# Project On Government Oversight The **Project On Government Oversight** (POGO) is a nonpartisan Washington watchdog. It is the standing outside authority on federal **contracting competition**, meaning how often the government buys without competing the contract, and from whom. ## Origins Dina Rasor founded it in **1981** as the **Project on Military Procurement**. Its first targets were Reagan-era Pentagon spending and overpriced spare parts, including a $436 hammer and a $7,600 coffee maker. The organization took its current name in 1990 as its remit widened from defense to the whole government. Other landmarks: - **2002:** launched the **Federal Contractor Misconduct Database**, which tracks the misconduct records of top contractors. - **2009:** exposed hazing and abuse among the private guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, which led to the ArmorGroup contract being cancelled. ## People and money - **Danielle Brian** was executive director from 1993. She has since stepped back from that role but remains president. - **Isabel Munilla** became **interim executive director in February 2026**, according to POGO's own announcement. - **Scott Amey,** general counsel, has tracked noncompetitive contracting since the 1990s. He rejoined POGO in 2003 and is its most-quoted voice on no-bid awards. - **Funding:** POGO says it does not knowingly accept money from corporations, labor unions or any government. It is foundation- and donor-funded. ## The numbers the vault leans on POGO's contract-competition figures are a load-bearing receipt for [[The Spending Gap]]: - **FY2025:** POGO counts **$262.6 billion** of **$793.3 billion** in federal contract obligations as awarded **noncompetitively**, about **33%** (Mar 25, 2026 analysis). Open the Books reports the same figure from USASpending. A Congressional Research Service count puts it at about **$278 billion**. The difference is method, not dispute: a third of federal contracting goes out without full competition. - **FY2026:** the only figure POGO has published is about **$3.6 billion** in DHS noncompetitive awards in the first six months. A projected "$300 billion pace" for FY2026 appears in earlier vault notes, but no POGO publication stating it could be found (checked 2026-09-30). ## 2025–26 work POGO's own 2025 impact report lists its DOGE work: records litigation and testimony to the House DOGE subcommittee. The report also covers its reporting on Stephen Miller's Palantir holdings. It sits at the center of the vault's no-bid cluster: - [[Palantir DoD Sole-Source Funding Memo]] - [[Spending Gap - Eliminating Waste vs. the $263 Billion No-Bid Ledger]] - the pages that cite its contracting data, including [[Barnard Construction]] ## See also - [[The Spending Gap]] · [[Sole Source]] · [[Bid Protest]] · [[Termination for Convenience]] - [[Government Accountability Office]] · [[Public Citizen]] · [[Palantir]]