Emergency Response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Audit of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Award Process for a Modification to Contract 280-03-1602 With ORC Macro

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The audit is one of several reviews of procurements by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and other components of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. 

The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Health and Human Services Acquisition Regulation (HHSAR) provide, among other things, that HHS agencies award each contract to a responsible party and document compliance with requirements for full and open competition and the determination that the price was fair and reasonable.  

As part of HHS's hurricane relief operations, SAMHSA modified an existing contract with ORC Macro.  The existing contract obligated ORC Macro to provide communications support in developing and disseminating materials on mental health and substance abuse.  The modification obligated ORC Macro to produce Web-based training materials for first responder   Our objective was to determine whether SAMHSA complied with FAR and HHSAR requirements during the award process involving ORC Macro.  SAMHSA complied with the requirements.