NASA could save money through consolidation of IT purchases

NASA must develop procedures to allow employees to negotiate lower prices on products and services purchased through its agencywide IT contracts, according to an inspector general report released on Friday.

Comment on this article in The Forum.The IG found that the agency could save money by consolidating its purchases of hardware and desktop resources through its Outsourcing Desktop Initiative for NASA contracts. NASA has no procedures in place, however, that allow employees to negotiate price breaks on ODIN or instruction on how to take advantage of lower prices available on some IT equipment, including hard drives, monitors, printers and software.

The inspector general conducted the review after a NASA employee alleged in an August 2007 letter to his state senator that consolidating IT purchases through ODIN violated the Federal Acquisition Regulation and resulted in higher prices on hardware and software. The employee also said the increased use of ODIN was not within the scope of the contracts' statements of work and that the contracts lacked enough personnel to handle the additional workload.

The report concluded that consolidating purchases through ODIN was cost-effective for most IT equipment, but for some software and hardware such as peripheral hard drives, the prices through ODIN were higher than those advertised commercially on the Internet.

The IG said the increased use of ODIN was within the scope of the contract and complied with FAR provisions. The IG noted that ODIN's performance ratings through the first quarter of fiscal 2008 exceeded the requirements, which indicated the program has sufficient resources to service the customer base.

NASA agreed with the IG's recommendations and anticipated having new procedures in place shortly, according to the agency's written response.