The NASA Office of Inspector General’s audit of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research program has turned up a number of problems, including millions of dollars of unallowed expenses by contractors and weak fraud detection and prevention controls.
Results
Our review found that while NASA’s initial choice of SBIR award recipients appeared objective and merit-based, its oversight and monitoring of awards was deficient. Specifically, SBIR awards in 2008 contained an estimated $2.7 million in unallowable and unsupportable costs, including travel and equipment expenses. In addition, we found that NASA officials lacked adequate procedures to ensure SBIR applicants’ past performance had been considered when selecting recipients of approximately $85.7 million in “Phase 2†SBIR funds. Federal acquisition rules require consideration of past performance. Finally, NASA has not implemented appropriate internal controls to prevent fraud and abuse in contract awards. Consequently, some SBIR award recipients may have received multiple SBIR awards from different Federal agencies for the same research or NASA may have received highly questionable research products for its contract money.