Forest Service: Weak Contracting Practices Increase Vulnerability to Fraud, Waste, and Abuse
RCED-98-88
Published: May 06, 1998. Publicly Released: Jun 05, 1998.
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Highlights
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed whether: (1) the Forest Service maintains an appropriate system of internal control over contracting activities to minimize the agency's vulnerability to fraud, waste, and abuse; (2) the Forest Service manages contracting effectively by preparing adequate acquisition plans and by incorporating performance factors into the contracting process; and (3) there are any obstacles to improving the contracting system.
Recommendations
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Agriculture | Effective internal control is essential to safeguarding government assets and to conducting government business with full accountability. To improve compliance with the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act and GAO's standards for internal control, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Forest Service to prepare and implement a written internal control plan for contracting that includes methods for ensuring: (1) the complete documentation of critical actions in contract files; (2) the routine supervisory review of contracting activities; (3) more consistent monitoring of contractors' progress on service contracts through the implementation of a training and certification program for contracting officers' representatives; (4) improved summary management information; and (5) clarification of how to determine adequate warrant authority for various types of contracts. |
Closed – Implemented
The Forest Service has completed its response for this recommendation.
|
| Department of Agriculture | Effective internal control is essential to safeguarding government assets and to conducting government business with full accountability. To improve compliance with the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act and GAO's standards for internal control, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Forest Service to establish a system to periodically monitor and assess compliance with internal control standards. |
Closed – Implemented
The Forest Service has completed its response for this recommendation.
|
| Department of Agriculture | Effective internal control is essential to safeguarding government assets and to conducting government business with full accountability. To improve compliance with the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA) and GAO's standards for internal control, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Forest Service to ensure that the Forest Service's internal control system for contracting is identified as a material weakness in the Department's FMFIA report. |
Closed – Implemented
The Forest Service has completed its response for this recommendation.
|
| Department of Agriculture | To improve acquisition planning, the Secretary of Agriculture should continue the Department's efforts to develop and implement a more effective departmentwide automated advance acquisition planning process. |
Closed – Not Implemented
USDA is still planning to develop an agency wide automated procurement system which would include advance acquisition planning capability. However, after some basic system testing, USDA found the system did not meet security requirements. As a result, USDA has started over on system design. USDA plans to solicit bids for system development and pilot test the new system in 2002 with initial implementation in 2003.
|
| Department of Agriculture | To improve the effectiveness and reduce the cost of contracting, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Forest Service to hold regional contracting managers responsible for ensuring that regional and national forest offices prepare advance acquisition plans that are on time and contain complete information on contracting needs. |
Closed – Implemented
The Forest Service has completed its response for this recommendation.
|
| Department of Agriculture | To improve the effectiveness and reduce the cost of contracting, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Forest Service to increase the use of performance-based service contracts by providing all contracting staff with training and direction on the mechanics of developing and awarding performance-based contracts, establishing annual goals for their use, and periodically monitoring actual usage. |
Closed – Implemented
The Forest Service has completed its response for this recommendation.
|
| Department of Agriculture | To improve the effectiveness and reduce the cost of contracting, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Forest Service to develop a format for capturing data on contractors' past performance for service contracts and a strategy for effectively maintaining these data. |
Closed – Implemented
The Forest Service has completed its response for this recommendation.
|
| Department of Agriculture | To improve the effectiveness and reduce the cost of contracting, the Secretary of Agriculture should direct the Chief of the Forest Service to implement the performance measures for the procurement system established by USDA by, at a minimum, collecting baseline data on current performance and defining annual, measurable goals for improvement for each measure. |
Closed – Implemented
The Forest Service has completed its response for this recommendation.
|
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Topics
AccountabilityContract administrationContracting officersFederal procurementFinancial managementForest managementInternal controlsManagement information systemsPerformance measuresProcurement planning