Most of the non-competitive contracts that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded in FY ’09 were made without properly following contracting regulations, according to a review of select awards conducted by the DHS Inspector General (IG).
Of 39 other than full and open competition contract options reviewed by the IG, “33 had missing or inadequate documentation proving compliance with departmental or federal acquisition regulations,” the IG says in a recent report, DHS Contracts Awarded Through Other Than Full and Open Competition During Fiscal Year 2009 (OIG-10-55). The reviewed contracts had an estimated value of $139 million.
In addition, the IG says that in some procurements no market research or acquisition planning was done to prove that an award had to be made without competition.
“As a result, the department cannot ensure that it received the best possible value on the goods and services it acquired from these contracts,” the IG says of the awards it reviewed.
Nearly half of the awards the IG reviewed were for small businesses and didn’t require any written justification without competition. Still, federal acquisition regulations require that market research be done to ensure no other businesses can meet the requirement. However, in 78 percent of the non-competitive awards to small businesses, there was no evidence that such research was performed, the IG says.
In fact, of all the procurement actions reviewed, the IG says it found deficiencies with market research in 79 percent of the cases.
One of the IG’s recommendations is for the DHS Procurement Office to either develop or strengthen an oversight review process for non-competitive awards. The Acting Chief Procurement Officer agreed that there has been a “lack of sufficient documentation” related to the FY ’09 contract actions but says “viable” oversight exists. The office plans a review of procurement actions that exceed specific dollar thresholds to make sure that sufficient documentation is now in place.