November 12, 2014

Follow-Up Audit of Contractor Intergovernmental Personnel Act Assignments

The Department of Energy (Department) maintains 16 contractor-operated laboratories designated as Federally Funded Research and Development Centers.  Many of these contractors use Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) assignments to facilitate the temporary movement of employees to other Federal agencies.  During Calendar Year 2012, there were more than 165 active assignments from the National Laboratories to Federal agencies.  The estimated cost of these assignments was over $23 million, of which almost $9 million was reimbursed by the Department.

Our March 2007 report on The Department of Energy's Management of Contractor Intergovernmental Personnel and Change of Station Assignments (DOE/IG-0761) revealed that the Department's contractors had inappropriately paid all assignment costs; paid excessive allowances; inappropriately assigned employees to other organizations for extended periods; and failed to collect all funds owed to the Department under cost-sharing agreements.  The Department agreed to develop new guidance to address these issues.

We found that although the Department had improved its management of contractor IPA assignments, particularly with respect to the collection of shared costs, opportunities for improvement remain.  Notably, the Department did not follow through on several previous audit recommendations and, as a consequence, incurred approximately $6 million in excess allowances or inequitably shared costs during 2012. The Department had not updated policies to add guidance specific to laboratory contractor employees on IPA assignments to other Federal agencies.  Similar to our previous audit, we also found that contractor employees on assignment received allowances and relocation payments that exceeded those provided to Federal employees in similar situations.  In addition, we observed continuing cost-sharing issues, assignments that appeared to be excessive in length and assignee hiring issues.

The issues identified occurred, in part, because the Department had not established adequate policy, guidance, or oversight of contractor IPA assignments.  Despite the Department's previous commitment to do so, it had not completed the corrective actions necessary to resolve the recommendations in our previous report on this subject.

Topic: Management & Administration