Topline: Congress amended federal law this year to give increased oversight to the Architect of the Capitol agency following allegations against its former director.
Now, it turns out the office isn’t only having issues among its employees; it also lacks proper oversight of outside the construction companies it hires to work on Capitol Hill.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office found that the Architect of the Capitol’s office is organized in a way that “directly inhibits” oversight of contractors and may not have the “independence, support, and visibility needed to ensure that it can carry out its responsibilities.”
Key facts: The Architect’s office, which builds and maintains federal offices in Washington, hires contractors for maintenance of everything from fountains to “historically significant doors.” The office had 848 active contracts worth nearly $2 billion as of August 2023.
The Architect appoints special employees to award contracts, but the GAO says the agency “lacks the ability to accurately track” whether those employees have been properly trained.
The employees are also not required to be trained in federal spending laws. Only two of the eight employees interviewed by the GAO said they took a course on appropriations law. Both said it was the most important class they took.
The employees are not given any specific rules for choosing contractors, which the GAO says could cause inexperienced or unqualified companies to be hired for construction projects.
The issues don’t end once the contracts are signed.
The Architect of the Capitol is required to audit contractors twice a year and track their spending, but not all employees are actually doing so, the report found..
The Architect’s office also refused to provide some construction companies with non-classified information they needed to do their jobs, citing “national security concerns.”
Thirty percent of the contractors said their decisions were overruled by federal employees, which the GAO says defeats the purpose of hiring outside companies to work on Capitol Hill.
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
Background: Congress hired Thomas Austin as the new Architect of the Capitol in February. He replaced Brett Blanton, a Donald Trump appointee who was fired by President Biden last year after an inspector general report exposed several ethical violations.
It’s the first time Congress has chosen its own Architect. The president used to be in charge of hiring and firing the Architect, but the process was changed this year after some lawmakers were frustrated at how long it took Biden to fire Blanton.
Summary: If the government is going to bring in outside companies to work on some of the nation’s most important buildings, they need to monitor the process more closely.
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