NASA Has No Idea How Much Reimbursable Agreements Cost

NASA's Management of Reimbursable Agreements

"NASA has made improvements in the way it manages reimbursable agreements, but still cannot provide Congress and other stakeholders with fully accurate and complete information on their use. Specifically, half of the PAM and SIERA records we sampled contained substantial errors, such as incorrectly listing reimbursable agreement values and waived costs (i.e., costs incurred for which the partner does not reimburse NASA). For example, while PAM listed the total estimated value for the 115 domestic agreements we sampled as $11.7 billion, we found the correct value to be closer to $7.8 billion - an overstatement of nearly $4 billion, or 51 percent. Additionally, our calculation of the estimated waived costs for the sampled agreements was only $10.8 million, or 6.5 percent, of the Agency's reported total in PAM - an overstatement of $154.7 million. We were unable to make similar comparisons for agreements with international partners because SIERA does not capture estimated dollar values and waived costs. Nevertheless, in our judgment the data in PAM and SIERA is neither accurate enough to comply with congressional reporting requirements nor meaningful enough given its high error rate to provide helpful information to the Agency and its stakeholders."

Keith's note: Wow. NASA has no idea what these reimbursable agreements actually cost. Action item for Jeff DeWit.

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