B-224071-O.M. August 3, 1987
Highlights
This is in response to your request for our opinion on the methods you might use to establish a "Guard of the Quarter" awards program for the contract guards who service the GAO building. We must advise that at the present time there is no authority for GAO to use its appropriations for this purpose. The guards for the GAO building are provided by the General Services Administration (GSA). You have proposed. We concluded that GAO's appropriations were not available to make cash awards to persons who are not federal employees. That conclusion is equally applicable here. The only) statutory authority for a program of this type is found in the Government Employees Incentive Awards Act. Sec. 2105 (generally limited to individuals appointed in the Civil Service) are eligible for award.
B-224071-O.M. August 3, 1987
Date: August 3, 1987 To: Director, GS&C - Richard L. Brown From: Associate General Counsel - Rollee H. Efros
Subject Proposed Award Program for Contract Guards - B-224071-O.M.
This is in response to your request for our opinion on the methods you might use to establish a "Guard of the Quarter" awards program for the contract guards who service the GAO building. We must advise that at the present time there is no authority for GAO to use its appropriations for this purpose.
As noted in your memorandum, the guards for the GAO building are provided by the General Services Administration (GSA), which contracts for the services with a private company. GAO shares the costs for these services with Treasury and the Bureau of Labor Statistics and reimburses GSA on a pro rata basis. You have proposed, as a morale-raising measure, to establish a "Guard of the Quarter. program, through which the Office of Security and Safety would select one guard each calendar quarter. This guard would be recognized and presented with a cash award.
In B-176600-O.M., August 18, 1978, we reviewed a proposal by the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP) to give-cash awards to state and local government officials. Under the proposal, GAO, as a member of JFMIP, would bear its proportionate share of the costs. We concluded that GAO's appropriations were not available to make cash awards to persons who are not federal employees. That conclusion is equally applicable here.
As stated in B-176600-O.M., the closest (indeed, the only) statutory authority for a program of this type is found in the Government Employees Incentive Awards Act, 5 U.S.C. Secs. 4501 et seq. (1982), which permits an agency to make cash awards to recognize outstanding employees. However, only those individuals defined as government employees under 5 U.S.C. Sec. 2105 (generally limited to individuals appointed in the Civil Service) are eligible for award. Since GAO guards are employed by a private company, they are clearly outside the scope of the statute. Since the statute does not apply, and since we are aware of no other basis for the use of GAO's appropriations in the manner proposed, we must conclude that GAO cannot pay for such a program at the present time.
As you know, negotiations with GSA are currently in process which could substantially affect the management of the GAO building. Should these negotiations result in a more direct role for GAO -- for example, by permitting GAO to contract for guard services either directly or through a facilities management contractor -- opportunities for implementing an award proposal might present themselves that do not now exist. Since neither the timing nor the precise outcome of the negotiations are certain at the present time, it would be premature to speculate now as to either the details of such a proposal or the various options that might be available to implement it. As a general proposition, however, GAO would still not be able to use its appropriations to make cash awards directly to individual guards. Rather, the approach would be to include an award program in the contractual arrangement, with the cost of the program being included in the contract price. Apart from the question of legal sufficiency, such an approach might well be undesirable from the perspective of contract management. In any event, further analysis would seem inappropriate until the negotiations are closer to completion and GAO's future role in the management of the building becomes more clearly defined.
cc: Mr. Van Cleve