Board Report: 2014-AE-B-007 March 31, 2014
To accomplish our objectives, we reviewed the KCCT contract and associated modifications, as well as relevant documentation regarding how construction cost estimates are developed, including the estimates that URS and KCCT submitted to the Board. In addition, we reviewed documentation from the RSMeans Historical Cost Indexes, the Bureau of Labor Statistics Producer Price Index, and CSI.
We reviewed the Public Buildings Act of 1959, FAR Part 36, the Board’s Records Policy and Procedure Manual, GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide, and GSA P-120. We also reviewed relevant reports from GAO and the GSA OIG, as well as our prior report on the Martin Building.
We interviewed personnel from the Board’s Management Division, specifically officials from the Martin Building project team. We also interviewed personnel in another government agency familiar with the cost estimation process in the federal government.
The scope of our audit included the Martin Building project team’s $179.9 million construction cost estimate, which the project team presented to the CBA on September 18, 2012. We assessed whether selected aspects of the $179.9 million estimate were accurate, and we assessed whether the supporting documentation substantiated the cost estimate by recalculating selected aspects using the project team’s methods and figures. We assessed the Board’s calculation of contingencies, escalations, and mark-ups, as well as the Board’s calculation associated with its selection of the nonphased approach. We also reviewed the Board’s contract and applicable modifications for cost-control mechanisms. We conducted our initial fieldwork from April 2013 to August 2013, and we conducted follow-on fieldwork from November 2013 to January 2014 based on additional information submitted by the project team.
We conducted this performance audit in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
