Advances in science and technology are widely seen as responsible for much of the economic growth and increased standard of living in modern societies. NIST, a nonregulatory agency within Commerce, plays a lead role in promoting innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology. The new technologies that will shape life in the 21st century—including nanotechnology, information technology, and advanced manufacturing—rely, in part, on NIST-developed tools to measure, evaluate, and standardize materials and processes. The work conducted at NIST underlies much of our nation’s business and public infrastructure, from helping to ensure the quality of air and water to helping to ensure the security of online financial transactions. Fundamental to NIST’s ability to sustain these contributions is the quality of the almost 3,000 scientists who work there, including 3 Nobel Laureates, and the many visiting researchers who come to use NIST’s specialized measurement facilities. In 2007, the COMPETES Act granted NIST the authority to “procure” the temporary services of experts or consultants to supplement its workforce for urgent or short-term projects. This authority allows NIST to procure the services of up to 200 experts or consultants per year. The act further requires NIST to obtain these services in accordance with 5 U.S.C. § 3109(b), which grants an agency the authority to “procure by contract” the temporary (not to exceed 1 year) or intermittent services of experts or consultants. Under section 3109(d), OPM is required to prescribe regulations necessary to administer this section, including setting the criteria for the appropriate circumstances in which to employ an expert or consultant and the criteria for setting the pay of experts and consultants under this section. OPM’s regulations on expert and consultant appointments appear at 5 C.F.R. part 304. Obtaining personal services from individuals or organizations by contract, rather than by appointment, is generally prohibited unless specifically authorized by statute, such as 5 U.S.C. § 3109. Agencies that have such statutory authorization may use 5 U.S.C. § 3109 as a contracting authority and apply FAR procedures, rather than OPM regulations, when awarding contracts to procure personal services from organizations. Additionally, agencies that have such statutory authorization may use 5 U.S.C. § 3109 to appoint individual experts or consultants as temporary federal employees in accordance with OPM regulations. The law is unsettled, however, on the extent to which 5 U.S.C. § 3109 permits agencies to award procurement contracts in accordance with the FAR when they obtain the personal services of individual experts. Although the FAR permits the use of a contract to obtain the personal services of individual experts, the text of 5 U.S.C. § 3109 may imply that these services should be obtained through appointment. As we have previously noted and as described in more detail in table 1, a personal services contract is characterized by the close working relationship that is established between the agency and the contractor. To date, NIST has used its authority under 5 U.S.C. § 3109 to award personal services contracts to individuals. Within NIST, the Acquisition Management Division is responsible for managing, overseeing, and supporting NIST’s procurement operations, including personal services contracts, and for advising agency staff on acquisition strategies. NIST’s contracting officials are also responsible for ensuring that all acquisitions of goods and services are in compliance with various federal laws, regulations, and policies governing procurement operations and procedures. When a laboratory needs expert services, subject matter experts—called technical information contacts—work with the laboratory director to prepare a request for a personal services contract that describes the work to be performed and the expertise needed. This request is then reviewed by a contracting officer technical representative and NIST’s contracting officials prior to approval. From August 2007 through April 2009, NIST had awarded 39 contracts to obtain the services of individual experts to assist with a variety of urgent or short-term research projects. According to agency officials, NIST initially restricted the use of the authority to the services of experts and not consultants, in part, because of concerns that the historical demand for consultants from its laboratories had averaged about 200 per year and, therefore, might exceed the limit of 200 set by the COMPETES Act. NIST officials said the agency had not used the authority more extensively, in part, because it had been operating at a reduced funding level for much of the time that it has had the authority. In addition, NIST officials said that they will develop a plan to allocate the 200 contracts among the laboratories if the demand increases. As of April 30, 2009, work under 16 of the contracts had been completed, work under 22 contracts was ongoing, and 1 contract was canceled at the request of the contractor prior to any payment being made. The 38 contracts that NIST funded totaled about $1.9 million. All but 3 of the 38 contracts were valued at $100,000 or less (see fig. 1). The awards averaged $50,754 and ranged from $7,492 to $114,033. All 38 contracts were firm fixed-price contracts. Award amounts covered the costs of purchasing a specified number of the experts’ labor hours, and 9 contracts also included from $2,500 to $10,000 for the experts to attend professional conferences or conduct other travel related to their research. None of the 38 contracts that NIST funded exceeded the statutory limit of 1 year in duration. The number of hours purchased averaged 939 hours per contract and ranged from 149 hours to 2,080 hours (see fig. 2). According to NIST officials, 2,080 hours translates to the agency’s definition of 1 full- time equivalent (FTE)—that is, the number of hours worked by an employee during the course of a year. Six of the seven NIST laboratories requested the 38 contracts that NIST funded, as shown in figure 3. Four laboratories—the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory, Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory, Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory, and Physics Laboratory—awarded 32 of the funded contracts, and 2 laboratories—the Building and Fire Research Laboratory and Information Technology Laboratory—each awarded 3 of the funded contracts. An additional contract awarded by the seventh NIST laboratory, the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory, was canceled at the request of the contractor prior to any payment being made. NIST awarded contracts to acquire the services of 32 experts in fiscal year 2008 and 6 experts through the end of April in fiscal year 2009 (see table 2). The 29,208 hours acquired in fiscal year 2008 translates to approximately 14 FTEs. The Physics Laboratory made the most use of this authority, awarding 8 contracts in fiscal year 2008 totaling about $500,000. The 9,392 hours acquired by the laboratory translated to about 4.5 FTEs. Although data for fiscal year 2009 are preliminary, the apparent drop in the use of the COMPETES Act authority compared with the previous year is the result of NIST operating under a continuing resolution during the first half of fiscal year 2009 and does not reflect a declining need for the authority, according to agency officials. In fiscal year 2008, the hours of expert services that the six NIST laboratories procured under the COMPETES Act authority supplemented their federal staff resources by about 1 percent (see table 3). Similarly, the dollar amount of these awards totaled less than 1 percent of the approximately $254 million budget for the laboratories in fiscal year 2008. Thirty-five of the 38 contracts that NIST funded using the COMPETES Act authority were awarded to experts who had at least some prior experience in working with the agency. More specifically, we found that 25 of the contractors were former NIST employees, many of whom had worked for the agency for more than 20 years. An additional 10 experts had worked at NIST as guest researchers or contractors. The remaining 3 contract experts either had no prior federal experience or had worked at other federal agencies. In general, for the 38 contracts that NIST funded, the contract experts designed and conducted experiments, analyzed data, and delivered the results of their work in reports that are expected to meet NIST’s standards for publication in a professional journal. The research projects that these experts assisted with served a variety of purposes, such as a study of the characteristics of various types of lighting sources and retro- reflective materials that are used for traffic sign materials and road markings; the development of standard methods to assess the flammability of materials in upholstered furniture, which were needed in setting regulations designed to reduce the risk of fire spread in buildings; and an analysis to help develop cryptographic and information technology security standards and guidelines. NIST officials identified a number of benefits of the agency’s COMPETES Act authority in meeting urgent and short-term needs for the services of experts. NIST officials also stated that despite limits on this authority, their ability to perform high-quality research in the future will be hampered if this authority is not extended. According to NIST officials, the COMPETES Act authority has been highly effective in helping the agency meet urgent and short-term needs for the services of experts. Although NIST laboratory officials noted that they do not have any formal metrics to measure the effectiveness of the personal services contracts they have awarded using this authority, they cited the following five benefits that enhanced the laboratories’ ability to conduct research. First, NIST officials stated that research rarely follows a direct path and is often dependent on the results of individual experiments. Laboratory officials told us that the employer-employee relationship created by a personal services contract provides NIST with the flexibility to redirect the research as needed to quickly respond to new and potentially fruitful developments, and that this relationship is critical to maintaining the pace of research progress.