A congressional audit of more than $24 billion contracted by the Defense Department using other transaction authorities (OTA) found the Pentagon does not have a systematic approach for tracking which consortia receive awards, limiting the ability of contracting personnel to make informed decisions on how and whether to use consortia-based OTAs.
The Government Accountability Office found that between 2019 and 2021 the Defense Department awarded more than $24 billion using OTAs, including $5 billion for armaments and $2.6 billion for aviation and missiles; $8 billion was awarded during this time for COVID-19 vaccine development.
“Even when looking at only those OTAs unrelated to COVID-19, consortia-based prototype OTAs comprised the majority of OTA spending during these years,” states the GAO report released today. “However, insight into which consortia receive DOD’s OTA awards and spending in specific technology areas is limited.”
Other transaction authorities are not subject to typical federal acquisition laws. DOD can award OTAs to individual organizations or to consortia -- a group of organizations focused on specific technology areas.
The Army, Navy and Air Force are increasingly relying on OTA contracting vehicles to launch new weapon system projects instead of using traditional acquisition procurement policies.
According to DOD, there are currently 98 active Middle Tier of Acquisition (MTA) Programs; 75 of which are rapid prototyping efforts and 23 are in rapid fielding.
According to GAO, DOD awarded OTA to 28 consortia between 2019 and 2021.
“DOD has generally not collected and shared information with contracting personnel to help navigate the growth in the number of consortia,” according to GAO.
GAO recommends DOD take six steps to improve its use of OTAs.
“The secretary of defense should develop and implement a systematic approach to track the obligated dollars each consortium has received from consortia-based other transaction agreements,” the congressional audit recommends.
DOD, in a memo commenting on a draft version of the GAO report, said the department agrees with all six recommendations, including plans to complete by the end of 2022 implementing a system approach for tracking contract awards by consortia.