Oversight of PBS’s Projects Funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Audit of Paving Project at New York State’s Northern Border

Why We Performed This Audit

We performed this audit as part of the GSA Office of Inspector General’s ongoing oversight of projects funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). Our audit objective was to determine whether the GSA Public Buildings Service Northeast and Caribbean Region (PBS Region 2) planned, awarded, administered, and closed out an IIJA paving project task order for six land ports of entry (LPOEs) at New York State’s northern border in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the General Services Administration Acquisition Manual (GSAM), and other applicable policies.

What We Found

PBS Region 2 did not comply with applicable laws, regulations, and policies when awarding and administering the $5.6 million IIJA-funded project to repave six LPOEs at New York State’s northern border. We found deficiencies in PBS’s task order award and administration that led to, among other things, violations of federal competition requirements, poor pricing and overpayments, security vulnerabilities, and a small business “pass-through” environment.

Specifically, we found that PBS Region 2:

1. Violated competition requirements by improperly awarding the paving project using a task order placed against an operations and maintenance services blanket purchase agreement;
2. Awarded the paving project task order using an unsupported independent government estimate and an invalid price reasonableness determination;
3. Did not perform required procurement steps because it improperly awarded the paving project using a task order placed against an operations and maintenance services blanket purchase agreement;
4. Did not ensure full compliance with GSA’s environmentally preferable asphalt standard and provided inaccurate information to the public by claiming that all six LPOEs met this standard;
5. Did not comply with or enforce security requirements governing the use of drones, resulting in potential safety and security risks;
6. Created a small business “pass-through” environment and did not ensure compliance with small business subcontracting limitations;
7. Did not adequately enforce security requirements for construction personnel;
8. Did not ensure contractor compliance with labor standards;
9. Overpaid the Construction Manager as Advisor contractor and paid for services that were not performed; and
10. Violated the FAR, GSAM, and GSA policy while administering the paving project task order.

What We Recommend

We made 1 recommendation to the PBS Commissioner and 10 recommendations to the PBS Region 2 Regional Commissioner. Our recommendations focused on the need for PBS to ensure that it complies with laws, regulations, and policies governing, among other things, contract competition, contract award and administration, drone use, and project security. We also recommended improvements to the oversight of small business set-aside contracts. A complete listing of our recommendations is included in the Conclusion section of this report.

PBS provided a written response and technical comments to our report. In its written response, PBS wrote that it partially agreed with our findings. However, in its technical comments, PBS wrote that it either completely or partially disagreed with 9 of our 10 findings. PBS’s technical comments did not affect our findings and conclusions.

Although PBS largely disagreed with our findings, it wrote that it agreed with all of our recommendations, which are designed to address our findings.

PBS’s response is included in its entirety in Appendix D.