With significant improvements in operations and infrastructure for fiscal 2015, the manager of the Sandia National Laboratories received an overall grade of “outstanding” in its latest performance evaluation report from the National Nuclear Security Administration.
That came despite a sharp drop in its rating for leadership, from “Very Good” to “Satisfactory,” which the report attributed to “the results of the Department of Justice investigation settlement based on allegations of improper use of government funds for lobbying activities” aimed at securing a contract extension. To avoid charges under the False Claims Act, the report notes, Sandia paid a “substantial settlement.”
Sandia Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin that operates NNSA national security facilities in New Mexico and California, was rated in six areas in the long-awaited report issued Friday (alongside those for the agency’s other site management and operations contractors), and overall earned 85 percent of its at-risk fee for the budget year ended Sept. 30, 2015 – $2.4 million out of a possible $2.8 million.
In the category that weighs most heavily on the award fee – managing the nuclear weapons mission, at 25 percent of the total – the contractor remained at “Very Good” for the second consecutive year. It popped from “Very Good” to “Excellent” for its national security mission; stayed “Excellent” in science, technology, and engineering; and rated the same in the new category of Department of Energy and Strategic Partnership Project Mission.
The contractor met expectations and improved from “Good” to “Very Good” in the operations and infrastructure category, winning praise for safety and security improvements over the previous year when an accidental detonation at Sandia’s Site 9920 caused an injury and led to a pause in explosive operations.
Including a $25 million fixed fee, Sandia Corp. earned total fees of $27.4 million in fiscal 2015, a marginal increase over the year before. Its contract expires in 2017.
