Preface

Since the establishment of the General Accounting Office by the Budget and Accounting Act, 1921, there have been published 50 volumes, including this volume, of decisions of the Comptroller General of the United States. The law authorizes and requires that such decisions be rendered in advance, upon request, to the heads of departments and establishments and disbursing officers (sec. 8 of the act of July 31, 1894, 28 Stat. 208 and 42 Stat. 24, 31 U.S. Code 74), and to certifying officers (sec. 3 of the act of December 29, 1941, 55 Stat. 876, 31 U.S. Code 82d). Decisions also are rendered to claimants who request review or reconsideration of claims which have been disallowed in whole or part, to disbursing and certifying officers who request reconsideration of items for which credit has been disallowed, and to protestants and contracting agencies relating to bid protests and a variety of contract questions. The decisions appearing in these volumes have been selected as constituting the more important, from the standpoint of general application and precedent, of those rendered during each fiscal year. It is with the view to preserve such decisions in an authentic and permanent form, convenient for reference, and to provide guidance for the administrative officers of the Government that these volumes are published.

The decisions contained in this series are made available to Government agencies in advance of publication of the volume through the circulation of mimeographed copies of the decisions and of the "Digest of Published Decisions," as well as by the issuance of monthly pamphlets which are consolidated in an annual volume.

The monthly pamphlets for September, December, and March of each year include quarterly index digests. The June pamphlet includes a complete cumulative index digest with citation tables for all the decisions in the annual volume.

Seven consolidated indexes have been compiled, the first entitled "Index to the Published Decisions of the Accounting Officers of the United States, 1894-1929," and the second and subsequent quinquennial indexes entitled "Index Digest of the Published Decisions of the Comptroller General of the United States" covering the following periods: July 1, 1929-June 30, 1940; July 1, 1940-June 30, 1946;

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July 1, 1946-June 30, 1951; July 1, 1951-June 30, 1956; July 1, 1956– June 30, 1961; and July 1, 1961-June 30, 1966. The index digest volume for the period July 1, 1966-June 30, 1971 is currently being prepared and notice will issue of its availability. These indexes are compiled to assist in research for precedents with respect to matters coming within the jurisdiction of the General Accounting Office.

In 1969, the first comprehensive scope line computer-generated index to the published decisions of the Comptroller General (Key Word in Context (KWIC) index), volumes 1 through 46, July 1, 1921– June 30, 1967, was issued in cooperation with LITE (Legal Information Through Electronics) System developed by the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center Office of the Staff Judge Advocate at Denver, Colo. A supplement to the scope line index has been issued for volumes 47-49, July 1, 1967-June 30, 1970. In addition, there has also been released a pamphlet containing a citation and cross-reference index to the decisions of the Comptroller General of the United States for the period July 1, 1921 to June 30, 1969.

Decisions appearing in the published volumes should be cited by volume and page number, as 1 Comp. Gen. 100. Decisions of the Comptroller General, which are not selected for publication, should be cited by the applicable file number and date, for example, B-12345, June 23, 1948.

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