United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Report to the Subcommittee on Energy 

and Water Development, Committee on 

Appropriations, House of 

Representatives 

ARMY CORPS OF 

ENGINEERS 

Improved Monitoring 

and Clear Guidance 

Would Contribute to 

More Effective Use of 

Continuing Contracts 

September 2006 

 

GAO-06-966 
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

September 2006

ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS 

Improved Monitoring and Clear Guidance 

Would Contribute to More Effective Use 

of Continuing Contracts 

Highlights of GAO-06-966, a report to the 

Subcommittee on Energy and Water 

Development, Committee on 

Appropriations, House of Representatives

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 

(Corps) is authorized under the 

River and Harbor Act of 1922 to 

issue contracts with a continuing 

contracts clause to carry out

certain projects. This allows the 

Corps to award multi-year 

contracts without having received

appropriations to cover the full 

contract amount. The Corps has

used these contracts for decades,

but modified their use in 2005, in 

response to congressional 

committee concerns that their use 

may have been ineffective. 

GAO was asked to determine (1) 

the number and dollar amount of 

continuing contracts the Corps 

awarded during fiscal years 2003–

2005; (2) the circumstances in 

which the Corps used continuing 

contracts in fiscal years 2003–2005;

and (3) how the Corps’ process for 

approving and using continuing 

contracts changed since 2005, and

whether the changes reduced the 

use of these contracts. For these

objectives, GAO reviewed the 

Corps’ contracting data, a random 

sample of 107 continuing contracts,

and districts’ requests to use 

continuing contracts. 

What GAO Recommends

GAO recommends that the Corps 

eliminate its routine use of 

continuing contracts, establish 

meaningful criteria on the use of

such contracts, and monitor its use 

of these contracts. In its comments 

on the draft report, the Department 

of Defense agreed with GAO’s 

recommendations. 

The Corps does not know how many continuing contracts it awarded in 

fiscal years 2003–2005 or the dollar value of these contracts, because it does 

not track information on the contracts awarded with a continuing contracts 

clause. Although the Corps was directed to provide the appropriations 

committees with quarterly reports on their use of continuing contracts in 

fiscal year 2006, GAO found that the information was inaccurate. For 

example, at least 13 continuing contracts were missing from the reports and 

10 continuing contracts had inaccurate values. Because the Corps could not 

provide information on the number of continuing contracts awarded for 

fiscal years 2003–2005, GAO analyzed the Corps’ contracting data and 

determined that 1,592 contracts awarded in these 3 years most likely 

included and used a continuing contracts clause. These contracts were 

expected to cost more than $3.96 billion when awarded and would generally 

be funded to cover the full contract amount (fully funded) pursuant to 

requirements of the Antideficiency Act. However, continuing contracts are 

exempt from the act. Consequently, the Corps only obligated $655 million 

when it awarded these contracts, leaving an outstanding commitment of 

about $3.30 billion to be covered by future years’ appropriations. 

During fiscal years 2003–2005, the Corps’ standard operating practice was to 

include a continuing contracts clause in most contracts. As a result, many 

continuing contracts were used for short term and low dollar value 

contracts. The Corps might have been able to fully fund some of these 

contracts if, at the time of award, the Corps had adequate appropriations to 

cover the contract amount. For example, for the 107 continuing contracts

GAO reviewed, about one-third were valued at less than $1 million. In only 8 

of 107 continuing contracts that GAO reviewed, the contract value was more 

than $10 million and involved work that required more than 12 calendar 

months to complete. The Corps also used continuing contracts extensively 

to move funds among projects and help meet its policy of expending all 

available appropriations in the fiscal year appropriated. For fiscal years

2003–2005, GAO found that over half of the contracts reviewed were 

awarded during the last quarter of the fiscal year as continuing contracts 

with little or no associated obligations, thereby shifting the obligations to 

pay for these contracts into future years. 

The Corps responded to congressional committee direction in 2005 and 

again in 2006 to monitor the use of continuing contracts by, among other 

things, requiring districts to obtain headquarters’ approval before using such 

contracts. The new processes reduced the use of continuing contracts, but 

have not prevented the approval of continuing contracts for short-term, low 

dollar value contracts. This occurred because the Corps established criteria

on when contracts should be fully funded, but did not establish criteria for 

when continuing contracts should be used. 

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-966.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact Anu Mittal at 

(202) 512-3841 or mittala@gao.gov. 
Contents 

Letter 1

Results in Brief 3

Background 5

The Corps Cannot Accurately Identify How Many Continuing 

Contracts It Has Awarded because It Does Not Track These 

Contracts 10

Prior to 2005, the Corps Routinely Included a Continuing Contracts 

Clause in Most Contracts 13 

The Corps’ Revised Processes for Approving Continuing Contracts 

Has Reduced Their Use, but It Still Lacks Criteria for When Their 

Use Is Appropriate 18 

Conclusions 25

Recommendations for Executive Action 26 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 27 

Appendix I Scope and Methodology 29 

Appendix II Characteristics of the Continuing Contracts 

Identified by GAO 32 

Appendix III Comments from the Department of Defense 41 

Appendix IV GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 44 

Tables 

Table 1: Fiscal Years 2003–2005 Appropriations 6 

Table 2: Total Number and Full Costs to the Federal Government 

of Continuing Contracts, Fiscal Years 2003–2005 12 

Table 3: Total Number of the 107 Randomly Selected Continuing 

Contracts Awarded in Fiscal Years 2003–2005 by the Full 

Contract Costs and Number of Months to Complete the 

Contracted Work 16 

Page i GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Table 4: Headquarters’ Reasons for Denying Seven Requests to Use 

a Continuing Contract and How Districts Proceeded with 

the Work 23 

Table 5: Total Number of Approved Requests to Use a Continuing 

Contract in Fiscal Year 2005 24 

Table 6: Total Number of Approved Requests to Use a Continuing 

Contract in Fiscal Year 2006 25 

Table 7: Total Number of Continuing Contracts Awarded by the 

Full Costs to the Federal Government, Fiscal Years 2003–

2005 32 

Table 8: Total Number of Continuing Contracts by Percentage of 

Federal Funds Made Available in the First Year of the 

Contract, Fiscal Years 2003–2005 33 

Table 9: Commitments for Continuing Contracts Made by 

Appropriations Account, Fiscal Years 2003–2005 36 

Table 10: Total Number of Continuing Contracts by Appropriations 

Account, Fiscal Years 2003–2005 37 

Table 11: Total Number and Full Costs to the Federal Government 

of Continuing Contracts Awarded by Division, Fiscal Years 

2003–2005 38

Table 12: Total Number and Full Costs to the Federal Government 

of Continuing Contracts Awarded by District, Fiscal Years 

2003–2005 39

Figures 

Figure 1: Obligations by Fiscal Year for Continuing Contracts 

Awarded, Fiscal Years 2003–2005 34 

Figure 2: Total Number of Continuing Contracts by Fiscal Quarter 

of Award, Fiscal Years 2003–2005 35 

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Page ii GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

September 8, 2006 

The Honorable David L. Hobson 

Chairman 

The Honorable Peter J. Visclosky 

Ranking Minority Member 

Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development 

Committee on Appropriations 

House of Representatives 

Each year, Congress provides funding to the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers’ (Corps) Civil Works program to plan, construct, operate, and 

maintain a wide range of water resources projects. During fiscal years 

2005 and 2006, the Corps received annual appropriations of more than $4 

billion for such projects. Water resources projects often take more than 1 

fiscal year to complete, and the Corps usually relies on one or more 

contractors to complete these projects. Generally, agencies are required to

obligate appropriations for all costs expected to be incurred at the time of 

award (i.e., fully fund contracts).1

 However, the River and Harbor Act of 

1922 provides the Corps a unique authority to use what is referred to as a

“continuing contract” to carry out certain projects. The Corps’ continuing

contracts authority allows it to enter into, and commit the federal 

government for, the full amount of contracts that span more than 1 fiscal

year—even though the Corps may not have sufficient funds to cover the 

full contract amount at the time the contract is awarded. For example, the 

Corps could award a 3-year, $12 million continuing contract even if it only 

had appropriations to cover the first year’s work; the funds needed to

cover the remaining contract amount would be obligated to subsequent 

years’ appropriations. A continuing contract contains a continuing 

contracts clause that allows contractors to continue work on a project 

even when appropriations are not available. When funding becomes 

available, the Corps is committed to pay all of the outstanding costs 

incurred by the contractor for work performed under the contract, as well

as any interest that may have accrued on these outstanding balances. 

 1

The Antideficiency Act prohibits agencies from entering into contracts which exceed

currently available appropriations or which obligate appropriations not yet made. 

Page 1 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
A provision of law enacted in the Water Resources Development Act of 

1999 requires the Corps to use continuing contracts for certain water 

resources projects for which sufficient funds are not available to complete

the project.2

 However, in the conference report accompanying the Corps’ 

2004 appropriations, the conference committee noted its concerns about 

the Corps’ policy of allowing contractors to choose their own pace for 

working on continuing contracts, which effectively allowed contractors, 

rather than the Corps, to determine how future appropriations would be 

allocated. In fiscal year 2005, the conference committee noted that 

continuing contracts are to allow the Corps to award large construction 

elements of a project to take advantage of the economies of scale and 

allow these large elements to be efficiently managed over several years.3

The committee reiterated its past concerns that the Corps’ construction 

projects may have used continuing contracts ineffectively. 

In this context, you asked us to determine (1) the number and dollar 

amount of continuing contracts the Corps awarded during fiscal years 

2003–2005; (2) the circumstances in which the Corps used continuing 

contracts in fiscal years 2003–2005; and (3) how the Corps’ process for 

approving and using continuing contracts changed since 2005, and 

whether these changes have reduced the use of these contracts. 

To address these objectives, we analyzed the Corps’ contracting data for 

Civil Works fixed-price and indefinite-delivery contracts (both 

construction contracts and operation and maintenance contracts) for 

fiscal years 2003–2005. Of the contracts we reviewed, we identified all of

the contracts for which the Corps did not obligate the full contract amount 

(i.e., partially funded). We excluded from our analysis contracts that the 

Corps identified as incrementally funded contracts.4

 We assessed the 

reliability of the Corps’ data and found that they were sufficiently reliable 

for our use. In addition, we reviewed 107 randomly selected continuing 

 2

33 U.S.C. § 2331. The law applies to projects funded from the construction; operation and 

maintenance; and flood control, Mississippi River and tributaries appropriations accounts.

A provision of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 2006 limited this 

requirement to projects funded from the operation and maintenance account and the

operation and maintenance subaccount of the Mississippi River and tributaries account.

3

The committee did not define what it meant by large contracts. For the purposes of our 

review, we defined large contracts as those that cost more than $10 million. 

4

Notwithstanding how the Corps views their continuing contracts, these contracts are also 

incrementally funded. Incremental funding is the practice of providing budget authority for 

only a portion of a capital acquisition or project. 

Page 2 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
contract files from three Corps districts. The districts we selected used a

large number of continuing contracts and were located in divisions that 

awarded a large percentage of continuing contracts in fiscal years 2003–

2005. We also reviewed Corps guidance for approving and using 

continuing contracts before and after 2005, when the Corps revised its 

process. We surveyed all eight Corps divisions to determine the total 

number of continuing contract requests that were approved and denied by 

Corps headquarters after the Corps revised its process. We performed our 

work between December 2005 and July 2006, in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards. Appendix I provides a detailed

description of our scope and methodology. 

The Corps does not track information on the number of contracts with a 

continuing contracts clause that it awards, and therefore does not know 

how many continuing contracts it awarded during fiscal years 2003–2005.

It also does not know the dollar value of these contractual obligations. The 

Corps was directed to provide the appropriations committees with 

quarterly reports on its use of on-going continuing contracts in fiscal year 

2006, but we found that the information submitted in these reports was 

inaccurate. For example, we found that at least 13 continuing contracts 

were missing from the Corps’ quarterly reports and 10 continuing 

contracts had incorrect dollar values. Because the Corps cannot determine 

how many continuing contracts it awarded for fiscal years 2003–2005, we 

analyzed the Corps’ contracting data. We found that 1,592 of the 16,532 

contracts awarded in this 3-year period most likely included and exercised 

(used) a continuing contracts clause. These 1,592 contracts accounted for 

more than 60 percent of the Corps’ annual obligations for new contracts 

awarded during these 3 years. The 1,592 contracts were expected to cost 

the government more than $3.96 billion at the time of award, but the Corps 

only obligated $655 million to current appropriations when these contracts 

were awarded; as a result, the federal government was left with about 

$3.30 billion in outstanding commitments. The value of individual 

continuing contracts ranged from as little as $12,000 to as much as $564 

million. 

Results in Brief 

During fiscal years 2003–2005, it was standard operating practice for the 

Corps to include a continuing contracts clause in most of its contracts. 

This occurred, according to Corps officials, because a provision in the 

Water Resources Development Act of 1999 required the agency to use 

continuing contracts when a project could not be fully funded with 

available appropriations. Our review of 107 randomly selected continuing 

contracts awarded during fiscal years 2003–2005 found numerous 

Page 3 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
examples of the Corps’ overuse of this requirement for contracts where a 

continuing contract may not have been needed. For example, in about onethird of the continuing contracts that we reviewed, the contracted work 

required 6 months or less to complete or had a contract value of less than 

$1 million. Therefore, we believe that these contracts did not need to be 

awarded as continuing contracts given their relatively short-term and 

small dollar values. The Corps might have been able to fully fund some of 

these contracts if, at the time of award, the Corps had adequate

appropriations to cover the contract amount. Only 8 of the 107 continuing

contracts we reviewed involved a relatively large dollar amount—for the 

purposes of our review, more than $10 million—and required more than 12 

calendar months to complete, thereby, in our opinion, establishing a 

rationale for a continuing contract. Another factor contributing to the 

routine use of continuing contracts was the Corps’ policy of expending all 

available appropriations in the fiscal year for which it was appropriated, 

rather than carrying balances into the next fiscal year. According to Corps 

officials, the use of continuing contracts helped to meet this policy by

allowing the Corps to move funds from projects that had excess funds 

either (1) to other ongoing projects that could use them or (2) to start new 

projects at the end of the fiscal year by using partially funded continuing 

contracts. For fiscal years 2003–2005, we found that over half of the 

contracts we reviewed were awarded during the last quarter of the fiscal

year as continuing contracts with little or no associated obligations, thus 

committing the federal government to cover the costs of these contracts in

future years’ appropriations. 

In response to congressional committee direction in 2005 and again in

2006, the Corps created new processes that, among other things, require 

districts to obtain Corps headquarters’ approval before using continuing 

contracts. These new processes reduced the number of continuing 

contracts awarded by the Corps since 2005, but have not prevented the use 

of continuing contracts for short-term, low dollar value contracts. The 

Corps might have been able to fully fund some of these contracts if, at the 

time of award, the Corps had adequate appropriations to cover the 

contract amount. Under the new processes, in addition to obtaining 

headquarters’ approval, districts were instructed to fully fund contracts 

when, among other things, they had sufficient funds. Districts were also 

instructed to stop contractors from working on a contract once fiscal year 

2006 appropriations had been spent. However, the Corps did not establish 

criteria for when it was appropriate to use continuing contracts. 

Consequently, we determined that, despite the implementation of the new 

processes, Corps headquarters received requests for and approved the use

of continuing contracts for short-term, low dollar value contracts. For 

Page 4 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
example, in fiscal year 2005, even with the new processes and guidance in

place, headquarters approved 38 of 141 requests for continuing contracts 

that were valued at below $10 million and that required less than 12 

calendar months to complete, including 3 requests that were for contracts 

valued at less than $500,000. Similarly, for the first 6 months of fiscal year

2006, of the 17 continuing contract requests approved by headquarters, 2 

approvals were for work valued at below $10 million and required less 

than 12 calendar months to complete. 

We are making recommendations that the Secretary of Defense direct the

Commanding General and Chief of Engineers of the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers to eliminate the routine use of continuing contracts, establish 

meaningful criteria for the use of such contracts, and monitor the Corps’ 

use of these contracts. In commenting on a draft of this report, the 

Department of Defense stated that it was a constructive report and 

concurred with our recommendations. 

The Corps’ Civil Works program is responsible for planning, developing, 

and maintaining the nation’s water and related environmental resources. 

The Corps’ headquarters is in Washington D.C.; eight regional divisions 

and 38 districts carry out its domestic civil works responsibilities. 

Background 

Each year the Corps’ Civil Works program receives funding through the 

Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act. The act normally 

appropriates a sum for water resources projects to several different 

appropriations accounts, including construction; operation and 

maintenance; and flood control, Mississippi River and tributaries. The 

construction account finances construction and major rehabilitation 

projects that relate to navigation, flood control, water supply, 

hydroelectric power, and environmental restoration. The operation and 

maintenance account finances the preservation, operation, maintenance, 

and care of existing river and harbor, flood-control, and related activities 

at the projects that the Corps operates and maintains. The flood control, 

Mississippi River and tributaries account provides flood protection for the 

alluvial valley of the Mississippi River from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to 

the Head of Passes, Louisiana; and improvement of the Mississippi River 

for navigation from Cairo, Illinois, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Table 1 

shows the appropriations received in fiscal years 2003–2005 for these 

accounts. 

Page 5 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Table 1: Fiscal Years 2003–2005 Appropriations

Dollars in thousands 

Appropriations account 

Fiscal year 

2003 budget 

authority

Fiscal year

 2004 budget 

authority

Fiscal year 

2005 budget 

authority

Construction $1,756,012 $1,722,319 $1,796,089

Operation and maintenance 1,940,167 1,967,925 1,959,101

Flood control, Mississippi River 

and tributaries 344,574 324,222 324,500

Total $4,040,753 $4,014,466 $4,079,690

Sources: Fiscal years 2003, 2004, and 2005 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Acts. 

The conference report accompanying the Energy and Water Development 

Appropriations Act generally lists individual projects and designates 

amounts for each project.

5

 Through this report, the appropriations 

committees essentially establish their priorities for the Corps’ water 

resources projects. In recent years, Congress has appropriated less 

funding than the sum of the amounts designated to individual projects in 

the conference report. Districts are responsible for executing projects. 

The Corps receives “no year” appropriations that remain available until 

spent. As part of the budget process, the Corps has historically requested 

appropriations from Congress to cover only those contract payments 

expected to be made in the upcoming fiscal year; it generally has not 

requested appropriations to fully fund its Civil Works contracts. According 

to the Corps, to comply with congressional direction that the agency give

careful consideration to the disposition of appropriated funds to ensure 

that they are applied effectively, and that the agency effectively move 

(reprogram) funds from projects that are not moving forward, the Corps 

developed policies and business practices to expend all available 

appropriations in the fiscal year appropriated and thereby minimize 

carrying appropriated funds over to following years. In fiscal year 2006, 

again in response to changing congressional direction in the Energy and

Water Development Appropriations Act and the accompanying conference 

report, the Corps modified its program execution process to focus on 

expending funds only on the projects for which they were specified, even

 5

Nonfederal sponsors (state, tribal, county, and local agencies) generally share the costs for 

a project with the Corps and provide, among other things, financial contributions, to

complete the work. 

Page 6 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
if the appropriated funds could not be completely expended in the fiscal 

year, and minimizing reprogramming unless it was absolutely essential.6

Consequently, a higher level of carry-over balances is anticipated starting

in fiscal year 2006. The Corps has also stated that it will begin requesting 

sufficient appropriations to fully fund most contracts beginning in fiscal 

year 2008. 

The Corps primarily uses fixed-price and indefinite-delivery contracts to 

complete its work. Fixed-price contracts are awarded for a specific price, 

regardless of the final cost to the contractor. If the contract is completed 

for less than the fixed price, the contractor benefits from greater profits; if 

the costs exceed the fixed price, then the contractor bears the loss. 

Indefinite-delivery contracts allow the Corps to obtain services or supplies 

through multiple task or delivery orders, as needed, to carry out project 

construction, and operation and maintenance activities. 

History of the Corps’ 

Continuing Contracts 

Authority 

Starting with the River and Harbor Act of 1892 and continuing 

intermittently through the River and Harbor Act of 1916, Congress gave the 

Corps authorization to enter into contracts to complete a limited number 

of projects even though the Corps did not have appropriations to cover the 

full contract amounts. In 1922, the Corps sought and received from 

Congress permanent authority to enter into these types of “continuing 

contracts.” The River and Harbor Act of 1922 gave the Corps authority to 

use continuing contracts for specifically authorized projects on canals, 

rivers, and harbors. 

When the Corps sought its 1922 authority to use continuing contracts, it 

stated that this authority would enable it to enter into contracts that 

exceeded the amount of funding that had been appropriated. At that time, 

the Corps noted that the continuing contract option would be 

advantageous for some projects—such as a lock and dam project that 

required several million dollars and 3 to 4 years to complete—because it

would help avoid tying up appropriations over a long period of time and 

carrying large sums of unexpended appropriations for several years. The 

Corps also noted that awarding contracts with a larger scope of work that 

covered several years would help encourage active competition among 

contractors. 

 6

The changes to the Corps’ program execution process are in the Corps’ December 2005

Engineering Circular 11-2-189. 

Page 7 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Since 1922, the Corps has used its continuing contracts authority to 

varying degrees for different types of projects and activities. In recent 

years, Congress has provided both guidance and specific direction to the 

Corps on how to use continuing contracts. These include the following: 

• The Water Resources Development Act of 1999. Congress broadened the 

types of projects and work covered by the Corps’ continuing contracts 

authority. Specifically, it directed the Corps to award continuing contracts 

if sufficient funding was not available to complete a project funded from 

the construction; operation and maintenance; or flood control, Mississippi 

River and tributaries appropriations accounts. 

• The Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 2004. Congress 

included a provision, not limited to fiscal year 2004, to also allow the use 

of continuing contracts for those contracts that were funded from the 

investigations appropriations account. The investigations account is used 

to collect and study basic information for, among other things, river and 

harbor and flood control activities; miscellaneous investigations; and 

surveys and detailed studies for projects before construction. 

• The committee report accompanying the Corps’ fiscal year 2005 

appropriations. The conference committee expressed concern about the 

Corps’ use of continuing contracts and noted that continuing contracts are 

to allow the Corps to award large construction elements of a project and 

take advantage of the economies of scale and allow these large elements 

to be efficiently managed over several years. 

• The Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 2006. Congress 

included a provision that modifies the types of projects and work for 

which the Corps is required to use a continuing contract. The provision, 

not limited to fiscal year 2006, states that the requirements regarding the 

use of continuing contracts in the Water Resources Development Act of 

1999 shall apply only to projects funded from the operation and 

maintenance account and the operation and maintenance subaccount of

the Mississippi River and tributaries account. The 2006 act also prohibits 

the Corps from entering into a continuing contract or modifying an 

existing contract that commits an amount for a project “in excess of the 

amount appropriated for such project pursuant to this act.” 

The Corps’ continuing contracts contain either a “basic clause” or an 

“alternate clause.” Districts may only use the basic continuing contracts 

clause for those contracts awarded for congressionally authorized Civil 

Works water resources projects, which are typically authorized in a Water 

Resources Development Act. The alternate clause can be used for projects 

Page 8 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
that are not specifically authorized, but are covered by the Continuing 

Authorities Program.7

 The Corps’ continuing contracts authority applies to

specific types of projects, which do not include water-related 

environmental infrastructure and resource development projects, such as

wastewater treatment, water supply, storm water retention and 

remediation, environmental restoration, and surface water resource 

protection and development. Districts historically made the decision to 

use continuing contracts without oversight from the division or Corps 

headquarters. 

In our prior reports on governmentwide funding practices, we have 

observed that full funding for capital asset acquisitions is the best way to 

ensure that all financial decisions are fully accounted for and recognized 

as part of the budget process, and that full funding also helps ensure that 

governmentwide fiscal control is maintained.8 Unlike a project started with 

a partially funded continuing contract, an agency receives budget 

authority for the project’s full estimated costs before a commitment is 

made for a fully funded capital project. Otherwise, distortions in resource 

allocations can result when the full costs of the commitments are not 

recognized at the time budget decisions are made.

 7

Continuing Authorities Program projects, such as beach erosion, navigation, and flood 

control activities, generally do not receive specific congressional authorization or

appropriations and are conducted at the Corps’ discretion based on the availability of 

funds. 

8

These governmentwide reports include: Budget Issues: Alternative Approaches to 

Finance Federal Capital, GAO-03-1011 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 21, 2003); Executive 

Guide: Leading Practices in Capital Decision-Making, GAO/AIMD-99-32 (Washington,

D.C.: Dec. 1998); and Budget Issues: Budgeting for Federal Capital, GAO/AIMD-97-5 

(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 12, 1996). 

Page 9 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
The Corps does not track information on the number of contracts that it 

awards with a continuing contracts clause; therefore, it could not identify

the number or the dollar value of such contracts awarded in fiscal years 

2003–2005. Because the Corps does not track its use of continuing 

contracts, the quarterly reports it submitted to the appropriations 

committees in fiscal year 2006, on the use of such contracts, were 

inaccurate. We independently identified the number of continuing 

contracts awarded by the Corps in fiscal years 2003–2005 by reviewing the 

agency’s contracting data, and we determined that 1,592 (about 10 

percent) of all contracts awarded during this 3-year period most likely 

included and used a continuing contracts clause. These 1,592 contracts 

accounted for more than 60 percent of the Corps’ annual obligations for 

new contracts awarded during these 3 years. 

The Corps does not systematically track the extent to which it uses a 

continuing contracts clause, and could not provide reliable information on 

the number of continuing contracts awarded in fiscal years 2003–2005 or 

the dollar value of these contracts. Moreover, according to Corps officials, 

nearly all multi-year contracts awarded by the Corps prior to fiscal year 

2005 routinely included a continuing contracts clause, and the agency had 

no requirement for districts to track when this clause was actually used. 

In fiscal years 2005 and 2006, the conference committees, in the reports 

accompanying the Corps’ appropriation acts, directed the Corps to 

monitor its use of continuing contracts. The Corps was also directed to 

provide the appropriations committees with a quarterly report on the 

agency’s use of such contracts, starting in fiscal year 2006. Because the 

Corps does not have a tracking system for continuing contracts, it 

gathered the information submitted in the two quarterly reports for fiscal 

year 2006 by asking each division to provide information on their existing

continuing contracts and expected obligations for the federal costs 

associated with these contracts. We reviewed these two quarterly reports 

and determined that they included inaccurate information. For example, 

we found at least 13 continuing contracts that were missing from the 

reports sent to the committees, and we found wrong contract values (the 

expected total costs for a contractor to complete the work) listed for 10 

contracts. 

The Corps Cannot 

Accurately Identify 

How Many Continuing 

Contracts It Has 

Awarded because It 

Does Not Track These 

Contracts 

The Corps Does Not Track 

Its Use of Continuing 

Contracts

Page 10 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Our analysis of the Corps’ contracting data indicates that the Corps 

awarded 16,532 fixed-price and indefinite-delivery contracts (both 

construction contracts and operation and maintenance contracts) during 

fiscal years 2003–2005.9

 According to Corps officials, the agency included a 

continuing contracts clause in most of its multi-year contracts. However, 

most of the 16,532 contracts were fully funded and, therefore, would not

have needed to use a continuing contracts clause even if it was included in

the contract.10 We found 1,592 of the 16,532 contracts (about 10 percent) 

were partially funded contracts at award and, therefore, most likely would 

have included and used a continuing contracts clause. The 1,592 contracts 

included 402 contracts that were partially funded at award but were fully 

funded by the end of the first fiscal year.11 The 1,592 contracts accounted 

for more than 60 percent of the Corps’ annual obligations for new 

contracts awarded during these 3 years.12 The full costs to the federal 

government of the 1,592 contracts were more than $3.96 billion at award. 

However, the Corps only obligated $655 million to current appropriations 

when these contracts were awarded; the outstanding commitment at the 

time of award was about $3.30 billion, and the Corps expects to obligate 

this amount to subsequent years’ appropriations. Table 2 summarizes the 

total number and full costs to the federal government of continuing 

contracts awarded during fiscal years 2003–2005. 

Continuing Contracts Most 

Likely Accounted for 

About 10 Percent of All 

Contracts Awarded by the 

Corps in Fiscal Years 2003–

2005 

 9

We analyzed the Corps’ contracting data contained in the Army’s Standard Procurement

System database. For more information on the methodology for our analysis, see appendix 

I. 

10These fully funded contracts ranged from as small as $1 to as large as $49 million at 

award, with a median value of $17,894. 

11About half of these contracts were awarded in the first fiscal quarter while the Corps was

under a continuing budget resolution authority; its final appropriation was not known at 

the time of this report. 

12The Corps’ annual $4 billion budget includes appropriations for both new and on-going

contracts. 

Page 11 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Table 2: Total Number and Full Costs to the Federal Government of Continuing Contracts, Fiscal Years 2003–2005 

Fiscal year 

2003 2004 2005 Total

Number of continuing contracts 669 583 340 1,592

Full costs to federal government at award $1,098,599,154 1,703,122,079 1,154,337,793 $3,956,059,026

Obligations at award $201,528,606 213,814,098 240,013,268 $655,355,972

Outstanding commitment at award $897,070,548 1,489,307,981 914,324,525 $3,300,703,054 

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data. 

Other characteristics that we identified for these 1,592 continuing 

contracts included the following: 

• All 38 districts used at least one continuing contract during fiscal years 

2003–2005. Five districts—Jacksonville, Vicksburg, Memphis, Walla Walla, 

and Portland—awarded only about 2.8 percent of the total number of 

contracts for this time period, but accounted for about 30 percent of the 

continuing contracts. 

• About 65 percent of the continuing contracts were valued at $1 million or 

less; 26 percent were valued at between $1 million and $5 million; 5 

percent were valued between $5 million and $10 million; and 4 percent 

were valued at more than $10 million.

• Several appropriations accounts funded these continuing contracts.13

About 54 percent of the obligations were from the construction account;

25 percent from the operation and maintenance account; 7 percent from 

the flood control, Mississippi River and tributaries account; 9 percent from

the Inland Waterway Trust Fund; and 6 percent from other accounts.14

• When contractors continue to work even after appropriations are not 

available, the Corps is committed to pay all of the outstanding costs 

incurred by the contractor and any interest that may have accrued on 

these outstanding balances. The Corps could not provide data on the 

interest it paid in fiscal year 2003 for these continuing contracts, but for 

fiscal years 2004 and 2005, the Corps paid about $497,000 and $288,000 in

interest payments, respectively. Monthly interest payments on these 

 13The Corps may fund a continuing contract from more than one appropriations account. 

14These accounts include, among others, the investigations, flood control and coastal 

emergencies, revolving funds, and regulatory programs accounts.

Page 12 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
contracts ranged from about $1 to more than $76,000 for individual 

districts. 

• Continuing contracts were generally used more often for fixed-price 

contracts than for indefinite-delivery contracts. About 50 percent of fixedprice contracts were continuing contracts, compared to only about 5 

percent of indefinite-delivery contracts. The full costs to the federal 

government of fixed-price continuing contracts ranged from about $21,000 

to more than $564 million, while indefinite-delivery continuing contracts

ranged from as small as $12,000 to more than $22.5 million. The median 

dollar value of all 1,592 continuing contracts was about $440,000; the 

median value of the fixed-price continuing contracts was about $1.2 

million; and the median value of the indefinite-delivery continuing 

contracts was about $147,000. 

Appendix II provides more information on the characteristics of the 

continuing contracts that we identified for fiscal years 2003–2005. 

The Corps’ routine practice was to include a continuing contracts clause in

most of the contracts it awarded during fiscal years 2003–2005. According 

to the Corps, this occurred, in part, because a provision of the Water 

Resources Development Act of 1999 requires the agency to use continuing 

contracts for certain projects if sufficient funding is not available to 

complete the project. The Corps interpreted this provision to mean that, if

sufficient funds were not available to complete the entire project, then all 

contracts associated with the project must be continuing contracts. The 

Corps’ interpretation of this provision resulted, in our opinion, in the 

overuse of the continuing contracts authority because the provision does 

not require all contracts awarded for a given project to be continuing 

contracts. The Corps might have been able to fully fund some short-term, 

low dollar value contracts if, at the time of award, the Corps had adequate 

appropriations to cover the contract amount.15 Moreover, the Corps relied 

on its use of continuing contracts to help meet its policy of not carrying 

over unexpended appropriations into future fiscal years. By routinely 

including a continuing contracts clause into all of its contracts, the Corps 

Prior to 2005, the 

Corps Routinely

Included a Continuing 

Contracts Clause in 

Most Contracts 

 15For example, one district awarded a continuing contract for $14,614 in April 2003 and 

only obligated $6,739 to that fiscal year’s appropriations. The district subsequently awarded

38 more continuing contracts in that fiscal year and obligated over $9.7 million to these 

contracts. We believe the district could likely have obligated the remaining $7,875 to the

April 2003 contract from this $9.7 million. 

Page 13 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
could more easily move funds among contracts at the end of the year. 

Appropriations that could not be expended on a contract would be 

obligated to a contract that could expend the funds. In addition, districts 

cited a variety of other reasons for a large number of continuing contracts

being awarded at the end of the fiscal year. 

In the late 1990s, large carry-over amounts of unexpended Corps 

appropriations at the end of each fiscal year became a concern to 

Congress. Through a provision of the Water Resources Development Act 

of 1999, Congress instructed the Corps to use continuing contracts for 

certain water resources projects if sufficient funding was not available to 

complete the project—in effect, this made permanent the direction that 

the appropriations committees had given to the Corps for a number of 

years through fiscal year 1998. As a result, the Corps implemented policies 

designed to maximize expenditures from all available appropriations in the 

year appropriated. These policies, in turn, encouraged the Corps’ use of 

continuing contracts to ensure that only the appropriations required for 

expenditure in a given year were obligated on the contract. 

However, we believe that the Corps’ implementation of the 1999 law has 

resulted in an overuse of the continuing contracts authority and the 

frequent awarding of continuing contracts for short-term, low dollar value 

contracts.16 The Corps might have been able to fully fund some of these 

contracts if, at the time of award, the Corps had adequate appropriations 

to cover the contract amount. For example, for the 107 randomly selected 

continuing contracts awarded in fiscal years 2003–2005 that we reviewed, 

we found only 8 continuing contracts that were valued at more than $10 

million dollars and involved contracted work that required more than 12 

calendar months to complete. In contrast, many of the 107 continuing 

contracts we reviewed were short-term and/or low dollar value contracts. 

For example, we found that, 39 continuing contracts were for work that 

lasted 6 months or less; 34 continuing contracts had a contract value of

less than $1 million; and 10 continuing contracts had a contract value of 

less than $1 million and included work that took less than 6 months to 

 16For the purposes of this report low dollar value is a contract that is for less than $10

million.

Page 14 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
complete.17 Some specific examples of the kinds of short-term, low dollar 

value continuing contracts we identified were: 

• The Jacksonville district used a continuing contract to partially fund a 

$695,285 contract that required 90 days to complete. 

• The Galveston district used a continuing contract for an $868,812 contract

that required 30 days to complete. The district awarded the contract on 

September 29, 2004, and did not give the contractor permission to begin 

the work until the next fiscal year on November 1, 2004. Therefore, the 

contracted work was actually completed in one fiscal year and was not a 

multi-year contract. 

• The Vicksburg district used a continuing contract for a $102,051 contract 

that required 195 days to complete. Because the contract spanned more 

than one fiscal year, the Corps considered this a multi-year contract that 

justified the use of a continuing contract, even though the contract 

required less than 7 months to complete and had a relatively low dollar 

amount. 

Table 3 summarizes the full contract costs and length of time needed to

complete contracted work for the 107 randomly selected continuing 

contracts we reviewed.

 17Although not included in the 107 contracts, we found that—in addition to construction,

and operation and maintenance work—continuing contracts were also used for service 

contracts, such as archaeological work, marine benthic surveys, and a purchase order for 

the operation of a visitor’s center. Generally, these additional contracts were valued at less

than $500,000. 

Page 15 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Table 3: Total Number of the 107 Randomly Selected Continuing Contracts Awarded in Fiscal Years 2003–2005 by the Full

Contract Costs and Number of Months to Complete the Contracted Work 

Contract value at award

Number of months to 

complete work 

Less than

 $1 million

From $1 million to 

less than $5 million

From $5 million to 

less than 

$10 million 

More than

 $10 million

Total number 

of contracts

Six or less 10 26 3 0 39

Between 6 and 12 16 12 2 0 30

Between 12 and 24 3 6 4 4 17

Greater than 24 1 0 0 4 5

Unknown 4 9 2 1 16

Total 34 53 11 9 107

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data from randomly selected continuing contract files. 

Note: These costs include both the federal government and nonfederal sponsor’s share of the 

contract costs.

The Corps also routinely included a continuing contracts clause in its 

contracts to help meet its policy of expending all available appropriations 

in the fiscal year appropriated, and to minimize carrying over unexpended

appropriations into the next fiscal year. According to the Corps, it 

allocates appropriations to projects at the beginning of the fiscal year. The 

only way to reallocate appropriations to avoid carryover is through 

reprogramming. Reprogramming provides the Corps with the flexibility to 

move excess funds from projects that are behind schedule to projects that

may be able to use the funds because they are ahead of schedule. 

Generally, federal agencies are required to fully fund contracts at the time 

of award. The Corps would not have been able to easily move the funds 

from a contract unless it included a continuing contracts clause. 

According to agency officials, the Corps has had a standard practice to 

include a continuing contracts clause in most contracts as a precaution in 

the event that it might need to move funds from a project at a later date in

the fiscal year to meet the agency’s policy of expending all available 

appropriations in the fiscal year appropriated. 

As we reported in 2005, the Corps had come to rely excessively on 

reprogramming as its primary method to manage Civil Works project 

funds, with little consideration to pending needs or long-term financial

Page 16 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
planning and priority-setting.18 In our 2005 report, we identified numerous 

instances where the Corps’ policy of expending all available 

appropriations in the fiscal year appropriated had resulted in 

reprogramming actions that were inconsistent with the Corps’ 

reprogramming guidance. Similarly, during this review of the Corps’ use of 

continuing contracts, we found a number of instances where the Corps 

used its continuing contracts authority primarily to reprogram funds in 

furtherance of the agency’s policy of expending all available 

appropriations in the fiscal year appropriated. For example, in some cases, 

we found that the Corps included a continuing contracts clause even in 

contracts that had been fully funded at the time of award, in case it needed 

to reprogram funds sometime later during the year from these contracts.

In some other cases, according to Corps district officials, we found that 

the Corps modified fully funded contracts and converted them into 

continuing contracts so that obligations could be reprogrammed from 

these contracts. In addition, other continuing contracts were awarded in a 

manner that was inconsistent with the Corps’ own guidance for the use of

continuing contracts, but which allowed the agency to award end-of-year 

contracts and not carry over any end-of-year balances. A continuing 

contracts clause should identify the portion of the contract value that the 

Corps will reserve for the contract for the first fiscal year. However, we 

found four contracts that were awarded at the end of the fiscal year where 

the district initially obligated $50,000 to each of the contracts, but 

deobligated the entire $50,000 from each contract within 1 day. These 

actions helped the Corps meets its policy of expending all available 

appropriations in the fiscal year appropriated by allowing the money to be

spent on other contracts.

A variety of other factors may also lead to the award of many continuing 

contracts late in the fiscal year.19 According to district officials, it is not 

uncommon for a continuing contract to be awarded late in the fiscal year 

in situations where (1) the district commander committed to awarding the 

contract in that fiscal year, (2) the district had agreements with the 

nonfederal sponsor that certain contracts would be awarded in that fiscal

 18For additional information on the Corps’ use of reprogramming, see GAO, Army Corps of 

Engineers: Improved Planning and Financial Management Should Replace Reliance on

Reprogramming Actions to Manage Project Funds, GAO-05-946 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 

16, 2005). 

19In addition, Corps officials said that environmental windows to protect, among others, sea 

turtles, can cause continuing contracts to be awarded late in the year to ensure that

dredging work begins at the start of the next fiscal year. 

Page 17 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
year, or (3) the district ran out of money to fully fund a contract. Of the 

107 contracts we reviewed, over half of these (58) were awarded in the 

fourth quarter of the fiscal year. Of these, 27 were awarded in September, 

the last month of the fiscal year, and 15 of the 27 September contracts 

were awarded in the last week of the fiscal year. Because the Corps only 

obligated a small portion of the total contract amount to these contracts in

the year that they were awarded, the bulk of the funds needed to cover 

most of the contracts had to come from future years’ appropriations. 

In fiscal year 2005 and again in 2006, in response to congressional 

committee direction, the Corps implemented new processes that require 

districts to, among other things, obtain headquarters’ approval before 

using continuing contracts. The new processes have reduced the total 

number of continuing contracts the Corps awarded in fiscal years 2005 and 

2006. However, the Corps has not established clear criteria for when it is 

appropriate to request and approve the use of continuing contracts. As a 

result, headquarters continues to receive and approve continuing 

contracts for short-term, low dollar value contracts. The Corps might have

been able to fully fund some of these contracts if, at the time of award, the 

Corps had adequate appropriations to cover the contract amount. 

Congressional committee direction contained in the conference report to 

the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2005 required the Corps to 

monitor its use of continuing contracts and stated that the award of such 

contracts should be guided by responsible financial management 

practices. Further, according to Corps officials, based on their discussions 

with the House Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, the 

Corps created a new process that required districts to obtain headquarters’ 

approval before using continuing contracts. Corps headquarters’ primary 

criterion for approving a request to use a continuing contract was whether 

or not the project was likely to receive appropriations in the next fiscal 

year. The first continuing contracts were approved using this criterion on

March 30, 2005. In June 2005, the Corps documented this change in 

procedure by issuing an interim policy guidance memorandum. The 

guidance stated that headquarters’ approval was required for all 

continuing contracts, and that districts should seek to fully fund contracts

whenever possible. The guidance also established criteria for the kinds of

situations in which a contract should generally be fully funded. These 

situations include the following: 

The Corps’ Revised 

Processes for 

Approving Continuing 

Contracts Has 

Reduced Their Use, 

but It Still Lacks 

Criteria for When 

Their Use Is 

Appropriate 

Fiscal Year 2005 Process 

Changes for Approving 

Continuing Contracts 

Page 18 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
• when the contract will span 2 fiscal years but will begin or end a short 

amount of time before or after a fiscal year, and sufficient appropriations 

can be made available to fully fund the contract without adversely 

affecting progress on other projects or prior reprogramming 

commitments; 

• when the contract will span 2 fiscal years but requires only a small amount 

of funding in the first or last fiscal year, and sufficient appropriations can 

be made available to fully fund the contract without adversely affecting 

progress on other projects or prior reprogramming commitments; 

• when future allocations of appropriated funds in amounts needed to 

support a continuing contract are unlikely, and appropriations already 

allocated for the project could be used to fully fund the contract; and 

• for all, or portions of, Continuing Authorities Program projects.20

Unlike in the past when no oversight was provided to the districts’ use of 

continuing contracts, Corps officials told us the new fiscal year 2005 

process for approving and using continuing contracts involved all levels of 

the agency—the district, division, and headquarters. The districts were 

required to submit written requests to their divisions if they were seeking 

approval to use continuing contracts. The requests were to include a

discussion of alternative contracting options, whether the project would 

be budgeted for in subsequent fiscal years, the likelihood of the project 

receiving appropriations in subsequent fiscal years, and whether the needs 

identified in subsequent fiscal years’ appropriations were reasonable given 

the Corps’ budget environment. After the division reviewed the districts’ 

request, the division either denied the request or forwarded it to 

headquarters. If the division denied the request, it might have suggested 

that the district provide additional information to support the request, fully 

fund the work, use an alternate contracting option, or wait until the next 

fiscal year to proceed with the work. Under the 2005 process, requests 

forwarded to headquarters for review were approved, withdrawn by the 

division, sent back to the division for more information, or denied. 

 20Continuing Authorities Program projects are conducted at the Corps’ discretion based on

the availability of funds and generally do not receive specific congressional authorization

or appropriations. These projects include activities for beach erosion, navigation, and flood 

control. 

Page 19 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
For fiscal year 2006, Congress provided additional direction to the Corps 

in the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 2006. The law

states that, (1) with certain exceptions, none of the funds made available 

in the act may be used to award any continuing contract or make 

modifications to any existing continuing contract that commits an amount 

for a project in excess of the amount appropriated for the project; and (2) 

notwithstanding any other provision of the law, the requirements 

regarding the use of continuing contracts under the Water Resources 

Development Act of 1999 shall apply only to projects funded under the 

operation and maintenance account and the operation and maintenance 

subaccount of the flood control, Mississippi River and tributaries account. 

To respond to these new congressional requirements, in December 2005, 

the Corps issued additional guidance that is effective through the end of 

fiscal year 2006, which, among other things:21

Fiscal Year 2006 Process 

Changes for Continuing 

Contracts

• reaffirmed its policy that districts should use fully funded contracts as 

their primary contracting option; 

• directed that continuing contracts should only be used as the contracting 

option of last resort; 

• summarized new information that the districts are required to provide in 

their requests to use continuing contracts, including an explanation on 

why using a continuing contract is in the best interest of the government; 

and 

• directed districts to take measures to ensure that contractor costs 

generally do not exceed the amount appropriated for projects in fiscal year 

2006. 

The Corps also continued to make additional policy changes in fiscal year 

2006 to better manage the use of continuing contracts in response to the 

Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 2006. For example, 

in March 2006, to help districts comply with the requirement that 

contractors stop working on a contract once appropriations for the fiscal 

year were spent, Corps headquarters developed two new continuing 

contracts clauses.22 Corps headquarters directed districts to replace the 

 21The Corps issued this guidance in its Engineering Circular 11-2-189. 

22The Corps issued this guidance in Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting 

Instruction letter 2006–05, Continuing Contracts and Incrementally Funded Contracts for

Fiscal Year 2006. 

Page 20 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
existing continuing contracts clause with either one of two new continuing 

contracts clauses for most continuing contracts. These new clauses do not 

permit the contractor to work beyond the amount obligated in the contract 

for that year. Under the previous continuing contracts clause the 

contractor could continue working on the contract, which required the 

Corps to either reprogram funds or to make payments from the next fiscal 

year’s funds when they were appropriated. By requiring the contractor to 

stop work once all reserved funds for a given project are spent, the Corps 

is effectively reasserting control in determining how future appropriations 

will be spent for specific contracts. 

The conference report accompanying the Energy and Water Development 

Appropriations Act of 2006 also specified that the Assistant Secretary of 

the Army for Civil Works would be responsible for approving the award of

each continuing contract. According to the Corps, to simplify the 

administration of this provision, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for 

Civil Works, after coordination with the House and Senate Subcommittees 

for energy and water development appropriations, issued a memorandum 

in March 2006 pre-approving continuing contracts that met certain 

conditions for operation and maintenance work. These conditions include, 

among other things, being financed from the operation and maintenance 

account or the maintenance subaccount of the Mississippi River and 

tributaries account, and that districts have determined that using a 

continuing contract is the most cost-effective acquisition mechanism. In 

May 2006, the Corps delegated, to the divisions and districts, the authority 

to determine whether operation and maintenance contracts meet the 

conditions for pre-approval. As a consequence, Corps headquarters is no 

longer directly involved in the approval of these new operation and 

maintenance continuing contracts. Because these changes are relatively 

recent, it is too early to determine the effect that they will have on the 

districts’ use of continuing contracts for operation and maintenance work.

Page 21 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
The Corps process changes in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 reduced the

number of requests districts made to use continuing contracts. In fiscal 

year 2005, headquarters approved 141 requests during the 6 months that 

the new procedures were in place (March 30 through September 30, 

2005),23 but only 17 requests were approved during the first 6 months of 

fiscal year 2006 (October 1, 2005, through March 30, 2006). According to 

the Corps, the process changes that were made in response to discussions 

with the House Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and the 

enactment of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 

2006 were key in reducing the use of continuing contracts. 

Between March 30, 2005 (when the new approval process was 

implemented), and March 30, 2006, Corps headquarters approved most of 

the continuing contract requests that it received. The divisions received 

180 requests from the districts, 175 of which were forwarded to 

headquarters for approval and 5 of which were denied.24 Of the 175 

requests forwarded to headquarters for approval, 10 were withdrawn by 

the divisions prior to receiving approval.25 Headquarters approved 158 of 

the 165 requests it considered and denied 7 of them. The seven requests 

were denied primarily because they did not identify subsequent years’ 

funding in their requests. The districts ultimately fully funded five of the 

seven requests that were denied. Table 4 summarizes headquarters’ 

reasons for denying the seven requests and how the districts proceeded 

with the work after the denial. 

Process Changes Have 

Reduced the Number of 

Continuing Contracts, but 

Approvals Continue for 

Short-Term, Low Dollar 

Value Contracts 

 23Districts may not have proceeded with a continuing contract for all of the requests that 

were approved by headquarters because, in some instances, the districts chose not to. 

24Divisions used the following reasons for denying the requests: fiscal year 2005 

appropriations were insufficient to cover the contractor’s expenses, the contract could be 

fully funded, there were problems with the cost estimate, and the contract was for an

environmental infrastructure project (which must be fully funded, according to Corps

guidance). 

25Divisions withdrew these requests, primarily because the work could be fully funded or

because there was uncertainty about appropriations. 

Page 22 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Table 4: Headquarters’ Reasons for Denying Seven Requests to Use a Continuing Contract and How Districts Proceeded with

the Work 

Reason for denial

Action taken to proceed

with the work

Contract 

Contract 

could be fully

funded 

Contract did not 

identify subsequent 

years’ funding

Contract not in

president’s 

fiscal year 2007 

budget 

Contracted

work cannot 

use a 

continuing

contract 

Contract was 

fully funded 

District 

assessing

alternate 

contracting

options

Contract 

will use a 

new 

continuing

contracts 

clause 

1 X X

2 X X

3 X X

4 X X

5 X X

6 X X

7 XaX

Source: GAO analysis of Corps information. 

a

This contract was for an environmental infrastructure project, which cannot use a continuing contract. 

Although the Corps’ revised approval processes reduced the number of 

continuing contracts districts used, they have not adequately addressed 

when the use of continuing contracts is appropriate. This is because the 

Corps’ revised guidance established the situations in which districts 

should consider fully funding contracts, but did not establish similar 

criteria for when to use continuing contracts. Consequently, even with the 

new process changes, districts requested and headquarters approved the 

use of continuing contracts for contracted work that is of short term and 

has a low dollar value. The Corps believes that these requests 

demonstrated a strong business case for using a continuing contract;26

however, we believe that the Corps might have been able to fully fund 

some of these contracts if, at the time of award, the Corps had adequate 

appropriations to cover the contract amount. 

Moreover, under the new processes, in fiscal year 2005, Corps 

headquarters’ primary criterion for approving a request to use a continuing 

contract was whether or not the project was likely to receive 

 26The Corps also noted there could be some cases in which a continuing contract may be 

required, such as when a nonfederal sponsor, i.e., the local community, could not afford to

match federal funds under the lump-sum approach. 

Page 23 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
appropriations in the next fiscal year. If headquarters determined that 

there was little likelihood of the project receiving future years’ 

appropriations it would generally deny the request for a continuing 

contract. By focusing its review on just this criterion, the Corps did not 

address factors such as length of work and dollar value of the contract, 

which we believe are also important factors to consider when justifying 

the need to use a continuing contract. Of the 141 requests approved by 

headquarters between March 30 through September 30, 2005, only 24

(about 17 percent) were for contracts valued at more than $10 million and 

that required more than 12 calendar months to complete. In contrast, 

headquarters approved 38 of 141 requests (almost 27 percent) for 

contracts valued at less than $10 million and that required less than 12 

calendar months to complete, and included 3 requests that were for 

contracts for less than $500,000. Table 5 summarizes information on the 

requests approved in fiscal year 2005.

Table 5: Total Number of Approved Requests to Use a Continuing Contract in Fiscal Year 2005 

Contract value at awarda

Number of months

to complete work 

Less than

 $1 million 

From $1 million 

to less than $5 

million

From $5

million to

less than

$10 million 

More than $10

million Unknown

Total number of

approved

requests

Six or less 2 14 1 1 0 18

Between 6 and 12 5 15 1 2 0 23

Between 12 and 24 1 14 5 5 0 25

Greater than 24 0 10 9 19 1 39

Unknown 8 23 5 0 0 36

Total 16 76 21 27 1 141

Source: GAO analysis of Corps information. 

Note: Fiscal year 2005 requests include those approved during the period March 30 through 

September 30, 2005. 

a

The contract value generally includes only the federal government’s costs, except for those requests

that did not distinguish between the federal government and a nonfederal sponsor’s share of the 

costs. 

In fiscal year 2006, the Corps further revised headquarters’ criteria for 

approving continuing contract requests (or for recommending approval by

the Assistant Secretary, pursuant to the conference report guidance); 

however, these changes also did not address our concern about approving

short-term, low dollar value continuing contracts. As a result, the Corps 

and the Assistant Secretary continued to approve such contracts as 

continuing contracts in fiscal year 2006. Of the 17 requests approved by 

headquarters in fiscal year 2006 (as of March 30, 2006), only 4 of the 

Page 24 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
requests (about 24 percent) were for contracted work that required more 

than $10 million and more than 12 calendar months to complete; 2 

approved continuing contract requests were for short-term, low dollar 

value requests. Table 6 summarizes information on the requests approved 

for fiscal year 2006, as of March 30, 2006. 

Table 6: Total Number of Approved Requests to Use a Continuing Contract in Fiscal Year 2006 

Contract value at awarda

Number of 

months to 

complete work 

Less than

 $1 million 

From $1 million 

to less than

$5 million

From $5 million 

to less than

$10 million 

More than 

$10 million Unknown

Total number of

approved

requests

Six or less 0 2 0 0 0 2

Between 6 and 12 0 0 0 0 0 0

Between 12 and

24 0 2 1 1 0 4

Greater than 24 0 0 3b3 2 8

Unknown 0 2 0 1 0 3

Total 0 6 4 5 2 17

Source: GAO analysis of Corps information. 

Note: Fiscal year 2006 requests include those approved from October 1, 2005, through March 30, 

2006. 

a

The contract value generally includes only the federal government’s costs, except in those requests

that did not distinguish between the federal government and a nonfederal sponsor’s share of the 

costs. 

b

The Corps approved the use of a continuing contract for two of the requests because requiring that 

the two requests be fully funded would have required that the local communities fully fund their share 

of the project, thus creating an economic hardship. 

Although the Corps’ current criteria does not consider the duration and 

dollar value of contracts when making decisions about whether or not to 

award continuing contracts, agency officials are evaluating guidance for 

the fiscal year 2008 budget (and beyond) under which they would propose 

full funding of the federal government’s commitment for contracts that are 

below a certain threshold. According to the Corps, this approach would 

reduce the use of continuing contracts up to 90 percent by fiscal year 2010. 

The continuing contracts authority is a unique authority that provides the 

Corps with important flexibilities to manage multi-year, multi-milliondollar water resources projects. However, this authority also allows the 

Corps to commit the federal government to future financial obligations 

without appropriated funds to meet them. Because of the potential to 

Conclusions 

Page 25 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
create significant future liabilities for the federal government, it is critical 

that the Corps have appropriate processes and practices in place to ensure 

that the use of the continuing contracts privilege is not misused or 

overused. We continue to advocate that fully funding contracts at the time 

of award is the best way for federal agencies to manage contractual 

obligations. If the Corps continues to use continuing contracts, then it 

must be able to monitor and track the extent to which they are used. This

will enable the Corps to accurately determine the extent to which it has 

committed future years’ appropriations, and also readily provide 

information on the full amount of these financial commitments. 

Moreover, the Corps’ past practice of routinely awarding continuing 

contracts (especially at the end of the fiscal year) to reprogram funds and 

avoid large carryover of unexpended balances, exemplifies, in our opinion, 

the need for clear criteria on when continuing contracts should be used. 

Even though the Corps has recently implemented new approval processes 

to restrict the use of continuing contracts, it has not yet established clear 

criteria to guide their use. As a result, while the Corps has reduced its 

reliance on continuing contracts, it continues to approve short-term, low 

dollar value contracts that may not justify the use of a continuing contract. 

Without meaningful criteria that include factors such as the length of time 

needed to complete the work and the dollar value of the contract, we 

believe that the Corps will not be able to assure that it uses continuing 

contracts appropriately.

To ensure the judicious use of continuing contracts by the Corps districts 

and to provide better management of projects that use such contracts, we 

recommend that the Secretary of Defense direct the Commanding General 

and the Chief of Engineers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take the 

following three actions:

Recommendations for 

Executive Action 

• eliminate the routine use of continuing contracts by adopting good project 

planning and management practices rather than relying on continuing 

contracts; 

• establish meaningful criteria for the use of continuing contracts, including

an assessment of dollar value and length of time needed to complete 

contracted work so that districts have clear guidance on when a 

continuing contract may be used; and

• develop a tracking system to monitor the use of continuing contracts. 

Page 26 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Agency Comments 

and Our Evaluation 

We provided a draft copy of this report to the Department of Defense for 

review and comment. The Department stated that the report was very 

constructive and concurred with our recommendations. Specifically, the 

Department concurred with the recommendation that the Corps eliminate 

the routine use of continuing contracts by adopting good planning and 

management practices rather than relying on continuing contracts. The 

Department stated that it incorporated the appropriations committees’ 

direction that discouraged continuing contracts and reprogramming in its 

execution guidance for fiscal year 2006. As a consequence, the number 

and dollar volume of new continuing contracts fell substantially in fiscal 

year 2006 compared to previous years. For its implementation guidance 

for fiscal year 2007, the Department stated that it will incorporate any new 

direction in law or committee reports, as well as lessons learned from 

fiscal year 2006. 

The Department concurred with our recommendation that the Corps 

establish meaningful criteria for the use of continuing contracts, including

an assessment of dollar value and length of time needed to complete 

contracted work so that districts have clear guidance on when a 

continuing contract may be used. The Department stated that in its fiscal 

year 2007 implementation guidance it will include, among other things, 

clearer criteria on when it is appropriate to use continuing contracts 

including explicit consideration of dollar value and length of time. 

The Department concurred with our recommendation that the Corps 

develop a tracking system to monitor the use of continuing contracts. The 

Department said it has reviewed its data on continuing contracts and 

included corrections in its third quarterly report to the appropriations 

committees. The Department also stated that an automated tracking 

system will be established for its fiscal year 2007 appropriations and 

retained indefinitely. 

The Department of Defense’s comments on our draft report are included 

in appendix III. 

We will send copies of this report to interested congressional committees,

the Commanding General and Chief of Engineers of the U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of the Office of 

Management and Budget. We will make copies available to others on 

request. In addition, this report will be available at no charge on the GAO 

Web site at http://www.gao.gov. 

Page 27 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
If you or your staff have questions about this report, please call me at 

(202) 512-3841 or contact me at mittala@gao.gov. Contact points for our 

Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the 

last page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this 

report are listed in appendix IV. 

Anu K. Mittal 

Director, Natural Resources 

 and Environment 

Page 28 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

To determine the number and dollar amount of continuing contracts the 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) awarded during fiscal years 2003–

2005, we reviewed the Corps’ quarterly reports to the appropriations 

committees on their use of these contracts. We also obtained the Corps’ 

contracting data from the Army’s Standard Procurement System. We 

analyzed information on the Corps’ domestic Civil Works fixed-price and 

indefinite-delivery contracts (both construction contracts and operation 

and maintenance contracts) for fiscal years 2003–2005. We excluded the 

base contract of indefinite-delivery contracts from our analysis because 

these base contracts have no value and no work associated with them. 

Like the Corps, we treated individual task orders awarded against the base 

contract to carry out the work as separate contracts. Because the Corps 

does not track information on contracts that included a continuing 

contracts clause, we developed a methodology for identifying these 

contracts. Of the contracts we reviewed, we identified all of the contracts 

for which the Corps did not obligate the full contract amount. According 

to the Corps, in order to partially fund a contract, the contract has to be 

either an incrementally funded contract1

 or a continuing contract. Using 

the data, we eliminated contracts identified by the Corps as incrementally 

funded that used either the limitation of funds clause or the Defense 

Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement’s incremental funding clause.2

We based our analyses on the most current data available and only 

included the federal portion of the continuing contracts’ costs. We 

obtained from Corps officials monthly interest payment information 

contained in the Corps of Engineers’ Financial Management System. We 

determined, based on interviews with Corps officials, comparison of data 

to contract files, and electronic data testing, that the data were sufficiently 

reliable for our purposes. 

To determine the circumstances in which the Corps used continuing 

contracts in fiscal years 2003–2005, we judgmentally selected three Corps 

districts that used a large number of continuing contracts and were 

located in divisions that awarded a large percentage of continuing 

contracts in fiscal years 2003–2005. We selected Galveston (Southwest 

 1

Notwithstanding how the Corps views their continuing contracts, these contracts are also 

incrementally funded. Incremental funding is the practice of providing budget authority for 

only a portion of a capital acquisition or project. 

2

The limitation of funds clause is found at the Federal Acquisition Regulation 52.232-22; the

Department of Defense’s incremental funding clause is found at the Defense Federal 

Acquisition Regulation Supplement 252.232-7007. 

Page 29 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

division), Jacksonville (South Atlantic division), and Vicksburg 

(Mississippi Valley division). We identified and reviewed a random sample 

of 107 continuing contracts from these three districts. Within the three 

districts, we ordered the districts’ continuing contracts in a random list 

using the continuing contracts identified in the Corps of Engineers’ 

Financial Management System and a list of contracts the Corps identified 

as continuing contracts. We reviewed the continuing contract files based 

on this random list. We reviewed fixed-price and indefinite-delivery 

contracts and eliminated from our sample contracts that were fully 

funded. For each contract, we reviewed the contract files and entered 

information into a data collection instrument to ensure uniformity. We 

also interviewed the contracting and program management officials to 

obtain additional information on the contract, including information on 

the circumstances when continuing contracts were used. We entered 

information from the data collection instruments into a database for 

analysis and independently verified the contents of the database with 

information from the data collection instruments. We also reviewed the 

Corps’ guidance documents and interviewed Corps officials at districts, 

divisions, and headquarters to determine the Corps’ polices and 

procedures for using a continuing contract. We compared the information 

collected from each contract to the Corps’ general policies and procedures

for using continuing contracts. 

To determine how the Corps’ process for approving and using continuing 

contracts changed since 2005 and whether the changes reduced their use 

of these contracts, we obtained Corps guidance documents for approving 

and using continuing contracts and interviewed Corps officials at districts, 

divisions, and headquarters. We also obtained information from Corps 

headquarters on districts’ requests to use continuing contracts. For the 

purpose of our review, we treated a request as being equivalent to a 

contract. For example, if in one request, a district submitted information 

to justify the use of a continuing contract for two different contracts, then

we counted this as two individual requests. We also surveyed the Corps’ 

eight divisions to obtain information on the total number of requests to 

use continuing contracts submitted by each of their districts, requests 

forward by the division to headquarters, requests that were denied by the

division, and requests that were denied by headquarters. We obtained 

responses from all eight divisions to our survey. We compared the 

information from the divisions’ surveys to information that we obtained

from Corps headquarters, and reconciled any differences. We entered 

information from the requests to use a continuing contract into a 

spreadsheet for analysis and independently verified the contents of the 

spreadsheet with information from the requests. We compared the 

Page 30 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 

requests to the Corps’ internal guidance on the use of continuing 

contracts. 

We performed our work between December 2005 and July 2006, in 

accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. 

Page 31 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix II: Characteristics of the Appendix II: Characteristics of the Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO

Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO 

This appendix provides additional characteristics of the continuing 

contracts awarded by the Corps during fiscal years 2003–2005 that we 

identified using the Corps’ contracting data in the Army’s Standard 

Procurement System. We summarize the 1,592 continuing contracts and 

include information on the total number of continuing contracts awarded 

by contract value and award date during this 3-year time frame. We also 

summarize the total number of continuing contracts awarded in each

division and district during fiscal years 2003–2005. 

According to the Corps’ contracting data for fiscal years 2003–2005, the 

contract values of 1,043 of 1,592 (over 65 percent) continuing contracts 

awarded were less than $1 million; only 64 of 1,592 (about 4 percent) of 

the contracts were for more than $10 million. Table 7 summarizes the full 

costs to the federal government for the 1,592 continuing contracts. 

Table 7: Total Number of Continuing Contracts Awarded by the Full Costs to the 

Federal Government, Fiscal Years 2003–2005 

Fiscal year

Contract value 2003 2004 2005 

Total number of

continuing contracts

≤ $1 million 464 386 193 1,043

> $1million and ≤ $5 million 161 149 98 408

> $5 million and ≤ $10 

million 28 26 23 77

> $10 million 16 22 26 64

Total 669 583 340 1,592

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data. 

Our analysis of the Corps’ contracting data indicates that 402 of 1,592 

(about 25 percent) of the continuing contracts awarded in fiscal years 

2003–2005 were fully funded within the fiscal year that they were awarded.

About half of these contracts were awarded in the first fiscal quarter while 

the Corps was under a continuing budget resolution authority and its final

appropriation was not yet known. We found another 66 contracts where a 

continuing contract was used to start a contract with no money. Table 8 

summarizes the total number of continuing contracts by the percentage of 

federal funds made available in the first year for continuing contracts 

awarded in fiscal years 2003–2005. 

Page 32 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix II: Characteristics of the 

Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO

Table 8: Total Number of Continuing Contracts by Percentage of Federal Funds 

Made Available in the First Year of the Contract, Fiscal Years 2003–2005 

Fiscal year

Percentage of federal funds made 

available in first year of continuing

contract 2003 2004 2005

Total number of

 continuing

contracts

0% 29 24 13 66

> 0 and ≤ 10 127 115 49 291

> 10 and ≤ 25 78 70 42 190

> 25 and ≤ 50 91 95 43 229

> 50 and ≤ 75 96 66 47 209

> 75 and < 100 81 82 42 205

100% 167 131 104 402

Total 669 583 340 1,592

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data. 

Note: Contracts with 100 percent of funds available in the first year were partially funded at award but

fully funded within the fiscal year they were awarded. 

According to the Corps’ contracting data for fiscal years 2003–2005, a large 

portion of each year’s appropriations was obligated to continuing 

contracts awarded in previous fiscal years. For example, in fiscal year 

2005, the Corps obligated more than $781 million to continuing contracts 

awarded in fiscal years 2003 and 2004. Figure 1 summarizes the Corps’ 

obligations by fiscal year for the 1,592 continuing contracts awarded 

during fiscal years 2003–2005. 

Page 33 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix II: Characteristics of the 

Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO

Figure 1: Obligations by Fiscal Year for Continuing Contracts Awarded, Fiscal 

Years 2003–2005 

According to the Corps’ contracting data for fiscal years 2003–2005, almost 

44 percent of the 1,592 continuing contracts were awarded during the 

fourth quarter of the fiscal year. Figure 2 summarizes the total number of 

continuing contracts awarded, by quarter, in fiscal years 2003–2005. 

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Fiscal Year 2003 Obligations Fiscal Year 2004 Obligations Fiscal Year 2005 Obligations

Dollars in millions

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data.

Contracts awarded in fiscal year 2005

Contracts awarded in fiscal year 2004

Contracts awarded in fiscal year 2003

Page 34 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix II: Characteristics of the 

Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO

Figure 2: Total Number of Continuing Contracts by Fiscal Quarter of Award, Fiscal 

Years 2003–2005 

According to the Corps’ contracting data for fiscal years 2003–2005, most 

of the commitments for continuing contracts came from the construction 

appropriations account. Table 9 summarizes the commitments for 

continuing contracts by appropriations accounts.

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

First Quarter Second Quarter Third Quarter Fourth Quarter

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data.

Number of continuing contracts

Fiscal year 2005

Fiscal year 2004

Fiscal year 2003

Page 35 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix II: Characteristics of the 

Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO

Table 9: Commitments for Continuing Contracts Made by Appropriations Account, 

Fiscal Years 2003–2005 

Dollars in millions 

Fiscal year 

Appropriations account 2003 2004 2005 Total

Construction $585 $923 $617 $2,125

Operation and maintenance 301 387 282 970

Flood control, Mississippi River and tributaries 103 62 105 269

Othera110 331 150 591

Total $1,099 $1,703 $1,154 $3,956

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data. 

Note: During the 3-year period, the Corps received an additional $170 million from nonfederal project

sponsors. 

a

The other account includes the following: investigations, flood control and coastal emergencies, 

regulatory programs, revolving funds, and the Inland Waterway Trust Fund. 

The construction appropriations account was the source for the largest 

number of continuing contracts awarded. Some continuing contracts 

received appropriations from more than one account. Table 10 

summarizes the total number of continuing contracts funded by each 

appropriations account.

Page 36 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix II: Characteristics of the 

Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO

Table 10: Total Number of Continuing Contracts by Appropriations Account, Fiscal 

Years 2003–2005 

Fiscal year

Appropriations accounts 2003 2004 2005 Total

b

Construction 276 250 129 655

Operation and maintenance 233 224 116 573

Flood control, Mississippi River and tributaries 76 41 37 154

Othera101 90 78 269

Total

b

686 605 360 1,651

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data. 

a

The other account includes the following: investigations, flood control and coastal emergencies, 

regulatory programs, revolving funds, and the Inland Waterway Trust Fund. 

b

Some continuing contracts received appropriations from more than one account and are included in 

more than one account. 

Of the Corps’ eight divisions, four divisions—Mississippi Valley, South 

Atlantic, Great Lakes, and Northwest—account for about 72 percent (and

over 66 percent of the value) of the 1,592 continuing contracts awarded 

during fiscal years 2003–2005. Table 11 summarizes the total number and 

full costs to the federal government of continuing contracts awarded by 

division. 

Page 37 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix II: Characteristics of the 

Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO

Table 11: Total Number and Full Costs to the Federal Government of Continuing Contracts Awarded by Division, Fiscal Years 

2003–2005 

Total number of continuing 

contracts Full costs to the federal government

Fiscal year Fiscal year 

Division 2003 2004 2005 Total 2003 2004 2005 Total

Mississippi Valley 148 120 70 338 $211,354,085 $200,471,639 $223,623,848 $635,449,572 

South Atlantic 133 101 57 291 256,418,689 277,679,098 171,286,604 705,384,392 

Great Lakes 105 98 62 265 66,341,407 776,307,678 250,408,627 1,093,057,712 

Northwest 111 98 48 257 75,881,917 112,441,841 95,168,247 283,492,005 

North Atlantic 59 63 32 154 93,427,779 108,228,554 126,398,547 328,054,880 

Southwest 61 51 37 149 109,168,860 76,430,950 181,682,768 367,282,578 

South Pacific 48 49 32 129 245,833,752 142,725,841 78,820,802 467,380,395 

Pacific Ocean 4 3 2 9 40,172,666 8,836,477 26,948,350 75,957,493 

Total 669 583 340 1,592 $1,098,599,154 $1,703,122,079 $1,154,337,793 $3,956,059,026

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data. 

All 38 of the Corps’ domestic districts awarded at least one continuing 

contract during fiscal years 2003–2005. Districts’ use of continuing 

contracts ranged from Honolulu’s 1 continuing contract to Jacksonville’s 

142 continuing contracts during the 3-year time frame. Table 12

summarizes the total number and full costs to the federal government of 

continuing contracts awarded by each district during fiscal years 2003–

2005. 

Page 38 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix II: Characteristics of the 

Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO

Table 12: Total Number and Full Costs to the Federal Government of Continuing Contracts Awarded by District, Fiscal Years 

2003–2005 

Total number of continuing 

contracts Full costs to the federal government

Fiscal year Fiscal year 

District 2003 2004 2005 Total 2003 2004 2005 Total

Jacksonville 65 51 26 142 $144,396,151 $142,584,020 $119,645,647 $406,625,819 

Vicksburg 50 22 22 94 88,066,978 30,913,686 61,997,017 180,977,681 

Memphis 31 31 20 82 48,249,456 70,903,673 63,557,543 182,710,673 

Walla Walla 32 36 12 80 13,152,231 27,424,601 5,103,979 45,680,811 

Portland 38 16 19 73 23,312,900 18,123,246 56,232,398 97,668,544 

Mobile 28 27 15 70 73,363,467 40,665,764 20,256,737 134,285,968 

Louisville 29 35 4 68 28,295,240 577,885,226 23,612,598 629,793,064 

Galveston 34 18 16 68 83,037,690 52,916,826 28,904,950 164,859,467 

New Orleans 34 24 9 67 33,500,736 11,153,745 23,279,233 67,933,714 

Sacramento 10 24 14 48 25,722,603 38,407,869 23,559,019 87,689,491 

Los Angeles 22 12 12 46 124,079,132 25,874,734 51,808,004 201,761,870 

Baltimore 15 18 11 44 16,114,744 31,392,195 35,984,641 83,491,580 

Little Rock 11 19 12 42 6,524,151 13,641,946 124,103,897 144,269,993 

St. Paul 15 19 8 42 21,314,700 54,179,480 28,469,738 103,963,918 

Huntington 20 12 9 41 7,015,273 30,287,886 39,103,622 76,406,781 

Kansas City 12 22 5 39 4,488,255 19,174,960 1,108,519 24,771,734 

St. Louis 14 20 5 39 19,525,371 28,502,106 5,191,377 53,218,854 

Wilmington 17 13 7 37 12,325,462 13,149,898 12,271,767 37,747,126 

Seattle 18 11 6 35 14,423,451 19,607,356 21,635,892 55,666,699 

Detroit 10 14 10 34 6,490,988 22,220,346 11,721,323 40,432,656 

Philadelphia 12 19 2 33 22,769,997 55,937,326 6,400,394 85,107,716 

Omaha 11 13 6 30 20,505,079 28,111,678 11,087,459 59,704,216 

Pittsburgh 18 8 5 31 9,738,860 103,453,306 21,205,797 134,397,963 

Nashville 10 8 13 31 2,735,434 10,692,771 103,378,174 116,806,379 

Chicago 9 10 11 30 9,040,432 27,298,298 41,616,047 77,954,777 

New England 9 11 10 30 10,387,794 4,141,081 5,202,937 19,731,812 

Buffalo 9 11 10 30 3,025,180 4,469,845 9,771,066 17,266,091 

New York 11 13 4 28 28,012,322 15,557,452 77,211,076 120,780,850 

Albuquerque 10 9 5 24 79,633,600 20,273,752 1,872,680 101,780,031 

Savannah 12 5 6 23 13,375,225 50,182,815 14,204,840 77,762,879 

Fort Worth 10 6 6 22 2,007,514 298,253 26,633,736 28,939,503 

Charleston 11 5 3 19 12,958,385 31,096,602 4,907,613 48,962,599 

Page 39 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix II: Characteristics of the 

Continuing Contracts Identified by GAO

Total number of continuing 

contracts Full costs to the federal government

Fiscal year Fiscal year 

District 2003 2004 2005 Total 2003 2004 2005 Total

Norfolk 12 2 5 19 16,142,922 1,200,500 1,599,499 18,942,921 

Tulsa 6 8 3 17 17,599,505 9,573,926 2,040,184 29,213,616 

Rock Island 4 4 6 14 696,843 4,818,950 41,128,939 46,644,733 

San Francisco 6 4 1 11 16,398,417 58,169,486 1,581,100 76,149,003 

Alaska 3 3 2 8 40,047,170 8,836,477 26,948,350 75,831,997 

Honolulu 1 0 0 1 125,496 0 0 125,496 

Total 669 583 340 1,592 $1,098,599,154 $1,703,122,079 $1,154,337,793 $3,956,059,026

Source: GAO analysis of Corps contracting data. 

Page 40 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix III: Comments from the Department Appendix III: Comments from the of Defense 

Department of Defense 

Page 41 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 42 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix III: Comments from the Department 

of Defense 

Page 43 GAO-06-966 Corps' Continuing Contracts
Appendix IV: 

A

GAO Contact and Staff 

cknowledgments 

Page 44 GAO-06-966

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff 

Acknowledgments 

GAO Contact Anu K. Mittal (202) 512-3841 

In addition to the individual named above, Edward Zadjura, Assistant 

Director; Lisa Berardi; Brandon Booth; Diana Cheng Goody; Joel 

Grossman; Ken Lightner; John Mingus; Alison O’Neill; and Barbara 

Timmerman made key contributions to this report. Also contributing to 

this report were Thomas Armstrong, Christine Bonham, Molly Boyle, 

Doreen Feldman, Cynthia Norris, and Amelia Shachoy. 

Corps' Continuing Contracts

Staff 

Acknowledgments 

(360631) 
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