Orders placed against MAS contracts may not result in the lowest overall cost alternative, said auditors. Image: DCStockPhotography/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffGSA’s Federal Acquisition Service cannot document that use of its multiple award schedule, or MAS, produces the best prices for federal agencies using it to purchase supplies and services, an inspector general audit has said.
The MAS consists of long-term, governmentwide contracts with commercial firms with fixed prices based on at volume discount pricing, from which federal agencies can order directly or through the GSA Advantage portal.
However, in examining 20 recent MAS contract and option awards, auditors “found that price analyses performed by FAS contracting personnel cannot provide customer agencies with assurance that orders placed against MAS contracts will result in the lowest overall cost alternative.”
“When performing price analyses on TDR pilot contracts, FAS contracting personnel do not have access to TDR data that can be used for pricing decisions and as a result, they mainly compared proposed pricing to other MAS and government contracts. However, this approach does not provide customer agencies with assurance that FAS achieved pricing that reflects the offerors’ best pricing and will result in the lowest overall cost alternative to meet the government’s needs,” a report said.
Further, contracting personnel “frequently accepted commercial pricing information from offerors that was unsupported, outdated, or that identified no comparable commercial sales,” it said.
GSA management disagreed with recommendations including that GSA should “inform customer agencies that they should perform separate and independent price determinations” citing price analyses that it said supports that MAS contracts meet their intended purpose of producing the lowest possible price. The IG responded that its “conclusions remain the same.”
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