About Reimbursable Work Authorizations (RWAs)
Reimbursable work authorizations (RWA) are established to capture and bill our customers the cost of:
- Altering
- Renovating
- Repairing, or
- Providing services in space managed by GSA over and above the basic operations financed through Rent.
There are two types of RWAs:
- Recurring
The recurring RWA is used to provide services to the customer where the costs of those services cannot readily be separated from standard operating costs. Recurring RWAs cannot cross fiscal years, but may be established to cover any period of time such as a month, quarter, six months, or a full year. The overhead charged to a recurring RWA is a flat rate of $100.
- Non-Recurring
The non-recurring RWA is used to provide services to the customer when the costs of those services can be specifically identified. A sliding scale overhead rate is applied to all non-recurring RWAs. The overhead rate is based on the RWAs authorized amount. The non-recurring RWAs, with the exception of the blanket RWAs, have a five-year limit unless the customer provides "no year" money. The blanket RWAs are limited to one fiscal year and are established to cover routine low cost services so that a new RWA is not necessary each time an item is needed. The maximum overhead charge for a non-recurring RWA is $30,000.
It is GSA’s policy to charge direct labor to an RWA if the time spent was for providing the work requested on the RWA. The time spent supporting the RWA work is not charged as direct labor to the RWA.
GSA’s authority to obtain payments for:
- Services
- Space
- Quarters
- Maintenance
- Repairs, or
- Other facilities Public Buildings Service (PBS) provides is found under the Property Act.
Since federal agencies are responsible for their own programmatic needs and costs, it follows that those agencies should use their appropriations to pay the cost of work performed on their behalf or in furtherance of their missions. In the absence of statutory authority for GSA to absorb these costs, any unreimbursed costs to GSA on behalf of another agency could be viewed as an unauthorized augmentation of that agency’s appropriations. Reimbursable services, provided on an actual cost basis, must recoup all of this agency’s costs in providing those reimbursable services, and thus must be allocated overhead. This understanding is consistent with previous GSA Inspector General reports and with Comptroller General decisions interpreting inter-agency reimbursements under the Economy Act.
The shortcut to this page is www.gsa.gov/rwainformation.
Last Reviewed 5/7/2009