[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 31 (Friday, February 14, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 8969-8970]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-03338]


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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

[OMB Control No. 9000-0034; Docket 2013-0077; Sequence 1]


Federal Acquisition Regulation; Submission for OMB Review; 
Examination of Records by Comptroller General and Contract Audit

AGENCY: Department of Defense (DOD), General Services Administration 
(GSA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

ACTION: Notice of request for public comments regarding an extension to 
an existing OMB clearance.

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SUMMARY: Under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act, the 
Regulatory Secretariat will be submitting to the Office of Management 
and Budget (OMB) a request to review and approve an extension of a 
previously approved information collection requirement concerning the 
examination of records by comptroller general and contract audit. A 
notice was published in the Federal Register at 78 FR 42074, on July 
16, 2013. No comments were received.

DATES: Submit comments on or before March 17, 2014.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments identified by Information Collection 9000-
0034 by any of the following methods:
     Regulations.gov: http://www.regulations.gov. Submit 
comments via the Federal eRulemaking portal by searching for OMB 
Control No. 9000-0034. Select the link ``Comment Now'' that corresponds 
with ``Information Collection 9000-0034, Examination of Records by 
Comptroller General and Contract Audit.'' Follow the instructions 
provided on the screen. Please include your name, company name (if 
any), and ``Information Collection 9000-0034, Examination of Records by 
Comptroller General and Contract Audit'' on your attached document.
     Fax: 202-501-4067.
     Mail: General Services Administration, Regulatory 
Secretariat

[[Page 8970]]

(MVCB), 1800 F Street NW., Washington, DC 20405. ATTN: Ms. Flowers/IC 
9000-0034, Examination of Records by Comptroller General and Contract 
Audit.
    Instructions: Please submit comments only and cite Information 
Collection 9000-0034, in all correspondence related to this collection. 
Submit comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of 
this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this 
burden to: FAR Desk Officer, OMB, Room 10102, NEOB, Washington, DC 
20503. All comments received will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal and/or business 
confidential information provided.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Michael O. Jackson, Procurement 
Analyst, Contract Policy Branch, GSA, 202-208-4949 or email 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

A. Purpose

    The objective of this information collection, for the examination 
of records by Comptroller General and contract audit, is to require 
contractors to maintain certain records and to ensure the Comptroller 
General and/or agency have access to, and the right to, examine and 
audit records, which includes: books, documents, accounting procedures 
and practices, and other data, regardless of type and regardless of 
whether such items are in written form, in the form of computer data, 
or in any other form, for a period of three years after final payment. 
This information is necessary for examination and audit of contract 
surveillance, verification of contract pricing, and to provide 
reimbursement of contractor costs, where applicable. The records 
retention period is required by the statutory authorities at 10 U.S.C. 
2313, 41 U.S.C. 254, and 10 U.S.C. 2306, and are implemented through 
the following clauses: Audit and Records--Negotiation clause, 52.215-2; 
Contract Terms and Conditions Required to Implement Statutes or 
Executive Orders--Commercial Items clause, 52.212-5; and Audit and 
Records--Sealed Bidding clause, 52.214-26. This information collection 
does not require contractors to create or maintain any records that the 
contractor does not normally maintain in its usual course of business.

B. Annual Reporting Burden

    For this information collection requirement, data from Fiscal Year 
(FY) 2012 was retrieved from the Federal Procurement Data System--Next 
Generation (FPDS-NG).
    The parameters for this information collection were based on the 
prescription from each of the applicable clauses. Resulting from a 
thorough review of each clause prescription, it was determined that the 
type of contracts associated with this information collection are: 
Negotiated awards over the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) using 
commercial procedures; Negotiated awards over the SAT using other than 
commercial procedures; and, Sealed bid awards over $700,000. For 
negotiated awards over the SAT using commercial procedures, FPDS-NG 
shows 18,709 contracts (7,797 of those were awarded to unique vendors). 
For negotiated awards over the SAT using other than commercial 
procedures, FPDS-NG shows 14,085 contracts (6,731 of those were awarded 
to unique vendors). For sealed bid awards over $700,000, FPDS-NG shows 
1,602 contracts (809 of those were awarded to unique vendors). This 
equates to a total of 34,396 total actions and a total of 15,337 unique 
vendors after you drill down the 34,396 actions looking only for the 
unique Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) number. The 15,337 
actions will be used as the number of estimated respondents per year. 
It is estimated that the number or responses per respondent is ten. 
This is derived by dividing the number of contract actions by the 
number of unique vendors (2.2 contracts), plus an average of three 
subcontracts per contract (considering the applicable clauses flows 
down to subcontractors). It is further estimated that the time required 
to read and prepare a response is 60 minutes.
    Respondents: 15,337.
    Responses per Respondent: 10.
    Total Number of Responses: 153,370.
    Hours per Response: 1.0.
    Total Burden Hours: 153,370.

The 153,370 burden hours represent a significant increase over the 
63,934 hours that was published in the information collection notice in 
the Federal Register at 75 FR 10268 on March 5, 2010, due to the 
increase in the estimated hours per response, by fifty minutes, from 
ten minutes to 1 hour.

C. Public Comments

    Public comments are particularly invited on: Whether this 
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of 
functions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), and whether it 
will have practical utility; whether our estimate of the public burden 
of this collection of information is accurate, and based on valid 
assumptions and methodology and ways to enhance the quality, utility, 
and clarity of the information to be collected.
    Obtaining Copies of Proposals: Requesters may obtain a copy of the 
information collection documents from the General Services 
Administration, Regulatory Secretariat (MVCB), 1800 F Street NW., 
Washington, DC 20405, telephone 202-501-4755. Please cite OMB Control 
Number 9000-0034, Examination of Records by Comptroller General and 
Contract Audit, in all correspondence.

    Dated: February 10, 2014.
Karlos Morgan,
Acting Director, Federal Acquisition Policy, Office of Governmentwide 
Acquisition Policy, Office of Acquisition Policy, Office of 
Governmentwide Policy.
[FR Doc. 2014-03338 Filed 2-13-14; 8:45 am]
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