Audit of consultant agreements at Los Alamos National Laboratory

The Department of Energy`s (Department) Albuquerque Operations Office (Albuquerque) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos) are responsible for acquiring consulting services in a manner most advantageous to the Government by ensuring adequate competition. Although the Department prefers competitively awarding subcontracts, including consultant agreements, to ensure the lowest possible cost, it allows sole sourcing a subcontract if the sole source is fully justified. The objective of the audit was to determine whether Los Alamos` consultant agreements contained adequate sole source justifications. The audit showed that Los Alamos may not have acquired some of its consultant agreements at the lowest possible cost because it did not prepare adequate sole source justifications for 17 sole source consultant agreements valued at $842,900. This condition existed because: (1) requesters did not follow policies and procedures when preparing sole source justifications, (2) Los Alamos did not have an internal mechanism to reject consultant agreements that were not adequately justified, and (3) the Department did not review consultant agreements to evaluate the adequacy of sole source justifications. Without adequate justifications, the Department cannot be assured that consultant services were obtained at the lowest possible cost. We therefore recommended that the Manager, Albuquerque Operations Office require Los Alamos to ensure proper sole source justifications and enhance internal controls over consultant agreements. Management agreed to implement the recommendations.