Census Bureau: Contract Modifications and Award-Fee Actions on the Decennial Response Integration System Demonstrate Need for Improved Contracting Practices. Final Report

摘要

In October 2005, the Census Bureau awarded a $483 million cost-plus-award-fee contract to Lockheed Martin Corporation to develop and implement ORIS, an information system that would assist in 2010 Census data collection and analysis. Two years later, Census awarded a contract modification, at a value of about $264,6 million, to Lockheed Martin. The modification was primarily for increasing outbound telephone coverage follow-up (in which households were contacted by telephone to verify the information provided in mailed-back Census forms). The purpose of our audit was to detennine whether the bureau's contracting officer appropriately awarded this modification and used the appropriate contract type for the initial ORIS contract award. In brief, we found that the bureau did not have adequate pre-award practices in place to ensure that the modification was properly awarded, that the bureau committed to this contract type without sufficiently justifying its use as required by the Federal Acquisition Regulation, and that it used an award-fee payment structure that provided little incentive for the contractor to achieve specific performance objectives.