Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the: (1) status of Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) efforts to incorporate contracting system reforms; and (2) changes affecting the contractor selection process and the evaluation of proposals submitted by contractors competing for standard asset management and disposition agreement (SAMDA) contracts.

GAO found that: (1) by February 1992, RTC had made substantial progress in developing a policies and procedures manual, defining contracting roles and responsibilities, and developing standardized contract solicitation documents for the SAMDA contracting process, as the RTC Funding Act required; (2) RTC has nearly completed realigning its organizational structure to provide better separation of duties between contracting and program staff; (3) RTC also standardized its forms and procedures for reviewing SAMDA contract proposals and for analyzing proposed contract fees; (4) RTC field staff in different offices do not uniformly evaluate the technical competency of potential SAMDA contractors and lack guidelines for evaluating the financial capability for all types of potential contractors; (5) only 63 percent of the contracting personnel at the six consolidated offices visited had experience in contracting before accepting positions with RTC, although the act directed RTC to develop training programs specifically for RTC and private contracting staff; and (6) RTC needs to complete the development of its contracting training courses and accelerate the training in order to ensure that the best contractors will be hired to assist in the disposal of failed thrifts' assets.