National Transportation Safety Board: Use of Competitive and Noncompetitive Contract Awards to Acquire Products and Services

Summary

What GAO Found The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigates and determines the probable cause of transportation accidents in the United States, among other responsibilities, thus playing a vital role in advancing transportation safety. To support its mission, NTSB procures a variety of products (e.g., laboratory equipment) and services (e.g., services to develop and maintain systems and applications used to investigate accidents). NTSB is generally required to promote full and open competition in awarding contracts. However, in some cases, NTSB may award contracts through noncompetitive procedures. According to NTSB officials, the agency awards contracts pursuant to applicable statutes, federal regulations, executive orders, and internal guidance. NTSB’s policies and procedures for contracts include multiple reviews. Additional reviews or senior-level approvals are required for noncompetitive contract awards valued over $100,000 and for competitive contract awards valued over $500,000. In response to a February 2025 executive order, NTSB changed its policies to include that all new NTSB contract requirements with a value greater than $100,000 are approved by NTSB’s Chairwoman prior to awarding a contract, unless approval has been delegated to NTSB’s Managing Director. For fiscal years 2020 through 2024, NTSB obligated a total of about $86 million on awarded contracts, adjusted for inflation to fiscal year 2024 dollars. About 84 percent of these obligations were on competitively awarded contracts and about 16 percent were on noncompetitively awarded contracts. Obligations on competitively awarded contracts nearly doubled from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2024, from about $10 million in fiscal year 2020 to nearly $20 million in fiscal year 2024. NTSB officials attributed most of the increase in obligations on competitively awarded contracts to increased investments in information technology products and services. According to NTSB officials, these investments have allowed NTSB to improve investigation timeliness and to meet congressional expectations for efficient data and knowledge sharing. Obligations on noncompetitively awarded contracts also increased, though slightly, rising from about $2.5 million to about $2.6 million over that same time frame. National Transportation Safety Board’s Obligations on Competitively and Noncompetitively Awarded Contracts, Fiscal Years 2020–2024 Why GAO Did This Study The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 includes a provision for GAO to review NTSB’s procurement and contracting planning, policies, and practices. This report describes NTSB’s policies and procedures for competitively and noncompetitively awarded contracts and provides information on NTSB’s obligations on awarded contracts for fiscal year 2020 through fiscal year 2024. GAO reviewed NTSB’s contract obligation data for fiscal year 2020 through fiscal year 2024, the most recent years of complete data available at the time of GAO’s analysis. GAO downloaded the data from the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), as of September 25, 2025, and determined that FPDS’s obligation data were sufficiently reliable for GAO’s purposes of describing NTSB’s obligations on awarded contracts. GAO also reviewed statutes, regulations, an executive order, and guidance documents governing NTSB’s contracting activities and interviewed NTSB officials about (1) contracting policies and procedures and (2) the reasons for obligation changes over time. For more information, contact Derrick Collins at CollinsD@gao.gov.