Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reported on the U.S. Mint's procurement of clad material.
GAO found that: (1) the Mint essentially awarded contracts for clad materials to the only firm that has submitted bids in response to solicitations for fabrication and delivery of clad material; (2) while competing contractors may subcontract for segments of work, the Mint required the contractor to provide the finished clad strip to eliminate the need for the Mint to administer a production process with several contractors; (3) the Mint generally awarded contracts quarterly and called for delivery during a 9-month period; (4) other firms could not produce clad material at a price competitive with the awardee; (5) because the awardee is the only bidder, the Mint is potentially vulnerable to price increases; (6) stockpiling of inventories of coins could protect the Mint against the interruption of shipments from the current supplier; and (7) the current supplier's capacity to meet demand for the production of a new dollar coin is dependent on the metallic content of the new coin and the process used to produce it.
