The Commission on Civil Rights is a fact-finding federal agency required to report on civil rights issues. Established by the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the Commission is currently directed by eight part-time commissioners and employs approximately 70 staff members in fiscal year 2003. The Commission’s annual appropriation has averaged approximately $9 million since fiscal year 1995. The eight commissioners have a number of responsibilities, including investigating claims of voting rights violations and studying and disseminating information, often collected during specific projects, on the impact of federal civil rights laws and policies. Commissioners serve 6-year terms, and they are appointed on a staggered basis. Four commissioners are appointed by the President, two by the president pro tempore of the Senate, and two by the speaker of the House of Representatives. No more than four commissioners can be of the same political party. The Commission accomplishes its mission by (1) investigating charges of citizens being deprived of voting rights because of color, race, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin; (2) collecting and studying information concerning legal developments on voting rights; (3) appraising federal laws and policies with respect to discrimination or denial of equal protection of the laws; (4) serving as a national clearinghouse for information; and (5) preparing public service announcements and advertising campaigns on civil rights issues. The Commission may hold hearings and, within specific guidelines, issue subpoenas to obtain certain records and have witnesses appear at hearings. The Commission must submit at least one report annually to the President and the Congress that monitors federal civil rights enforcement in the United States, and such other reports as deemed appropriate by the Commission, the President, or the Congress. For instance in 2002, the Commission issued a report that evaluated the civil rights activities of the Departments of Justice, Labor, and Transportation and another on election reform. The Commission is also authorized to investigate individual allegations of voting rights discrimination. However, because it lacks enforcement powers that would enable it to apply remedies in individual cases, the Commission refers specific complaints it receives to the appropriate federal, state, or local government agency for action. A staff director, who is appointed by the President with the concurrence of a majority of the commissioners, oversees the day-to-day operations of the Commission and manages the staff in its six regional offices and Washington, D.C., headquarters. The Commission also has 51 State Advisory Committees—1 for each state and the District of Columbia. Each committee is composed of citizens familiar with local and state civil rights issues. The members serve without compensation and assist the Commission with its fact-finding, investigative, and information dissemination functions. In 1997, we reported that the management of the Commission’s operations lacked control and coordination. Among other findings, we found that projects lacked sufficient documentation, project monitoring to detect budget delays or overruns was not systematic, and little coordination took place among offices within the Commission to approve and disseminate reports. Moreover, senior officials were unaware of how Commission funds were used and lacked control over key management functions, making the Commission’s resources vulnerable to misuse. We reported that key records had been lost, misplaced, or were nonexistent, leaving insufficient data to accurately portray Commission operations. Centralized agency spending data resulted in Commission officials being unable to provide costs for individual offices or functions. We also found in 1997 that the Commission had never requested any audits of its operations, and information regarding Commission audits in its fiscal year 1996 report on internal controls was misleading. The Commission also had not updated administrative guidance to reflect a major reorganization that occurred in 1986. We recommended that the Commission develop and document its policies and procedures to assign responsibility for management functions to the staff director and other Commission officials and provide mechanisms for holding them accountable for proper management of Commission operations. The FAR, established to codify uniform policies and procedures for acquisition by executive agencies, applies to acquisitions of supplies and services made by federal executive agencies—including the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights—with appropriated funds. The FAR contains procedures for awarding both competitive and sole-source contracts and selecting contracting officers. The FAR calls for federal agencies to promote competition to the maximum extent practicable when making purchases using simplified acquisition procedures.In 1994, Congress authorized the use of simplified acquisition procedures for acquisitions not exceeding $100,000. Under those procedures, agency officials may, among other things, select contractors using expedited evaluation and selection procedures and are permitted to keep documentation to a minimum. In 1996, Congress authorized a test program that permits federal agencies to use simplified acquisition procedures for commercial items not exceeding $5 million.The authority to issue solicitations under this test program is set to expire on January 1, 2004. When they award on a sole-source basis, contracting officers are required by regulations to prepare a written justification explaining the absence of competition. The regulations also generally require public notices of proposed sole-source awards. Further, contracting officers must determine that the price of a sole-source award is reasonable. This determination may be based on evidence such as (1) market research, (2) current price lists or catalogs, (3) a comparison with similar items in related industry, or (4) a comparison to an independent government cost estimate. Under the Federal Supply Schedule, the General Services Administration (GSA) awards contracts to several companies supplying comparable products and services. These contracts can then be used by any federal agency to purchase products and services. As a general rule, the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 requires that orders under the Federal Supply Schedule result in the lowest overall cost alternative to meet the needs of the agency. The FAR and GSA procedures generally require agencies to compare schedule offerings of multiple vendors in arriving at an award decision. The Commission has established a set of project management procedures for commissioners and staff to follow when they plan, implement, and report the results of approved Commission projects. However, the procedures lack certain key elements of good project management that are reflected in federal internal control and budget preparation guidance. For example, commissioners do not generally receive updates about certain project cost information. Commissioners, in practice, make many planning decisions with little or no discussion of project costs, which can eventually contribute to problems such as delayed products and lower- quality products if too many projects are undertaken. Additionally, Commission procedures do not provide for systematic commissioner input throughout projects. In practice, commissioners do not always have the opportunity to review many of the reports and other products drafted by Commission staff before products are released to the public, which serves to significantly reduce the opportunity for commissioners to help shape a report’s findings, recommendations, and policy implications of civil rights issues. The Commission has made a number of improvements in project management since our 1997 review. For example, the Commission has revised and established policies that clarify the roles of the staff director and senior Commission staff such as the assistant staff director of the Office of Civil Rights Evaluation (OCRE) and the general counsel in the Office of the General Counsel (OGC), both of whom report directly to the staff director. These three key Commission officials are responsible for carrying out the policies established by the eight commissioners and for directly overseeing and managing virtually all headquarters projects that result in Commission products. See figure 1 for an abbreviated organization chart that shows the reporting relationship between commissioners, the staff director, and senior Commission staff. Commissioners (8) In addition to clarified roles of the staff director and senior Commission staff, the chief of the Budget and Finance Division now regularly provides the staff director with spending data by office and function. This detailed information enables the staff director to track the status of the Commission’s expenditures by organizational component at headquarters and field offices. Senior Commission staff and the project team leaders we interviewed were also using various project management procedures to meet target deadlines. For example, the assistant staff director, OCRE, and the deputy general counsel, OGC, were using a combination of techniques to ensure that project deadlines were met. These techniques included weekly meetings with staff, weekly or monthly reports from staff, and computer- generated schedules to monitor large, complex projects and smaller projects. Moreover, all project team leaders were routinely monitoring their assigned projects to ensure that projects stayed on schedule. Our review determined that the Commission’s project management procedures allow commissioners, the staff director, senior Commission staff, and project team leaders to manage long-range projects that take a year or longer to complete as well as time-critical projects that take several months or weeks to complete. The Commission chairperson, who was also chairperson in 1997, is of the opinion that Commission projects and products in fiscal year 2002 and later were generally timelier than those products discussed in our 1997 report and testimony. Table 1 summarizes the number of Commission products issued during fiscal year 2002 by Commission office and by type of product. Appendix I provides details about project names and product titles produced during fiscal year 2002 by those offices that generate headquarters Commission products that result from commissioner-approved projects: the Office of Civil Rights Evaluation, the Office of General Counsel, and the Office of the Staff Director (OSD). In addition, some fiscal year 2002 projects will generate products in future years. Appendix II lists the number of products, by type of product, issued or expected to be issued after fiscal year 2002 from projects that were ongoing during fiscal year 2002. Commission procedures do not provide for commissioners and senior Commission staff to systematically receive project cost information— primarily staff time charges—to help commissioners and senior staff plan and monitor projects. Commissioners continue to approve the majority of projects and products each year without having any specific information on how much the project will cost, or how much similar projects have cost in past years. Both federal government guidance and private sector project management specialists emphasize the importance of top-level reviews of actual performance. Feedback about actual project performance, including costs, is basic information essential for sound planning and allocation of scarce staff and other dollar resources. Without specific estimates of how much staff time will be spent and how much the project and its products will cost, Commission planning will continue to be conducted without key information.