Doan endures political firestorm

With congressional pressure mounting and an ongoing investigation creating a cloud over her leadership, many observers wonder whether General Services Administration Administrator Lurita Doan can survive.

From lawmakers requesting her resignation to the agency’s inspector general releasing another report on her contracting missteps, the controversies are starting to affect employee morale at GSA.

But Doan said the challenges are part of the process of revamping the agency. “Transformational change does not come without a few bumps, and we have made great progress in 10 months,” Doan said in a statement to Federal Computer Week. “I’m no stranger to hardship. I’m doing just fine.”

Industry observers and GSA insiders say that even if the current firestorm abates, Doan will face battle fatigue.

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OFPP: Big programs require more training

Program and project managers assigned to large acquisitions now will have to meet training and experience requirements, according to a memo from the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

The new rules apply to managers assigned to programs considered major acquisitions, as defined by the Office of Management and Budget Circular A-11. The rules focus on essential competencies needed for managers, the memo states.

“A strong partnership between program and project managers and contracting professionals requires a common understanding of how to meet the government’s needs,” Paul Denett, OFPP administrator, wrote in the memo.

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IG faults Doan's handling of sole-source deal

GSA Administrator Lurita Doan may have violated federal ethics and procurement regulations by trying to give a friend a $20,000 no-bid contract , according to a March 19 report from General Services Administration's inspector general.

“Doan’s conduct in this matter may indicate possible violations of federal ethics regulations for failing to act impartially and creating the appearance of providing preferential treatment,” the report states. “Her conduct also may indicate possible violations of federal procurement regulations requiring competition in the award of contracts.”

In the end, the $20,000 contract was not awarded and Doan has said that she made a mistake.

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Two senators call for Doan to resign

Two Democratic senators today called for Lurita Doan to step down as administrator of the General Services Administration, citing what they see as a pattern of ethical lapses during her tenure at the agency.

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) point to three key issues that have arisen in recent months: possible Hatch Act violations at a brown-bag lunch where a White House official gave a campaign strategy presentation, a $20,000 no-bid contract to a friend and disregard for GSA’s inspector general.

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Administration's inaction forces action

Frustrated by the Bush administration’s inaction on small-business contracting issues, legislators are taking action and asking federal agencies to fix the problems as small businesses’ share of federal contract dollars continues to slide.

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Clinton assails outsourcing

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said she favors reducing the government’s reliance on the private sector by cutting 500,000 government contracting jobs and creating more public-sector jobs. Her proposal could save as much as $18 billion a year and would create a more accountable and competent workforce, she said in a speech April 13.

“Over the past six years, this administration has steadily outsourced critical government functions to private companies, adding more than 2.4 million private contractors to the federal payroll,” Clinton said. “These contractors, it turns out, are often more expensive than doing the work in the government.… They’re often less accountable and less competent.”

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GSA to help agencies find 'green' solutions

David Bibb, the General Services Administration’s deputy administrator, will lead GSA’s efforts to help agencies go “green.”

GSA administrator Lurita Doan asked Bibb to take the lead on helping agencies comply with a Jan. 24 executive order that directs them to carry out their mission in an environmentally, economically and fiscally sound manner.

GSA is also focusing more on its marketing message and is reviewing its products as it sees increases in federal acquisitions that have emphasized, among other things, environmental standards.

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House panel puts anti-bundling bill on fast track

Seeing little progress on federal contracts going to small firms, the House Small Business Committee has set new small-business contracting legislation on a fast track to passage.

The committee plans to mark up the Small Business Fairness in Contracting Act (H.R. 1873) on April 24. The bill would require federal procurement officials to assess the effect new contracts would have on small-business competition.

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Doan controversy may hinder GSA spending request

Lawmakers say the lingering controversy surrounding Lurita Doan, administrator of the General Services Administration, may have an impact on her agency’s funding in fiscal 2008 as lawmakers try to get answers about what happened at a political strategy meeting at GSA.

Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, said he will have to field tough questions from the full appropriations committee about the brown-bag lunch held Jan. 26 at GSA’s headquarters.

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Jazzed about IPv6

Peter Tseronis was relaxing at Bethany Beach, Del., nearly two years ago, when he received an e-mail from his office.

He admits he shouldn’t have been checking his BlackBerry while on a family vacation, but the message had come from the top echelons of the Education Department, where he is director of network services in the office of the chief information officer.

Scrolling through the message, he found that the department’s executives had passed the e-mail down to the chief information officer, who sent it to the director of information technology. It traveled through a few more accounts, finally landing in Tseronis’ inbox.

The message informed Tseronis that he had been named Education’s transition manager for IPv6, the nascent successor to the current IP version.

“It was like, ‘Pete, I think this is your area.’ And I’m like, ‘IPv6? I’ve heard of it, but what?’ ” said Tseronis, recalling his reaction to the e-mail.

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Keeping modernization on track

The Internal Revenue Service must replace its aging tax processing systems, but the agency can’t stop running them while it builds replacements. So the IRS builds new systems while it operates the old systems, and it tries to make sure the new systems work with the old.

The job is “like trying to change the engines on a jumbo jet while it’s in flight, and you don’t have a complete set of blueprints to know how the original engine was put together,” said W. Todd Grams, the IRS’ chief information officer from 2003 to 2006.

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More acquisition reforms coming in defense spending bill

Government contracting desperately needs oversight and reform, especially regarding the contracting workforce and small-business support, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) said today.

Moran said he intends to include such changes in the fiscal 2008 Defense appropriations bill. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee put Moran in charge of working on the reforms.

His main concern is that as the number of contracts grows, the number of contracting officers shrinks. “The biggest problem we have now, as far as I am concerned, is…the number of contracting officers is half of what they were six years ago,” Moran said in a speech at the FedSources Federal Outlook Conference. “The number of contracts is twice as much.”

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Tired of business as usual, SBA looks to upgrade

The Small Business Administration wants to put its 50-year-old mainframe systems to rest.

The agency says it is considering how to do that while also updating its technology, according to a notice posted today on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site.

"These mainframe-based loan-processing and accounting systems are inflexible and use obsolete technology,” SBA said in its notice. “These stovepiped systems are very expensive to maintain” and do not meet the agency’s business needs or comply with regulations.

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Prepare for more scrutiny, ex-GSA official tells small biz

Small businesses may not be ready for the level of scrutiny headed their way under proposed reporting rules and the contracting accountability Web site, a former contracting official said.

Emily Murphy, the General Services Administration’s former chief acquisition officer, said small businesses need to make sure they understand the details of contracting rules and are following the law fully, especially regarding subcontracts. The coming scrutiny could find them violating the rules. Breaches could leave them with harsh penalties or banned from government contracting.

“This is really their window of opportunity,” before the database is fully functional, said Murphy, counsel at the law firm Miller and Chevalier.

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GSA seeks all-purpose customer service support

Citizens must be able to easily contact the government, so to help them do that, the General Services Administration wants contractors to handle the different avenues of its customer services program.

GSA issued a request for proposals in February for its USA Services e-government initiative. It wants to offer quality information service centers for agencies to better meet citizens’ immediate needs. The contract requires vendors to handle a wide range of services via multiple communications channels, such as telephone, e-mail and postal mail, according to a Federal Business Opportunities notice from February.

GSA intends to offer the services for less than it would cost agencies to handle them themselves, the notice states

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NASA broke procurement promise to GAO, senator says

NASA needs to account for misleading the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on a pledge to review contracting irregularities after having a bid protest dismissed in 2005, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a letter to the space agency.

In the letter sent April 5, Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said NASA made specific commitments to GAO as part of its response to a bid protest. The commitments led GAO to dismiss the protest. However, a review by NASA’s inspector general found that agency did not follow through on its promises, Grassley said.

“NASA needs to ensure that basic procurement principles are followed,” Grassley said.

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Small businesses get big portion of SEWP

NASA awarded 45 information technology governmentwide acquisition contracts today to 37 vendors, half of which are small businesses.

Contractors for the fourth installment of SEWP, now known as Solutions for Enterprisewide Procurement, went to 23 small businesses — six of which are owned by service-disabled veterans, according to NASA.

Companies can earn as much as $5.6 billion per contract, NASA said.

“I have my own meaning [of the SEWP acronym]: success every way possible,” said Alan Bechara, president of PC Mall Gov.

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Political climate could make agencies wary of undertaking new IT projects, Input says

Proposed new administrative rules and reporting requirements for federal contracting would dampen information technology sales, according to market research firm Input. Company analysts say those accountability measures could slow an already slow-growing federal IT market.

Federal IT spending will maintain its modest growth rate for the next two years because the political climate will make agencies wary of beginning major new projects, according to Input’s new market report. President Bush’s fiscal 2008 budget proposal would increase civilian agency IT spending to $65.5 billion, a 2.6 percent increase compared with budgeted spending for fiscal 2007.

Kevin Plexico, executive vice president of operations at Input, said the new Democratic-led Congress is sparring with Bush over the budget and the 2007 continuing resolution, which is discouraging large agency investments and hindering robust market growth.

However, the federal IT market is stable, despite sputtering growth, according to Input. The firm expects a 5 percent increase in federal IT spending through 2012, when it will reach about $80 billion.

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Doan hearing focuses on improper politics

Rep. Henry Waxman lived up to his firebrand reputation by grilling General Services Administration Administrator Lurita Doan about allegations of inappropriate — possibly unlawful — behavior.

The California Democrat is now directing his investigation to the White House. Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wants to know whether a Jan. 26 meeting for political appointees at GSA's headquarters, on federal time about partisan issues, was a one-time occurrence or part of a pattern involving other federal agencies and potentially a violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in political activity while at work.

Waxman gave Karl Rove, President Bush’s deputy chief of staff, until April 13 to answer a series of questions about a PowerPoint presentation that J. Scott Jennings, Rove’s deputy, made at GSA’s headquarters Jan. 26. Waxman is also awaiting a ruling by the Office of Special Counsel on whether the January meeting violated the Hatch Act before he decides whether to pursue further hearings.

“This appears to be a textbook example of what should never happen at a federal agency,” Waxman said of the January meeting. “You can’t engage in partisan political activity on government time.”

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