Carol Leonnig at the Washington Post wrote a great article over the weekend that gets further into the weeds on contracting problems at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under former Sec. Jackson. Leonnig profiles three small businesses that received huge jumps in the size of federal contracts they received over the last five or so years, often times despite objections of career contracting officers. It appears awarding contracts as political favors might have extended well beyond Jackson to many other high ranking officials at HUD: Federal investigators are still sorting through HUD contract awards to friends of Secretary Alphonso Jackson, who resigned last month amid a criminal probe. But some career staff members and agency observers say problems in the agency's contracting process run much deeper than Jackson and involve officials who promoted certain companies while rebuffing concerns about their performance and qualifications. The three companies profiled began as very small operations with little or no federal contracting experience. Harrington, Moran and Barksdale Inc. (HMBI) had no federal contracts until FY 2004, when they received over $71 million. During the Bush administration, HMBI was received almost $223 million in federal contracts, 80 percent of which were awarded without full and open competition. The other two companies, National Housing Group which received almost $52 million) and Drayton, Drayton, and Lamar, Inc. (which has been awarded about $32.5 million) have even worse records for competition. The National Housing Group received 92.2 percent of its funding without competition while Drayton, Drayton, and Lamar comes in at an astounding 98.6 perent without competition. What is truly troubling about this story is that the career contracting employees at HUD who attempted to do the right thing on behalf of taxpayers were moved out of their positions after they raised objections, cited evidence of wrongdoing, or claimed political manipulation. In one case, not only were the claims of the 33-year veteran contract officer vindicated by subsequent investigations, but the company in question has had a principal employee charged with fraud related to the contract. The two contract officers who are profiled in the Post story retired shortly after being moved into policy positions. HUD officials deny any wrongdoing in any of the cases cited in the Post article, instead blaming the contractors who they repeatedly attempted to favor through sole-source contract awards. HUD spokesman Jereon Brown contributed quite an understatement when he said "not all contractors perform as well as expected." As we have advocated before many times, what will help deter these types of instances is access to data on contractor performance and copies of the actual contract. Then we'll be able to judge for ourselves how well contractors are performing and how wise an investment various federal contracts are. Wash Post: HUD Repeatedly Dismissed Staff Concerns About Contracts