ANSCA created 12 regional ANCs, each representing a region of Alaska, and a 13th corporation for Alaska Natives living outside Alaska. There are also 182 village, urban, and group corporations located within the 12 regions. In most cases, the regional corporations received a mixture of surface and subsurface rights to land while the village, urban, or group corporations received only surface rights. Some village corporations opted out of the ANCSA settlement to receive surface and subsurface rights to their former reservation lands and relinquished all ANSCA benefits, including claims to additional land, monetary payments, or shares of stock in a regional corporation. Additionally, in some cases, village corporations merged with each other or with the regional corporation. The legislative history of ANSCA is focused on economic development for the benefit of Alaska Natives. Each eligible Alaska Native is generally entitled to membership both in the corporation established for his or her village and in the regional corporation in which the village is located. As shareholders, Alaska Natives are entitled to a voice in the management of and a share in the lands, assets, and income as decided by the board of directors of the corporations, which own and manage the land and money. ANCSA implemented restrictions that generally allow original shareholders to transfer shares only under certain circumstances, such as divorce or through a gift or a will. Additionally, four of the 30 corporations we reviewed have chosen to issue new stock to descendants of the original shareholders or those who did not have the opportunity to enroll as a shareholder originally. ANCs vary widely in number of shareholders and profitability. Table 2 illustrates some examples. For ANC firms in the 8(a) program, SBA has specific oversight responsibility for accepting the firm into the 8(a) program, which includes ensuring that the ANC does not have more than one 8(a) firm in the same primary line of business, defined by a North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code; verifying each firm’s size status to ensure that it qualifies as small under the NAICS code assigned to the procurement; and annually reviewing 8(a) firms to track their progress in the 8(a) program. There is a 9-year limit to participation in the 8(a) program, and firms— including ANC firms—are required to obtain a certain percentage of non- 8(a) revenue during the last five years to demonstrate their progress in developing a viable business that is not reliant on the 8(a) program. SBA’s district offices are responsible for tracking the business mix of 8(a) and non-8(a) revenue on an annual basis. If a firm does not meet its required business mix during one of the last five years, SBA invokes a plan of remedial action for the next year, in which the firm reports to SBA its progress toward compliance with the required business mix. Until the required mix is demonstrated, the firm will not be eligible for sole-source 8(a) contracts. Currently there are over 9,400 firms in the 8(a) program. From fiscal year 2000 to 2004, the federal government obligated a total of about $4.6 billion to ANC firms, of which $2.9 billion, or 63 percent, went through the 8(a) program. About 13 percent of total 8(a) dollars were obligated to ANC firms in fiscal year 2004. Further, from fiscal year 2000 to 2004, sole-source awards accounted for 77 percent of ANC 8(a) contracts for the six agencies in our trend analysis. The sole-source 8(a) contracts that we reviewed demonstrate the wide diversity of services provided by ANC firms worldwide. Our analysis, based on FPDS data, shows that federal dollars obligated to ANC firms through the 8(a) program grew from $265 million in fiscal year 2000 to $1.1 billion in 2004, with a noticeable increase in 2003. Over the 5-year period, about 63 percent of the government’s obligations to ANC firms went through the 8(a) program. Figure 2 shows the breakdown between 8(a) and non-8(a) dollars obligated to ANC firms. We also analyzed the percentage of total 8(a) dollars obligated to ANC firms from fiscal years 2000 to 2004. Total obligations to all 8(a) firms grew from about $5.8 billion in fiscal year 2000 to about $8.4 billion in fiscal year 2004. The percentage obligated to 8(a) ANC firms grew from about 5 percent to about 13 percent during this time period. Whereas obligations to 8(a) ANC firms decreased only slightly between fiscal years 2003 and 2004, dollars obligated to other 8(a) firms decreased by almost $2 billion during that same time frame. SBA officials could not explain the decrease. Figure 3 depicts this trend. For the six agencies included in our 8(a) trend analysis, sole-source obligations to ANC firms increased from about $180 million in fiscal year 2000 to almost $876 million in fiscal year 2004. Over the five-year period, sole-source obligations represented about 77 percent of these agencies’ total obligations to 8(a) ANC firms. Figure 4 depicts the trend in 8(a) sole-source obligations to ANC firms for the six agencies. In recent years, ANC firms have performed a wide variety of services for the federal government, spanning 18 broad industries, across the United States and overseas. The services included facilities support services; construction; professional, scientific, and technical services; information technology services; and manufacturing. Our review of selected large sole- source 8(a) contracts further demonstrates the wide diversity of services provided by ANC firms, as shown in table 3. Chugach Management Services, Inc. Chugach Management Services, Inc. ASRC Airfield & Range Services, Inc. Ahtna Technical Services, Inc. Ahtna Technical Services, Inc. Field Support Services, Inc. KUK/KBRS Global, a joint venture between Kuk Construction LLC and Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. Washington D.C. Bowhead Information Technology Services, Inc. Washington D.C. Bowhead Support Services, a division of Bowhead Transportation Company, Inc. In general, acquisition officials at the agencies we reviewed told us that the option of using ANC firms under the 8(a) program allows them to quickly, easily, and legally award contracts for any value. They also pointed out that awarding 8(a) contracts to ANC firms helps agencies meet their small business goals. Our review of 16 large sole-source contracts found that contracting officials had not always complied with requirements to notify SBA when modifying contracts, such as increasing the scope of work or the dollar value, and to monitor the percentage of the work performed by 8(a) firms versus their subcontractors. Agency officials told us that awarding sole-source contracts to 8(a) ANC firms is an easy and expedient method of meeting time-sensitive requirements. Some examples follow. An Army contracting official told us that his agency’s limited contracting staff was the primary reason his office awarded an 8(a) sole-source contract to an ANC firm for base operations support. The official added that this contract had been competitively awarded three times previously to large businesses, but in 1999 his office decided it did not have the staff to administer another full and open competition. Another Army official commented that she had to fill an urgent requirement for water and fuel tanks in support of the war in Iraq. Rather than directly award to a large manufacturer, which would require a justification and approval process for a sole-source award, the contract went sole source to an 8(a) ANC firm as a quicker acquisition strategy given the time-sensitive nature of the requirement. An e-mail in the contract file from a NASA official remarked that a sole- source award to an ANC firm would save much time as opposed to having to work through a competitive process, since the office was running short on available staff. Another NASA official stated that the additional resources needed to run a competitive procurement would likely negate any monetary savings that might be gained through competition. Another contracting official told us that it was the “unofficial” policy in his organization that for urgent requirements over the competitive limits for other 8(a) firms, an ANC firm is sought out. He described contracting with ANC firms as an “open checkbook” since sole-source awards can be made for any dollar amount. We found one example, however, where the process of awarding to an 8(a) ANC firm was not particularly expedient. An ANC firm proposed a price for a State Department construction contract that was almost twice as much as the government’s original cost estimate. The State Department negotiated extensively for over a month, requesting four different price proposals from the contractor. At one point, the contracting office considered terminating the solicitation and awarding competitively to a prequalified firm, but due to time constraints the department decided to accept the ANC firm’s final proposal, which was still slightly over the government’s estimate. In another example from our file review, the Interior Department’s GovWorks awarded a sole-source 8(a) contract on behalf of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Counter Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA) to an ANC firm. The contract was primarily to consolidate and co-locate the space available for contractor personnel, but also included some work to oversee construction and facilities program management. This contractor, which specialized in information technology services, told us it had been approached by CIFA for this project because it had successfully obtained space for another government agency. When awarding the contract, GovWorks did not consider any alternatives other than sole- source contracting with the ANC firm because CIFA had requested that firm. Contractor officials told us that the cost of the office space was incidental to a larger project for CIFA, yet we found that over 80 percent of the contract price was for the space.