee responsibility data is starting to appear.

For example, on the search page I set the “Name” pulldown menu to “contains”, typed a letter or number in the name field, clicked the “All Government-entered FAPIIS Records” button, and the following information popped up (click to enlarge):

 

FAPIIS First Impressions

By Neil Gordon

Friday, April 15, 2011 marked the public debut of the government’s contractor and grantee responsibility database, the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, or FAPIIS. POGO gave it a test drive and has a few things to say about it.

But first, a little backstory:

For years, POGO has been urging the government to publicly post the responsibility and misconduct track records of its contractors in a centralized, user-friendly online repository. The lack of such a resource motivated POGO to produce version 1.0 of the Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD) in 2002 and a revamped and expanded version in 2007. Eventually, our cajoling began to pay off. In 2008, Congress passed the law that created FAPIIS, which agencies must check before awarding a contract or grant to ensure the prospective awardee is “responsible”. FAPIIS is the government’s answer to our FCMD, but instead of featuring only the 100-plus top contractors, FAPIIS will compile responsibility and misconduct data on thousands of federal contractors and grantees. Last year, Congress voted to make FAPIIS public. On Friday, the public site finally went live.

Here’s our review:

What's PRESENTLY Bothering Stan Soloway?

By Neil Gordon

 

As we anticipated, our blog post on Tuesday (“What’s Bothering Stan Soloway Now?”) got a response from the man himself, Professional Services Council (PSC) president and CEO Stan Soloway. He let us have it in a comment he submitted yesterday.

Although we were expecting Mr. Soloway to reply, we were disappointed he ignored the main point of our post, which is that we basically agree with his criticisms regarding the Commission on Wartime Contracting’s (CWC) mandatory suspension recommendation. Instead, with no sense of irony, he accused us of “twisting around” what he wrote in his commentary which prompted our blog piece.

Does the Federal Government Have Performance Anxiety?

By Neil Gordon

The proponents of outsourcing are at it again.

Federal Computer Week has published another pro-outsourcing commentary, “How Outsourcing Keeps America On Top.” It was written by Stanton Sloane, president and CEO of Fairfax, Virginia-based IT firm SRA International, one of the government’s largest contractors. SRA was awarded nearly $1 billion in federal contracts last year.

As pro-contractor editorials go, this one is standard fare. It hits all the major talking points:

• Contractors are indispensible.
• Contractors cost less and are more efficient than government employees.
• Contractors bring innovation.
• Critics of contractors and outsourcing are a bunch of meanies.

But one statement in particular stands out:

Because job security in the private sector is more closely linked to performance, contractors are fearsomely efficient.

Performance is everything in the private sector; not so in federal contracting. For proof, just check the many instances of waste, fraud and abuse in POGO’s Federal Contractor Misconduct Database. A poorly performing employee at a major company like SRA International will quickly be shown the door, while a poorly performing contractor will often keep its government business, especially if the Department of Defense is its customer.