Summary: In response to a congressional request, GAO reviewed broadcast controls at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc. (RFE/RL), a government-financed private organization which broadcasts to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Because of questions raised about possible abuses, GAO reviewed: (1) RFE/RL reasons for contracting with its employees; (2) the extent and cost of such contracting; and (3) controls in place, or possible, to prevent abuses.
GAO found that: (1) RFE/RL spent $178,651 to contract with 222 full-time employees; (2) a number of the contracts were for support services, such as typing, translation, statistical compilation, and research; (3) contracts were awarded to employees for tasks that fell within the employees' job descriptions, and employees may have done contract work during normal, salaried working hours; (4) employee free-lance contracts were awarded in areas where the pool of available outside help was good; (5) RFE/RL has no written policies or procedures that specify the conditions under which contracts with employees may be used; and (6) the Board for International Broadcasting's budget justifications to Congress do not show that RFE/RL contracts with its employees. RFE/RL officials stated that they contract with employees because: (1) outside contributors in the non-Russian language broadcasts to the Soviet Union are difficult to find; (2) employees must receive additional compensation for tasks outside their position descriptions; and (3) employees are used to maintain high quality broadcasts. GAO believes that RFE/RL should have the flexibility to contract with employees for services it needs but cannot obtain from other sources; however, RFE/RL has not applied adequate controls to ensure that employee free-lance contracts are: (1) used only when necessary; (2) properly reviewed and authorized to avoid abuses; and (3) performed outside normal duty hours.
