Careers
Acquisition and Sourcing Management
Our Work
Recent Accomplishments
Ongoing Projects
Key Contacts
Our Work
Federal agencies spend billions of tax dollars each year to acquire sophisticated weaponry, complex space and satellite systems, advanced technologies, and a broad range of goods and services needed to make the federal government run. Spending on these projects constitutes the largest element of discretionary funding in the federal budget. Analysts in the Acquisition and Sourcing Management team help Congress determine whether this money is being spent efficiently and effectively and if acquisitions protect the government’s interest and maximize agencies’ return on investment. We also assist the federal government to adopt better ways of buying systems, equipment, and services. In the face of global economic pressures, we also identify trends in national security industries and weaknesses in protecting critical capabilities and technologies.
Our oversight responsibilities primarily include the Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) because they invest most heavily in acquisitions. We also work with the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State to examine opportunities for bringing about governmentwide improvements, particularly for new contracting approaches, strengthening the acquisition workforce, and analyzing the defense industrial base. Our work also has an international focus. For example, we examine foreign military sales improvement efforts, foreign acquisitions affecting national security, export control proposals, and international alliances among DOD contractors.
Recent Accomplishments
- Providing information to Congress that resulted in over $2 billion in reductions of DOD’s Procurement and Research, Development, Test and Evaluation budget requests.
- Reporting on the development of 62 DOD weapons systems representing a $950 billion investment and finding that development costs continue to exceed estimates by 30 percent to 40 percent, planned quantities are frequently cut, deadlines are missed, and performance shortfalls are pervasive.
- Improving DOD’s planning for operational testing for ground-based missile defense, strengthening cost reporting, and prompting Congress to ask DOD to review its development strategy for all missile defense elements.
- Reporting that the federal government can leverage its buying power and achieve billions of dollars in savings by adopting strategic sourcing techniques, which resulted in the Office of Management and Budget requiring agencies to test the strategic sourcing concept.
- Improving congressional oversight of the process for reviewing foreign direct investment that could affect U.S. national security.
- Influencing Congress to pass legislation that implements recommendations we made to improve the administration of award and incentive fee contracts, and prompting DOD to issue guidance that addresses many of the issues we identified.
- Prompting NASA to re-examine its business for the Prometheus I project—a project to develop nuclear power and propulsion systems for deep space probes—resulting in the elimination of the project, saving the government about $2.2 billion.
Ongoing Projects
- Ensuring efficient acquisition of complex space and satellite systems and multibillion-dollar weapons systems, such as the Joint Strike Fighter, the Future Combat System, and a variety of ballistic missile defense programs.
- Identifying ways to improve how federal agencies acquire goods and services, including adopting commercial best practices, improving business relationships, and evaluating competitive sourcing issues.
- Identifying conditions that undermine efforts to improve the export control process and mitigate the risk of sensitive military items or technology falling into the wrong hand.
- Evaluating NASA’s efforts to safely control and manage the nation’s multibillion-dollar research investment in the International Space Station, the space shuttle fleet, space exploration, and earth science activities.
Key Contacts
Managing Director: Katherine V. Schinasi
Directors: Ann Calvaresi-Barr, Cristina Chaplain, Paul L. Francis, John Hutton, John Needham, Andy Sherill, Michael Sullivan, William T. Woods
Phone: (202) 512-4841
Mailing Address:
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Acquisition and Sourcing Management
Room 4440A
441 G Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20548