GAO Report: Information on Agencies' Use of the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable Process
On September 26, the Government Accountability Office ("GAO") published a report on lowest price technically acceptable ("LPTA") procurements. Notably, the study was published on the same day as the Department of Defense ("DOD") published its final rule restricting the use of LPTA procurements (discussed here).
Per GAO, the report discusses:
the status of regulatory changes governing the use of the LPTA process; and
the extent to which DOD and selected civilian agencies used the LPTA process to competitively award contracts and orders valued over $5 million in fiscal year 2018.
To accomplish this task:
"GAO interviewed DOD and civilian agency officials involved in revising the DFARS and the FAR. GAO used data from the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation to select the top four DOD components and the top five civilian agencies based on the total number of contracts and orders valued at $5 million or more and competitively awarded in fiscal year 2018. Using this data, GAO developed generalizable samples to estimate these components' and agencies' use of the LPTA process in fiscal year 2018."
For DOD, GAO focused on the top four DOD components: Army, Navy, Air Force, and Defense Logistics Agency. For civilian agencies, GAO focused on the top five agencies: Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, General Services Administration, and Agriculture. Per the report, GAO found that DOD used the LPTA source selection process more often than civilian agencies did in FY2018 under competitive contracts and orders valued at $5 million or more.
For contractors wondering when civilian agencies will also face restrictions on the use of LPTA source selection procedures, the proposed FAR rule on LPTA procurements was scheduled to be published in September 2019 (at the time of writing, the rule has not yet been published).
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