WASHINGTON - A four-year-old contracting program created at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City is being scrapped because of problems found by the U.S. Transportation Department's inspector general.

The RESULTS program, one of three used by the Federal Aviation Administration to award contracts for goods and services, had inadequate oversight and controls and a lack of competition for contracts, the inspector general found.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, and Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley asked for the inspector general's report after receiving complaints from whistleblowers.

One was a former FAA employee in Oklahoma City, whom Coburn praised for "her courage in blowing the whistle on waste and abuse in the contracting practices at the FAA."

Coburn said, "Considering our spiraling national debt, costly war on terror, and reconstruction after a debilitating natural disaster, it is imperative Congress give oversight to ensure federal agencies spend taxpayer dollars in the most efficient manner possible."

According to the report, 114 contracts were awarded under the RESULTS procurement program with a total potential contract value of about $543 million.

The report states, "Payments for support services were sometimes made without proper review and approval by a contracting officer, and there were multiple instances of payments exceeding the contract ceiling amount.

"FAA officials also used inappropriate contract types that provided no incentive for vendor performance and allowed work to be performed beyond the contract scope without written authorization. Finally, except for one instance, FAA did not request any contract audits to identify excessive or unallowable charges, even though it had previously agreed to obtain such audits.

"These deficiencies resulted not only in higher procurement costs but also in quality problems with services delivered."

The program was created, the report states, "to provide FAA and other government agencies with rapid, cost-effective, high-quality support services for a fee."

But the inspector general said the procurement program never was properly structured. It didn't have standard labor rates and qualifications, resulting in higher payments to contractors. Those overpayments could total between $24 million and $44 million.

Only 24 percent of the 114 contracts benefited from competition, the report states.

Though key contracting officers in the program were at the center, not all the contracts were local.

The inspector general said the FAA has taken steps to dissolve the RESULTS procurement program.