Administration Opposes New Audit Requirements for GSA Schedule Contracts GSA is considering whether to conduct post-award audits of GSA Schedule contractors to ensure that they are giving the government most-favored-customer prices on commercial items. But the administrator of OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy said he opposes the audits. GSA issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking April 12 asking for comment on the issue. The Government Accountability Office and GSA’s inspector general have criticized the agency for poor oversight of contractor pricing. GSA stopped conducting post-award audits in 1997. It says such audits were not consistent with practices in the commercial marketplace. Post-award audits “are anathema to me,” OFPP Administrator David Safavian said in a presentation at the Federal Sources Inc. conference in McLean, VA, April 12. He warned that Congress may act to require audits of cost and pricing data for commercial items, but said that would be “an enormous burden” on contractors. GSA said it began using prenegotiation panels to monitor pricing in 2003, but GAO found that the largest schedule contracting shop, the IT Acquisition Center, had never convened a panel. GAO also found that GSA conducted only 40 pre-award audits in 2004, about one-fourth as many as were conducted 10 years earlier, although sales under the schedules increased eightfold during that period. GSA said it has set a goal of conducting 70 pre-award audits in fiscal 2005. (SAA, 3/18) In another report, GSA’s inspector general found that 60% of contracts it examined last year did not document that the prices were effectively negotiated. In the same notice, GSA asked for comment on whether it should change its contract terms to limit vendors’ liability for commercial items. The notice is GSAR ANPR 2005-N01 in the April 12 Federal Register. Comments are due by May 10.