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GAO-02-642R 1 (2002-05-23)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaalzk0001 and id is 1 raw text is: £ Accountability * Integrity * Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 May 23, 2002 The Honorable Dan Burton Chairman Committee on Government Reform House of Representatives Subject: NASA Contract Payments Dear Mr. Chairman: You asked us to determine whether the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had significant problems with overpayments to its contractors. The objectives of our review were to (1) survey contractors and vendors to determine whether NASA had made significant payment errors on its contracts and purchase orders and (2) review the design of NASA's controls to prevent, detect, and correct payment errors. We selected 110 contracts and purchase orders on which NASA had made $4.8 billion in payments during the first 9 months of fiscal year 2001 (the most recent data available at the time). During those 9 months, NASA had disbursed about $8.7 billion on 6,815 contracts and purchase orders. By the end of fiscal year 2001, NASA disbursed almost $11.7 billion on 8,141 contracts and purchase orders, of which about $11.5 billion pertained to the contracts and purchase orders included in the 9-month population from which we made our selection. For the survey, we selected the 10 contracts and 10 purchase orders with the highest total disbursements for the 9-month period and random samples of 45 contracts and 45 purchase orders. NASA disbursed about $6.3 billion during fiscal year 2001 on these 110 contracts and purchase orders. For the selected items, we asked the contractors and vendors to identify payments that were more than or less than the amounts they had billed NASA during the year, with the exception of advances and properly calculated progress payments.' Our survey was intended to identify whether NASA had a significant problem with payment errors but not to project the amount or number of errors to NASA's payment population. For our random samples, one or more payment errors reported to us in the survey would indicate a significant or systemic problem during the review period. For the 20 largest contracts and purchase orders, the dollar amounts of reported errors would have to be evaluated individually 'Under certain circumstances, the Federal Acquisition Regulation authorizes reductions in progress payments, which can be paid in advance of work being accepted. Therefore, we did not consider any reduced progress payments as underpayments. GAO-02-642R NASA Contract Payments

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