Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

New GAO Reports – Defense Contracting, Railroad Retirement Board

  • Defense Contracting: DOD’s Use of Competitive Procedures, GAO-15-484R: Published: May 1, 2015. Publicly Released: May 1, 2015: “During the period from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2014, DOD’s competition rate—the dollars obligated annually on competitive contracts and task orders as a percentage of dollars obligated on all contracts and orders—ranged from 60.8 percent to 56.5 percent. In fiscal year 2014, DOD obligated $284.4 billion through contracts and task orders, of which 58.2 percent was competed.”
  • Railroad Retirement Board: Actions Needed to Reduce Continued Risk of Fraud and Improper Payments, GAO-15-535T: Published: May 1, 2015. Publicly Released: May 1, 2015: “GAO also found last year that RRB’s total and permanent disability program was vulnerable to fraud and improper payments. A shortage of timely data, gaps in internal controls, a lack of a comprehensive system of quality assurance and performance monitoring, and insufficient focus on potential fraud all contributed to a need for fundamental program reform. For example, GAO found that RRB was using information to verify a claimant’s self-reported work and earnings history that was up to 1 year old when newer data were available. Further, RRB’s claims review process did not follow accepted internal controls by sufficiently separating claim reviews from approvals and, as a result, from one-quarter to one-third of total and permanent disability cases were approved without independent review by a second party. In addition, RRB’s performance monitoring standards were focused primarily on payment timeliness and accuracy and less on whether claimants were properly qualified to receive benefits. Lastly, RRB’s process lacked a fundamental awareness and sensitivity to instances of potential fraud. In a recent report examining the total and permanent disability program, GAO made several recommendations to improve the oversight of this program including ways to improve information, increase internal controls and foster fraud awareness. RRB officials agreed with all of GAO’s recommendations and the agency has begun taking steps to implement them.”

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.