**GAO-04-987R**                      Published: Aug 05, 2004. Publicly Released: Sep 07, 2004.                  

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## Highlights

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Lawrence Berkeley) located in Berkeley, California, is a government-owned, contractor-operated Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory. The University of California manages the lab under a cost-reimbursable contract with DOE. The university is paid a management fee to operate the lab and is reimbursed for all allowable costs charged to the contract. During the fall of 2002, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began investigating two Los Alamos National Laboratory employees for alleged misuse of lab credit cards. Other allegations of theft and misuse of government funds at Los Alamos soon followed. In light of the problems identified at Los Alamos, Congress asked us to review selected procurement and property management practices at two NNSA and two DOE contractor labs, including Lawrence Berkeley. This report summarizes the information provided during our June 14, 2004 briefing to GAO's staff on these issues as they relate to Lawrence Berkeley. Specifically, we reviewed Lawrence Berkeley's purchase card program and property management practices to determine whether (1) internal controls over the lab's purchase card (Pcard) program provided reasonable assurance that improper purchases would not occur or would be detected in the normal course of business, (2) purchase card expenditures made under the contract properly complied with lab policies and other applicable requirements and were reasonable in nature and amount and thus were allowable costs payable to the contractor under the contract, and (3) property controls over selected asset acquisitions provided reasonable assurance that accountable assets would be properly recorded and tracked. Our review covered selected transactions that occurred during fiscal year 2002 and the first half of fiscal year 2003 (October 1, 2001, through March 31, 2003), which were the most current data available when we requested the data for our review.

## Recommendations

## Recommendations for Executive Action

See All 7 Recommendations

## Full Report

Full Report (57 pages)

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## Topics

Government Operations

Credit salesFederal procurementFraudGOCOInternal controlsInventory controlLaboratoriesProcurement recordsProgram abusesProperty and supply managementQuestionable procurement charges