Our tax dollars at work, contractors paid incentive payments for incomplete work

[e-brake]

Contractors get awards for 'average' work

WASHINGTON, April 16 (UPI) -- A U.S. government study has found incentive payments are routine in some major weapons contracts, even if projects are over-budget or not on schedule.
The payments, known as award fees, are intended to motivate defense contractors to perform to high standards, but a Government Accountability Office study concluded the fees are paid almost as a matter of course, The Washington Post reported.
The newspaper cited a case involving the Boeing Co.-Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. partnership, which was developing the Comanche, a helicopter that was supposed to evade radar. In February 2004, the Army announced it was canceling the project, which was nearly three years behind schedule and more than $3.5 billion over budget.
Nevertheless, an Army panel a few weeks later granted the Boeing-Sikorsky partnership a $33.9 million "award fee" -- part of more than $200 million in such fees paid to the partnership over four years.
Such practices "undermine the effectiveness of fees as a motivational tool and marginalize their use in holding contractors accountable," the GAO concluded -- adding that defense contractors receive award fees for work that is simply "acceptable, average, expected, good, or satisfactory."

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.ph...6-093121-3157r

[Croix]

a little closer to home...
dallas is about to pay an additional 400,000 to software designers who wrote the new inmate tracking system, AIS, which still doesnt work and is only now working at 90% after being in place nearly a year. at launch, estimates were that only 43% of the functions were working, and hundreds of inmates were left in jail after their release dates and many didn not get medications