Audit of FY 2007 VA Purchases Made on Behalf of the Department of Defense

The Office of Inspector General conducted an audit of FY 2007 VA purchases made on behalf of the Department of Defense (DoD). The purpose of the audit was to evaluate the effectiveness of internal controls over purchases made by VA contracting activities on behalf of DoD. VA contracting activities generally increased their compliance rates with Defense procurement requirements when making purchases on behalf of DoD since our audit of FY 2006 procurements. Although we found increased rates of compliance, we again identified instances of noncompliance in FY 2007 procurement actions, which increased the risk that DoD did not receive contracted goods and services on terms that were the most advantageous to the Government. VA contracting officers did not always: (i) ensure that noncompetitive acquisitions were adequately justified; (ii) obtain offers from at least three contractors or prepare written justifications explaining why they did not meet the competition requirements when making purchases costing more than $100,000 from Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contractors; (iii) seek price reductions for orders exceeding the maximum order threshold when ordering goods or services from FSS contractors; (iv) ensure that price reasonableness determinations were adequately documented in contract files; (v) ensure that contracts for services included quality assurance surveillance plans; (vi) designate contracting officer representatives in writing before contract performance began, and (vii) stay within their warrant authority limitations when purchasing goods and services for DoD.