Experts: Value beats price to avoid fake IT

As government regulators consider tougher ways to block counterfeit information technology products from entering the federal marketplace, they’re restarting an old debate about whether to award contracts based on the lowest bid or the best value.

At a meeting Dec. 11 regarding newly proposed rules on counterfeit IT, Laura Auletta, a procurement policy analyst at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said she was surprised to hear that contracting officers believe they should award a contract to the lowest bidder to save money instead of finding the best value.

Contracting officers and acquisition officials often interpret the Federal Acquisition Regulation to mean that the lowest bid should get the award, said James Bockman, a former NASA official who worked closely with the agency’s procurement employees.

“They see that as saving the government money,” said Bockman, who is now a special projects engineer at Aerospace Corp.

The FAR gives civilian agencies broad discretion in making decisions based on price or other best-value parameters, such as the company’s experience and management capabilities. But government and industry experts say acquisition workers are concerned about making a mistake and paying for it with a career-ending embarrassment. With today’s emphasis on curbing waste and abuse, they say contracting officers often choose the vendor with the lowest price.

However, federal officials agree that the government should strive for quality and ensure that agencies don’t buy products that are tainted with malware or poorly made.

The prevalence of counterfeit IT and electronic parts has exploded in the past five years after roughly 20 years of level numbers, officials say.

“The whole supply chain is infected with counterfeit parts,” said Brian Hughitt, manager of quality assurance at NASA’s Safety and Assurance Requirements Division.

The sudden increase has led regulators to add tougher checks to the FAR. Counterfeit IT products lead to financial losses for government agencies and companies, and they pose a threat to national security, the Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council wrote in a Nov. 18 Federal Register notice.

The new rules’ draft language would require agencies to buy all IT products from original equipment manufacturers, software developers, or authorized distributors or resellers. In addition, agencies would have to require companies to offer proof in contract proposals that their products are authentic.

Edward Chambers, a procurement analyst at the General Services Administration who is leading the regulatory proposal, tried to allay initial concerns from industry and government officials by saying the language is preliminary.

At the meeting, government officials disagreed about who’s to blame if an agency buys fake IT or electronic parts. Hughitt said a federal employee should take no blame if an agency buys a phony product because the contractor should know what it’s selling to the government.

However, the government does not use rigorous scrutiny when evaluating products, said Brad Botwin, director of industrial studies at the Commerce Department.

“The sloppiest processes are on this side of the house,” he said, referring to the government, particularly the Defense Logistics Agency. The liability for counterfeit parts rests on contractors and the government.

As the debate continues, officials say they need to find a way to increase scrutiny without putting companies out of business. But the checks are necessary because counterfeit products will continue to be a problem, Botwin said.

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Watchdogs make industry leery

Federal contractors must report evidence of crimes to inspectors general under new requirements

Contracting officers and government contractors will soon have someone new in their relationship: a watchdog.

Starting Dec. 12, contractors will be required to tell government officials if they find evidence of criminal activities related to a federal contract or if the government overpays them. The new rules allow federal officials to suspend or even debar a company from government work if the company knowingly fails to inform officials.

Experts say contractors are most concerned about the requirement that they inform two parties: the appropriate contracting officer and the agency’s inspector general.

Most contractors’ mistakes, including accidental overpayments, are minor administrative errors that contracting officers can easily fix, government and industry experts say. But because IGs have different responsibilities from contracting officers, the mandate makes contractors anxious about sharing even minor infractions with IGs.

“The rule goes too far,” said David Drabkin, deputy chief acquisition officer at the General Services Administration, adding that it won’t help relationships among contractors, agencies and IGs.

However, regulators say they wrote the rules with contractors in mind. They offer flexibility and allow companies to find credible evidence of a crime before reporting it. For agencies, reporting requirements will encourage relationships between IGs and contracting officers as they work together to root out fraud, regulators say.

The rules will have “contractors turning square corners and everybody walking with that halo over their head,” said Ernest Woodson, a procurement analyst at GSA who was instrumental in writing the regulations.

The sea change
The revision to the Federal Acquisition Regulation stands as a reversal from long-standing policies of voluntary disclosure.

“There is no doubt that mandatory disclosure is a sea change and major departure,” the Civilian Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council wrote in a Federal Register notice outlining the rule.

But the councils said contractors have largely ignored voluntary disclosure policies for the past decade, as the Justice Department and the National Procurement Fraud Task Force have also charged. In May 2007, the department and task force proposed the FAR changes to Robert Burton, then deputy administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and now a partner at the Venable law firm.

“We believe that if the FAR were more explicit in requiring such notification, it would serve to emphasize the critical importance of integrity in contracting,” they wrote. The new mandates stemmed from that letter.

Burton said the rules will encourage contractors to institute vigorous processes for reporting internal criminal allegations and quickly reviewing the merits of those claims.

“The rule will add weight to the arguments inside a corporation that good business practices in the long run favor compliance and disclosure,” the councils wrote.

Lesley Field, acting OFPP administrator, said mandatory reporting is a sound business ethic and should already be part of companies’ standards.

Contractors might be more comfortable leaving the IG out of the process, but regulators say disclosing a crime to the contracting officer isn’t enough because he or she is in no position to evaluate criminal actions.

“Contracting officers truly wouldn’t know what to do,” Woodson said. “We don’t want the contracting officer interfering with an investigation that the IG or the Department of Justice may have to get involved with.”

Essentially, regulators want those crimes referred immediately to people with badges.

In a speech in November, James Graham, a trial lawyer in the Justice's Criminal Division, said the proposal should improve procurement oversight when mistakes or criminal activities happen. Graham later told reporters that notifying the IG would make the contracting officer and IG work more closely together.

Graham, who also helped craft the regulations, said that although most contractors are honest, fraud is always possible, and the tendency toward corruption is constant.

“It’s the human condition,” he said.

Altering relationships
In public comments on the rule, many people disagreed with the mandate. One wrote that in 1986 a proposal from the Defense Department to make fraud disclosures mandatory foundered. In 1989, then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney withdrew a proposed mandatory reporting rule on the grounds that “to be meaningful, corporate codes of conduct must be adopted by contractors voluntarily, not mandated in procurement regulations.”

Similarly, Elliott Branch, executive director of contracts at the Naval Sea Systems Command, said there must be a cultural shift in contractors’ thinking or the rules could be meaningless.

Many observers also say the new rules would likely keep the parties at a distance so they can avoid the appearance of wrongdoing.

“It could have a chilling effect on relationships between the contracting officer and the contractor,” Burton said.

Contracting officers and IGs view contractors through different lenses, said Michael Mason, a partner at the Hogan and Hartson law firm. For instance, contracting officers see companies as business partners that are trying to accomplish a contractual job for the agency. But IGs are the government’s watchdogs. They’re trained to sniff out fraud, waste and abuse and expose it. Experts say that focus will strain government/industry relations.

In public comments to the Federal Register, some industry representatives said reporting activities to the IG would take the ability to settle and resolve issues away from the contracting officer and agency. It undercuts the contracting officer’s right to handle a contract, they argued.

Furthermore, IGs have limited resources and staff, and disclosures will slow the procurement process, some commenters said.

Flexibilities
Regulators say they realized that the rules would place more burdens on contractors. Therefore, they granted contractors flexibilities within the rules in an attempt to strike a balance.

“We want disclosure,” said a Bush administration official who requested anonymity. “On the other hand, we want to show some semblance of fairness where there’s uncertainty.”

When learning of an alleged crime, contractors can investigate the credibility of the allegation before telling the government, the official said, adding that “rumors are not enough to trigger the disclosure requirement.”

Until the contractor has determined the allegation’s credibility, federal officials can’t charge the contractor with knowingly failing to inform government officials. Regulators also declined to set specific timelines, saying they would be arbitrary and cause more problems than they would solve.

Despite regulators’ efforts to ease the burden on contractors, the industry remains unenthusiastic, said Richard Bednar, senior counsel at the Washington office of law firm Crowell and Moring and coordinator of the Defense Industry Initiative on Business Ethics and Conduct. In the end, contractors might focus on the rule’s loopholes and report fewer incidents.

But Bednar said the councils clarified many of the uncertainties when they published the final version of the proposed rule. Contractors can respond to the rules by “pulling up their socks and being responsible contractors,” he said.

"I do think it’s digestible,” he added.

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Ruling buttresses small businesses

Yet favorable 'Rule of Two' decision could come at a high cost

Ed Driscoll, president and chief executive officer of Delex Systems Inc., was forced into an awkward position last spring. His customer of 40 years, the Navy, was disregarding small-business acquisition rules. Delex risked losing a lot of potential business if the problem continued.

On a $75 million contract, the Navy decided against setting aside orders for small businesses as acquisition rules require when at least two small companies can handle the work and can offer reasonable prices.

Driscoll, a former Navy officer, had invested millions of dollars just to earn a spot to compete for the orders on the Navy’s Training Systems Contract II. Given the size of his investment and the contract, he had to consider a protest. At the same time, he did not want to wreck a relationship he had spent years building.

Ultimately, he had no choice. “This was an opportunities issue and an investment issue,” he said.

After hearing Delex’s case, the Government Accountability Office decided Oct. 8 that agencies must set aside some task orders if at least two small businesses could do the work, which is known as the “rule of two.” The Federal Acquisition Regulation requires a contracting officer to reserve any order of more than $100,000 if at least two responsible small businesses could enter bids. The regulation was the foundation for GAO’s ruling.

Driscoll won the protest, and the result might give small businesses such as Delex a new edge in government contracting. By ruling that agencies must set aside work for small businesses if they find two such companies that are capable of meeting the agencies’ needs, the GAO buttressed rules that agencies have often disregarded.

However, the decision could stress relationships between companies and agencies. Agency officials expect more time-consuming protests for not setting aside work. And they’re frustrated by the prospect.

“Delex hints at some of the angst people haven’t had since” acquisition reforms in the 1990s, said Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at FedSources Inc., a market research firm.

When they solicited the task order under the training contract, Navy officials decided not to set it aside for small businesses. Instead, they opened the competition to large and small companies on the multiple-award contract.

“GAO tipped the playing field in favor of small-business contract-holders,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, an industry group. GAO has significantly changed how agencies and contractors plan their acquisition strategies, especially when it comes to multiple-award contracts that have a mixture of small and large companies, he added.

As a result of the decision, program managers and contracting officers will likely give more weight to small-business set-asides in their initial acquisition strategies, Bjorklund said. When agency officials need to buy something quickly, the greater possibility of a protest by a small company on a task or delivery order would make them keep set-asides in mind.

“Small businesses should capitalize on this opportunity,” said Andy McCann, vice president and geographic sales leader at EDS Corp.’s U.S. Government and Public Sector business.

ASSESSING THE DECISION
At this point, though, many companies and industry observers are still trying to understand what effect the ruling will have. An executive at a major systems integrator who asked to remain anonymous said large companies aren’t enthusiastic about the ruling, but the outcome depends on how a contracting officer interprets GAO’s decision. Integrators are waiting to see how to set up bidding strategies and partner with small businesses, especially on mixed indefinitedelivery, indefinite-quantity contracts.

The ruling could cause small businesses to consider new ways of working with integrators to ensure that they offer the best services and win future government contracts, McCann said.

“This ruling creates an incentive for small businesses to strive to be selected on IDIQ contract vehicles or to team with a large integrator on an IDIQ contract,” McCann said. It might also encourage companies to put more emphasis on their mentor/protégé programs.

Nevertheless, other experts say GAO’s decision doesn’t give advantages to small companies.

“On the surface, this may seem to be a benefit to small businesses, but the price may be too high,” said Guy Timberlake, chief visionary and chief executive officer at the American Small Business Coalition.

Timberlake said he is concerned that the decision might strain the already tense relationship between agencies and small businesses.

Officials and experts agree that the ruling could increase the distrust between industry and government. Agencies might suspect contractors of planning protests and including those projected costs in their bids.

Karen Kopf, operations director at the General Services Administration’s Federal Systems Integration and Management Center, said she feared becoming bogged down in protests, especially now that companies can protest task and delivery orders and be heard by GAO.

Lee Harvey, the Army’s deputy program executive officer for enterprise information systems, said that a decade ago, fewer companies protested award decisions because they wanted good relationships with the government. But today’s larger orders encourage people to protest, he said, because companies have more at stake.

“Frustration sums up our feelings,” Harvey said about GAO’s decision and its likely effects.

KEEPING TABS ON ORDERS
The crux of the issue was the Navy’s contention that Delex’s protest was against a delivery order and not a contract, making it exempt from the rule of two. But changes by Congress opened the orders to protests. In January, lawmakers decided that task and delivery orders were growing so large and complex that they equaled traditional contracts. They decided orders needed more regulation because agencies have been using task-order contracts for more than 50 percent of their procurements, compared with 14 percent in 1990, experts said. In the 1990s, the government viewed task orders as distinct from contracts and put those orders outside GAO’s jurisdiction.

GAO will keep its new authority to review task-order protests for three years. Legislators plan to evaluate the effects before then and make any necessary changes.

In the meantime, the new authority is changing the acquisition field, and GAO’s ruling could further alter how agencies view orders and contracts.

“More of these multiple-award opportunities might be issued as full-and- open [competitions] with no setaside components, creating a more prohibitive competition environment for the average small business,” Timberlake said.

Agencies will reassess the advantages of multiple-award contracts because of GAO’s ruling, Bjorklund said. They might ask themselves why they should go through the hassle of awarding an IDIQ and then go through another competition for task orders.

However, some experts say GAO’s decision won’t affect multiple-award contracts that separate small and large businesses.

The ruling will have little effect on NASA’s Solutions for Enterprisewide Procurement, a governmentwide acquisition contract, said Joanne Woytek, NASA’s SEWP program manager.

SEWP is organized into four groups of multiple-award contracts. Two are exclusively for small businesses with one of the two set-asides for small companies owned by service-disabled veterans. The other two groups are primarily for large businesses, though a few small companies are in the group.

Woytek said the ruling might affect a few orders in those groups that lack set-asides, but the small businesses in those groups are generally winning orders when they submit a reasonable bid.

“We have always encouraged contracting officers to provide a small-business preference, and now it will be more targeted if two of the small companies in the open groups can and want to provide a reasonable quote,” she said.

Whether the ruling opens an advantage for small businesses, it has left the contracting community in limbo. Ultimately, though, the rules are nothing new, and GAO has simply reinforced them, Driscoll said.

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Field surveys landscape as chief

Several years after an adventurous ski trip, Lesley Field still wonders which one of her friends led them to the Mer de Glace (“Sea of Ice”), a glacier in the French Alps at an altitude of nearly 8,000 feet, without a map or a guide.

“I don’t think I fully realized what we’d done until we got to the bottom,” said Field, who comes from a family of daring skiers. “But honestly, it was probably the best skiing experience I’ve ever had.”

The Sea of Ice is nearly 700 feet deep and more than 4 miles long. “It was wide open,” she said.

In her first interview since she took over as acting administrator at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Field used skiing metaphors to describe her role.

While skiing, “you can see the topography, you can see the people, you can see where you’re going,” she said. “You see very far out into the future.”

Field has recently had to refocus her long-range view of procurement policy. In mid-July, she was studying the acquisition workforce and strategic sourcing as one of several OFPP policy analysts. Little more than a month later, she was whisked to the top of the governmentwide policy office to replace Deputy Administrator Robert Burton, who retired in July. When Administrator Paul Denett left Sept. 2, Field was appointed to the acting role.

She had arrived at OFPP on assignment from the Transportation Department in 2000. Kenneth Oscar, the office’s acting administrator at the time, said Field arrived with enthusiasm and a desire to see the big picture.

To help frame that picture, Field has dealt with federal procurement from several angles. She began her career with a summer internship at the National Academy of Sciences, where she worked in its contracting and grants office. In 1990, she entered a yearlong internship at DOT. Her managers noticed the procurement experience on her résumé and guided her toward acquisition.

Listen to Field discuss the acquisition field as a career.

Field worked at DOT for 10 years, rising from a contract specialist to a contracting officer to a management analyst to a procurement policy analyst. She also took assignments at the Federal Aviation Administration and Coast Guard before landing at OFPP.

Field has worked in acquisition for 18 years. From the time she was an intern, she enjoyed seeing how acquisitions she was involved in led to real benefits for agencies, she said. DOT officials allowed her and other interns to see the results of their work, so after she worked on a contract for sign-language interpreters, she was able to watch those interpreters help people in need. She has long been an advocate for requiring agencies to buy information technology that is accessible for people with disabilities.

And while on detail at FAA, she visited an air traffic control center in Leesburg, Va., and listened to controllers and pilots talk as they guided aircraft from one sector to another.

“I don’t think I ever realized there’s a giant highway” in the sky, she said.

Through those experiences, she began to understand the connection between the papers she was signing as a contracting officer and the daily work of agencies, Field said.

“It made all the difference in the world in someone’s ability to do their job,” she said.

Based on her experiences in taking temporary assignments at other agencies, Field said she is convinced that such rotations are important to keeping the acquisition workforce engaged. People can grow tired of a job, and rotating employees among agencies can keep them motivated, she said.

“We are in a very good position to offer that where we can,” she said. “Retention becomes just as important as recruitment and development.”

Listen to Field discuss job rotations.

“She’s passionate about improving the acquisition workforce,” said Burton, who’s now a partner at the law firm Venable.

Because of her varied assignments, Field was able to develop in-depth knowledge of how departments run their operations and incorporate that knowledge into governmentwide policy.

“When I got here, I realized you can really take the operational experience and really start to discover why the policy role is so interesting,” she said.

OFPP’s long-range view of procurement requires its analysts to connect the dots between agencies, considering what each of them does and how. OFPP finds best practices wherever they might be and spreads the word about them throughout agencies.

“We have a very unique position here in the world,” she said.

OFPP also has to deal with competing interests and agendas, Burton said. The administrator has to interact effectively with numerous groups that have their own priorities, including Congress and industry advocacy organizations.

“The art of negotiation becomes essential in that position,” he said.

Field said she recognizes those difficulties and likens them to skiing, where some terrain is easier to cross than other stretches. But the skier must traverse it all to reach the destination.

Oscar and Burton agreed that Field has a way with people that will ultimately help her as OFPP’s acting and deputy administrator.

Oscar has seen Field’s ability to draw people with contradictory views and ideas into a unified group. “She was able to get things done,” he said.

She needs to use that ingenuity to her advantage, he added. To leave her mark on OFPP, she must push forward her agenda, goals and objectives, and not merely fill the position of acting administrator, Oscar said.

“She’s got to act like she’s ‘it,’ go as if she’s the administrator,” he said. Even in an acting capacity, Field could be in charge for as long as a year.

Burton agreed, saying Field must be aggressive in her leadership. He was OFPP’s acting administrator twice and said the office deals with nonpartisan issues, so having the political backing of the presidential administration is less important than it is for other agency leaders.

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Making noise for small business

Small-business advocates seek to change the government’s contracting culture from within

The Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization sounds more bureaucratic than practical — especially when referred to by its acronym OSDBU or “oz-duh-boo.”

Although the Defense Department has changed the name of its organization to the Office of Small Business Programs, the term OSDBU has stuck at many agencies. And if the offices’ directors have their way, the term will become increasingly familiar to their agencies’ program managers and contracting officers.

The goal is to change the way procurement leaders think about the role of small businesses. In one case, at least, that involves handing out statues of ducks.

“The OSDBUs are a very vocal group,” said Robert Burton, former deputy administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. That’s a necessary trait for them to fulfill their role of advocating for small businesses, he added.

Their challenge is to go beyond reminding people about contracting rules and regulations and instill new attitudes in an entrenched government culture.

Contracting officers typically understand regulations about small-business set-aside contracts and might be aware of contracting goals, said Teresa Lewis, director of the Treasury Department’s OSDBU. But program managers — who are central players in acquisitions — are accustomed to a certain way of working, she said.

The way they often see it, their existing contractors understand their needs and expectations, so they question why they should give that up for a small-business contract, Lewis said. But the OSDBU directors try to convince them of the value of giving work to small businesses and, if needed, remind them that regulations require it.

“The job certainly has it challenges,” said Kevin Boshears, OSDBU director at the Homeland Security Department.

One problem is that OSDBUs often get little support within their agencies, said Theresa Alvillar-Speake, OSDBU director at the Energy Department.

That’s where the OSDBU Directors Interagency Council comes in.

OSDBU directors and small-business specialists started the council on their own initiative. Although it can’t make policy, it has become a forum for sharing ideas and talking about new ways of working with small businesses.

“It’s the good old OSDBU network,” Alvillar-Speake said. “We get together and commiserate and share.”

Signs of progress
Small-business contracting still doesn’t receive the same amount of attention that other initiatives do, but agency leaders are recognizing its importance, observers say.

In 2007, the Small Business Administration published its first Small Business Procurement Score Card, which graded agencies on how many of their contracting dollars went to small businesses in various socioeconomic classes. Half of the 24 agencies graded earned the lowest score because they didn’t award enough dollars to small companies.

After SBA announced the scores, agency executives began asking about the contracting goals. Several OSDBU directors — including Lewis and Jeanette Brown, director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s OSDBU — now report directly to the agency’s secretary as the chief adviser on small-business matters.

“Typically, if it flows down from the top, it’s going to have a more positive impact,” said Anthony Martoccia, director of the Office of Small Business Programs at DOD. He reports to the Defense secretary.

Brown said she gained support from her agency’s leaders when Marcus Peacock, EPA’s deputy administrator, added small-business procurement goals to program managers’ performance measures. She even began giving regional offices and program managers who meet their goals an award in the form of a crystal duck.

As the small-business goals become more prominent for acquisition planners, OSDBU directors have offered their expertise to contracting officers and program managers.

“They don’t live it and breathe it every day so they don’t understand the intricacies,” said Debbie Ridgely, OSDBU director at the Health and Human Services Department.

In part because of the growing interest in regulatory changes related to small businesses, OSDBU directors have been included in discussions in which the acquisition officers and program managers are planning future contracts. And more than one agency requires that the OSDBU be part of early discussions.

For example, DOE’s regulations stipulate that acquisition-planning teams give the OSDBU director an opportunity to review upcoming programs to determine whether any of the work could go to small businesses. The director must sign off on the strategy for it to move to the next stage of the process.
“We back them in,” Alvillar-Speake said. “They kind of listen then.”

Officials who issue governmentwide procurement policies have also given more authority to OSDBUs. Burton said one of the most prominent efforts on behalf of small businesses was OFPP’s policy to require an agency to get its OSDBU to approve strategic sourcing plans.

“You must ensure that the OSDBU had input into it,” he said. It puts small-business considerations at the top of procurement officials’ agendas as they enter into long-term contracts with vendors.

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Ruling clouds future for buyers

Experts debate the potential impact of a GAO decision on small-business contracting

The Government Accountability Office’s recent ruling that agencies must set aside some task orders for small businesses could give those firms a new advantage, some observers say. But others say it remains unclear how much the ruling will change how agencies do business.

GAO sustained a protest by Delex Systems, which argued that the Navy should have limited competition for an aviation training products delivery order to small businesses because at least two small firms could have offered bids.

The Navy solicited bids through its Training Systems Contract II, a multiple-award, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract, which features two small businesses and six large businesses.

Under the rule of two, the Federal Acquisition Regulation requires agencies to set aside any order of more than $100,000 if the agency finds that at least two qualified small businesses could enter bids. In the Delex case, the Navy argued that the rule applies to contracts, not task orders. GAO’s ruling marks the first time the rule of two has been interpreted to apply to task and delivery orders.

“GAO tipped the playing field in favor of small-business contract holders,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council. The ruling significantly changes the landscape for agencies’ and contractors’ acquisition strategies, especially for multiple-award contracts with a mix of small and large companies, he added.

As a result of GAO’s decision, program managers and contracting officers will likely give more weight to small-business set-asides in their initial acquisition strategies, said Ray Bjorklund, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at FedSources.

“Small businesses should capitalize on this opportunity,” said Andy McCann, vice president and geographic sales leader for EDS’ U.S. Government and Public Sector business.

A mixed verdict
However, at this point, many companies are trying to understand how the ruling will affect them. An executive at a major systems integrator said large companies were not happy with the ruling, but the outcome depends heavily on how a contracting officer interprets GAO’s decision. Integrators might need to adopt new bidding and partnership strategies, especially on multiple-award contracts that feature large and small businesses.

Likewise, the ruling could cause small companies to seek new strategies for working with integrators, McCann said.

“This ruling creates an incentive for small businesses to strive to be selected on IDIQ contract vehicles or to team with a large integrator on an IDIQ contract,” McCann said. It might also encourage companies to put a greater emphasis on their mentor/protégé programs.

“Through our small-business program, EDS has established and maintained strong relationships with small businesses and has introduced them to new business opportunities with EDS,” he said.

Other experts say GAO’s decision will not give small companies any new advantages. “On the surface, this may seem to be a benefit to small businesses, but the price may be too high,” said Guy Timberlake, chief visionary and chief executive officer at the American Small Business Coalition. Timberlake said the decision might strain the already tense relationship between agencies and small businesses.

John Howell, a partner at law firm Sullivan and Worcester, said any time GAO or Congress institutes a new requirement, agencies push back, straining their relationships with small businesses.

Officials and experts agree that the ruling could widen the rift between government and industry. Already, agencies and firms are slow to trust one another. Some experts speculated that agencies now might assume that contractors plan to protest losses and even factor the costs of pursuing those protests into their bids, raising the costs to government.

The cost of doing business
Lee Harvey, the Army’s deputy program executive officer for enterprise information systems,, said fewer companies protested award decisions a decade ago because they wanted to avoid making a fuss and preferred to maintain good relationships with the government. However, today’s larger orders make people want to protest, he said. Companies have more at stake.

Companies that don’t file frequent protests might still be tarnished by agencies’ perception that contractors in general do so, Timberlake said.

“The business of doing business with the government today is so overwhelmingly out of focus that, in my opinion, we’re no longer looking at the true picture of industry and government partnering,” Timberlake said.

Earlier this year, Congress gave GAO the authority to hear task-order protests because they have become so complex and widely used that they are now the equivalent of what full contracts are, experts say. Agencies have been using task orders for more than half of their procurements in recent years, compared with 14 percent in 1990. In the 1990s, the government viewed task orders as distinct from contracts and put those orders outside GAO’s jurisdiction.

GAO will keep its new authority to review task-order protests for three years. Legislators plan to evaluate the effects before then and make any necessary changes.

In the meantime, GAO’s recent ruling could change how agencies view orders and contracts.

“More of these multiple-award opportunities might be issued as full-and-open [competitions] with no set-aside components, creating a more prohibitive competition environment for the average small business,” Timberlake said.

Harvey recently predicted that agencies would take that course in the near future. He said agencies, particularly those under pressure to buy what they need quickly, might resort to the Big Bang theory of procurement: one competition for one big contract.

Bjorklund agreed that agencies will likely reassess the use of multiple-award contracts in light of GAO’s Delex ruling. They will probably ask themselves why they should go through the hassle of awarding an IDIQ and then go through another competition for task orders, he said.

However, some experts say GAO’s decision won’t affect multiple-award contracts that separate small and large businesses.

The ruling will have little effect on NASA’s Solutions for Enterprisewide Procurement, a governmentwide acquisition contract, said Joanne Woytek, NASA’s SEWP program manager. SEWP is organized into four groups of multiple-award contracts. Two are for small businesses, with one of the two set-asides for small companies owned by service-disabled veterans. The other two are primarily for large businesses, though a few small businesses are in the mix.

Woytek said the ruling might affect a few orders in the groups that lack set-asides, but the small companies in those groups are generally winning orders when they submit a reasonable bid.

“We have always encouraged contracting officers to provide a small-business preference, and now it will be more targeted if two of the small companies in the open groups can and want to provide a reasonable quote,” she said.

Whether or not the ruling offers an advantage to small businesses, it has left the contracting community in limbo.

“The decision changes the rules of engagement” and leaves new questions unanswered, Chvotkin said. “It changes procurements midstream.”

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State turns buyers into strategists

The state of Georgia is rethinking how it buys things.

For decades, the state relied on people called order-takers to handle purchases. When a purchase request arrived from a state agency, the order-taker posted it for the public to read. Soon, proposals would arrive, and after opening all bids in public, the order-takers chose the bid with the lowest price.

They considered few details surrounding the initial purchase request.

“They didn’t read it, they didn’t look at it, they didn’t analyze it,” said Brad Douglas, commissioner for Georgia’s Department of Administrative Services, which is leading the change in thinking. “That price had no bearing on what the price could have been or should have been.”

Georgia’s buying process lacked strategy and information. The result was a procurement system from the Dark Ages. It left officials with no insight on who was buying what or from whom. But a revolution has been happening in the Peach State’s procurement programs over the past three years. Officials are pushing order-takers to be strategists when buying, rather than simply awarding based on price alone.

“Purchasing has always been the place that people went to when an organization didn’t know what else to do with them,” Douglas said. But during recent economic declines, officials noticed that smart acquisition adds to the bottom line. “That’s when I think you saw purchasing as a profession change its colors.”

In 2003, when Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue took office, he urged agency officials to think differently about how they operated. He wanted them to run their organizations like businesses — to know where their money goes and find ways to save it.

In an interview with CIO Magazine in 2007, Perdue said the primary business principle he wanted to bring to Georgia was fact-based decision-making.

“Heretofore, I think our state had been run on a lot of emotional, political, ‘who’s-in-power’ decisions rather than on data,” he told the magazine. “I don’t consider myself particularly gifted from an intuitive standpoint. Therefore, I have to rely on data and facts to make decisions.”

The data
Douglas and the Administrative Services Department are hunting for any available spending data and are bringing about new ways to grab it.

In 2005, when Douglas arrived at the department, he found state employees
didn’t keep records of their suppliers and contracts, so his department couldn’t review what was happening in the more than 120 agencies and 35 public state universities that spend the state’s money. The last audit was done in 1991, he said.

“My best source of spending data today is by asking a supplier, ‘What did you sell to the state of Georgia?’ ” Douglas said. “That’s not a good position to be in.”

Officials continue to restructure the procurement system to capture information on purchasing for better buying decisions, such as through strategic sourcing. Strategic sourcing allows organizations to save money by buying large quantities of goods or services from a single vendor. Sometimes multiple organizations will pool their requirements to negotiate the best volume discounts the vendor will offer.

In developing that strategy, the department created a knowledge center, which will handle the procurement analyses. The vision for Georgia’s procurement overhaul is to aggregate spending across its agencies and organizations that typically operate independently. Agencies use different types of software to gather data. There are at least 34 different instances of PeopleSoft, Douglas said. In July, Georgia signed a contract with SciQuest, an e-procurement management company, to bind together the agencies’ incom patible software programs.

SciQuest intends to give the state a buying system that will become the hub and spoke for the state’s procurement system, said Stephen Wiehe, president and chief executive officer at SciQuest.

SciQuest’s software will give the state an online shopping center that integrates the various PeopleSoft instances, he said. Officials expect to gain insight into how the state spends money while eliminating paper-based processes and driving spending to pre-negotiated contracts.

The law
One other barrier stood in the way of Georgia’s procurement reformers: The state’s procurement law. It obstructed good buying practices, not always for any clear reason. For example, agencies weren’t allowed to negotiate with vendors on the contracts. Douglas said officials knew each round of negotiations saves an average of 4 percent to 5 percent from the initial proposed price.

“It was stunning to me,” he said.

The time
The law now allows agencies to negotiate. That was one of several changes that resulted from reform legislation in 2005.

Not long after taking their positions, Douglas and Tim Gibney, assistant commissioner at the State Purchasing Division of the Administrative Services Department, started talking to legislators about the procurement system and the need for reforms.

They found that the season was ripe for change. While Perdue pushed new thinking on agencies, state officials explained the procurement problems for the legislators in the Georgia General Assembly. In 2005, the assembly easily passed legislation granting more flexibility to state agencies.

State Rep. Allen Freeman, a Republican who sponsored the legislation that ultimately changed procurement policies, wasn’t surprised by the rigid rules that oversaw purchasing.

“I’ve seen it from every side,” Freeman said. In the early 1990s, he managed a state park in southwest Georgia with an archeological museum on Indian burial mounds. “I had to use the contract book, just like everyone else,” he said. That book told state employees which vendors they could buy from and what price they had to pay.

The 2005 law gave the Administrative Services Department a lot of authority to improve acquisition. It allowed the department to canvass all sources of supplies and to have general supervision of all storerooms and stores operated by the state.

Douglas said the essential ingredients for making the transformation are top-down belief in the changes, resources and money to do the job, and legislative reforms to do what is necessary to bring about the transformation.

Officials set up pre-negotiated contracts for purchasers and are now collecting more data, but Gibney said the work isn’t easy. The state has a $34 billion annual budget, and its agencies and universities are unaccustomed to culture shifts such as this. “But we’ve been given the tools to go at it,” he said.

The people
In the knowledge center, there are advocates for the agencies’ buyers, as both consultants and listeners, who bring back complaints and suggestions to the knowledge center to improve overall operations. The center is training those buyers to think differently and see their individual purchases as part of a whole buying system.

“We felt not only did we need to have strong buying and contracts in place, we also wanted to improve the quality of work being performed and to train and educate folks,” Gibney said. Their work in procurement and understanding the profession overall is critical to an agencies’ success.

“My major goal — as Rodney Dangerfield said — has been to get some respect for the profession,” Gibney said.

Read the story: FCW.com News - State turns buyers into strategists

Bill would kill rule on women-owned business

The Senate may stop a controversial proposal from the Small Business Administration that would limit the type of set-aside contracts given to women-owned small businesses.

A 40-word provision in the Senate’s version of the fiscal 2009 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act (S. 3260) would block the proposed rule. The rule would allow agencies to set aside some contracts for women-owned small businesses, but the proposal would only allow the set-asides in four select industries, such as kitchen cabinet manufacturers.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Bill would kill rule on women-owned business

Vet-owned business advocate criticizes VA bill

The House’s attempt to help service-disabled veterans get federal contracts lacks any real influence, a leading veteran business advocate said Aug. 7.

The Improving Veterans’ Opportunities in Education and Business Act (H.R. 6221), passed on Aug. 1, would mandate the Veterans Affairs Department to include provisions in its contracts and agreements with other agencies requiring them to give preference to service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses.

“This is feel-good legislation,” said John Moliere, a service-disabled veteran and president of Standard Communications. The amount of business done through interagency agreements doesn’t add up to much money, he said.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Vet-owned business advocate criticizes VA bill

Services contracts lead in Iraq funding

Contractors providing the government with administrative and management services in Iraq took the major share of federal contract dollars obligated between 2003 and 2007, according to a report released today.

In analyzing federal contract data, the Congressional Budget Office found government agencies obligated 80 percent of the $85 billion in contracts spent in Iraq on services contracts. Specifically, contractors offering administrative and management services received $26 billion, or approximately 30 percent of the money. Most of those dollars went to contracts classified as “logistics support services,” a broad subcategory of services contracts that can include equipment and property maintenance, according to the CBO’s report, “Contractors’ Support of U.S. Operations in Iraq.”

Read the story: FCW.com News - Services contracts lead in Iraq funding

SBA measures economic impact on HUBZones

Small Business Administration officials have developed a new method for measuring the economic impact of small-business contracts on poor areas, SBA’s chief economist said today.

SBA officials want to measure the effect on employment and household incomes of people living in Historically Underutilized Business Zones compared with the amount of federal contract money that goes to HUBZone businesses.

Read the story: FCW.com News - SBA measures economic impact on HUBZones

Bill would put more eyes on purchase cards

Federal employees who use government purchase cards could have more eyes watching them.

Under the Government Credit Card Abuse Prevention Act (S. 789), the IGs would have to regularly report to the Office of Management and Budget about violations and punishments, as well as agency trends that might lead to improper behaviors. They would also suggest other ways of aggregating an agency’s spending, according to the bill.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Bill would put more eyes on purchase cards

Restrictions seen hurting disaster recovery

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials should work with chief procurement regulators to avoid limits to subcontracting that could strain efforts to respond quickly to disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, according to a new report.

Richard Skinner, the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, wrote in a report released Aug. 4 that legislation passed by Congress in 2006 that restricts subcontracting by prime contractors could inhibit disaster responses and recovery work by FEMA or other DHS agencies.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Restrictions seen hurting disaster recovery

A push for more competition

Departments will likely soon feel more pressure from policy-makers to buy more products and services through competitive bids, rather than sole-source contracts.

The federal government has competed approximately 64 percent of its procurements (based on dollar value) each year since fiscal 2005, although total procurement spending has increased from $371.8 billion in fiscal 2005, according to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Members of Congress and the Bush administration’s chief procurement official said they believe agencies can do more, and they are looking for new ways to push agencies along.

Read the story: FCW.com News - A push for more competition

Committee approves Williams nomination

The nomination of Jim Williams as administrator of the General Services Administration was approved unanimously today by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and sent to the full Senate.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the committee’s chairman, said he was satisfied with Williams’ answers regarding a controversy involving Sun Microsystems, and called Williams an outstanding candidate for the position.

Lieberman and the committee's ranking member, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), said they questioned Williams extensively regarding his role in renegotiations of a contract with Sun, which stirred controversy. The contract raised concerns about whether the company had not provided the government with the appropriate discounts on its products and services.

“I don’t know if his actions were perfect in retrospect, but I am convinced that his motivations were always in the best interest of the taxpayers,” Collins said. “I believe he is the ideal person for this position at a very critical time.”

However, as reported July 29, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is expected put a hold on the nomination, which would keep the Senate from considering Williams. (Read more here.)

Read the story: FCW.com News - Committee approves Williams nomination

Grassley plans hold on Williams nomination

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) will put a hold on on the nomination of Jim Williams to be administrator of the General Services Administration if the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approves Williams' nomination tomorrow, a spokeswoman for Grassley confirmed today.

Grassley had opposed Williams' nomination, saying July 24 that his "concerns are based on my investigation of a dubious GSA contract with Sun Microsystems.”

Read the story: FCW.com News - Grassley plans hold on Williams nomination

SBA faulted on set-aside check

“Faith-based contracting” doesn’t bring out the best in people. In those situations, “we sit back and hope and pray the company we’re doing business with isn’t ripping us off too badly,” said Bruce Causseaux, a senior-level specialist for forensic audits and special investigations at the Government Accountability Office.

Causseaux said the Small Business Administration appears to be taking that approach with its Historically Underutilized Business Zone program, which is designed to provide federal contracting opportunities to businesses in low-income areas.

During a recent investigation, GAO auditors found numerous examples of ineligible companies being accepted into the HUBZone program.

Read the story: FCW.com News - SBA faulted on set-aside check

Denett: Agencies can compete more contracts

The government held competitions for 64 percent of its contracting dollars in fiscal 2007 — a stable percentage of the past three years — but the chief procurement officer said agencies can grow beyond that number.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Denett: Agencies can compete more contracts

Clearance reform gets a boost

A new Bush administration directive could mitigate one of the sticking points that plague the federal government’s process for granting security clearances: reciprocity.

Agencies are often unwilling to accept clearances granted by other agencies, forcing career-changers — and their would-be managers — to wait out a process before they fully can move into a new job.

Executive Order 13467 mandates that other agencies accept background investigations and adjudications conducted by one agency. Once the process is in place, this order is expected to help reduce the backlog, freeing resources to focus on new clearances.

Although this is only one of numerous problems with the clearance process, the Bush administration has laid a foundation on which to begin the reforms, observers say.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Clearance reform gets a boost

Committees want reports on contractors

Leaders in the intelligence community would have to keep closer tabs on what contractors are doing in their agencies under bills pending in Congress.

Some members of Congress have proposed one-time, comprehensive reports on contractors under the House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2009 Intelligence Authorization Act, H.R. 5959 and S. 2996.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Committees want reports on contractors

Officials: HUBZone program is open to fraud

Investigators uncovered serious lapses in a Small Business Administration contracting program after they received set-aside small business status by using false identification, officials said today.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Officials: HUBZone program is open to fraud

Senate: DHS must sort workforce mix

The next administration has plenty of major challenges ahead, and one of them is figuring out how to manage an acquisition workforce in which government employees are intermingled with contractors.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Senate: DHS must sort workforce mix

What acquisition employees want

Experienced midcareer acquisition employees have become very important to their organizations and valuable to agencies with worked piled on empty desks. As a result, agencies in need are wooing knowledgeable acquisition employees from other agencies. But for agencies intent on keeping those personnel, officials have suggestions that may stop precious employees from answering the calls.

Read the story: FCW.com News - What acquisition employees want

Competitive sourcing gets a new name

Competitive sourcing no longer carries that name. The system's new name is "commercial services management," officials said today.

With the name change, acquisition officials are recognizing the ways agencies are trying improve their commercial operations, according to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. Also, agencies are using several techniques to do so, such as competitive sourcing, OFPP said in a memo released today.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Competitive sourcing gets a new name

DHS' blended workforce worries senators

Members of a Senate committee are concerned that the Homeland Security Department continues to rely on contractors, instead of growing the expertise it needs internally, according to a new report.

The Senate Appropriations Committee said in a report accompanying a spending bill the panel approved June 19 that its members were concerned that contractors are performing work that is more appropriate for federal employees or contractors are doing work that comes close to inherently governmental functions.

Read the story: FCW.com News - DHS' blended workforce worries senators

EPA wants controls on sole-source contracts

Environmental Protection Agency officials are adding a “second set of eyes” to ensure noncompetitive contracts have all the necessary signatures before they are awarded, according to a recent letter.

By July 31, EPA will put new internal controls over sole-source procurements valued at more than $550,000, which require several officials' signatures before award. The agency will revise its acquisition handbook to require contracting staff members one level above the contracting officer to review and approve justifications for sole-source procurements.

Read the story: FCW.com News - EPA wants controls on sole-source contracts

Work (statements) of art

Nine days after arriving in his new position as assistant to the deputy chief acquisition officer at the Coast Guard, Rory Souther took on the job of analyzing the high-profile Deepwater acquisition program.

Souther knew the agency wanted an independent product analysis done in less than five months for the massive modernization program. Analyzing a program as complex as Deepwater was bound to be difficult, but Souther realized it would be harder than he had expected because of a lack of well-defined requirements.

How could he assess Deepwater’s progress without a clear sense of the program’s goals?

Government and industry procurement experts say such problems, common in government, often can be traced back to difficulties at the beginning of the procurement process when contracting officers must translate program requirements into a performance work statement.

Too often, contracting officers are given few requirements, so they struggle to write those critical work statements, experts say.

The work statement gives contracting officers a clear description of a project’s overall purpose and specific goals. That information then guides the development of the contract requirements that give potential bidders a good understanding of what the agency expects from them. A good work statement is at the heart of a successful contract, and of a successful project, acquisition experts say.

In 2002, the Coast Guard decided those statements were too important to leave to chance.

Help on hand
To help contracting officers and program managers such as Souther, the Coast Guard assembled a team that acts as a guide through acquisitions. The Customer Advocacy and Assistance Team (CAAT) sits down with the managers and various contract officers involved in supervising the contract to sketch the objectives of the project.

“They held my hand and took me to exactly the type of [work statement] that we needed to describe the product and get the work done on time,” Souther said.

To start a project’s work statement, the CAAT hosts kickoff meetings with an integrated solutions team of the program managers, contracting officers and contract specialists, who handle much of the acquisition after the contract is awarded. The meetings come after the CAAT has received information about the project’s acquisition details, such as a proposed acquisition strategy and the anticipated award date.

The early meetings are just informational, said said Barbara Greely, a CAAT member and division chief for planning and procedures at the Coast Guard Acquisition Directorate’s Office of Contract Operations.
The team asks what the managers want to buy and what outcome they’re seeking. The services the manager wants to buy dictate the best type of contract to use.

Although the contracting officers must attend at least the initial meeting, the project manager provides the in-depth knowledge at the subsequent face-to-face discussions. The manager brings the CAAT a thorough understanding of the project’s requirements, its direction and final objective. The manager’s role at this stage is to ensure that the work statements accurately describe the agency’s needs.

Before writing the work statement, the CAAT’s job is to ask detailed questions designed to gather information about the project’s goals and outcomes and how the manager would measure performance.

In other words, “What, Mr. Program Manager, would it take to make you happy?” Greely said.

Lisa Akers, director of the Federal Systems Integration and Management Center, a national assisted acquisition services program at the General Services Administration, said an agency needs specialized employees to get those answers from project managers. The employees must be good listeners and writers who are fascinated by acquisition regulation, she said. They also have to be curious enough to ask complex and thorough questions.

“They’re our ‘requirements whisperers,’ ” Akers said.

A ‘mind-shift’ in agencies
Changes in acquisition policies have made the CAAT members and the requirements whisperers important. They are drawing out various details about requirements from the technical people who have worked for years in requirements-based acquisitions, but are now being pushed to performance-based acquisitions.

Greely said the changes in federal acquisition offices require “a mind-shift,” which has proven difficult for some people.

The government has written detailed, prescriptive statements of work for as long as anyone can remember. These statements lay out explicit requirements for contractors. But now, performance-based acquisition is preferred. This method is a results-oriented strategy, giving flexibility to contractors to meet an agency’s needs in the way the contractor believes will get the desired results.

During the previous five years, Souther said, he had written many of those traditional statements of work, with unambiguous terms and often meticulous details about commodities. Like many old-school managers, he found it tough at first to get his mind around performance-based contracting, he said.

Evelyn DePalma, a recently retired procurement director at the Defense Information Systems Agency, said people have done contract work statements one way for their entire careers, and “they struggle to see a different method.”

Program managers often come to contracting officers with specific requirements definitions for a contract, and the contracting officer will ask them to rewrite it as a performance work statement. The request will sometimes be difficult to fulfill because “the program manager hadn’t thought about it in that respect,” DePalma said.

In the old days, an agency that needed to buy toothbrushes would send out long papers complete with an exhaustive description and a diagram, said Robert Burton, deputy administrator at Office of Federal Procurement Policy, who actually saw such a proposal.

“That’s what we’re trying to get away from,” he said.

How the culture is changing
The art of writing work statements is changing as the government pushes toward performance-based acquisitions. But it’s hard for workers to change with it, Akers said.

“It’s a culture, not a contract method,” she said.

Many people assume the difficulties with culture change is simply about agency leaders wanting to stay in control and not cede the lead role to a contractor, she said. But that isn’t necessarily the sticking point. “They see that their mission is riding on this contractor support, and they care about it so much,” she said.

Performance-based acquisitions hinge on communication and managing expectations between parties, experts say. The government has worked for years at arm’s length from contractors, avoiding close partnerships. “And that’s why we end up with problems,” Burton said.

When conversations break down and a project teeters, it’s time for contractors and project managers to come back to the table for discussions, Akers said. Once on course again, the manager must again trust the contractor, she said.

“We have to change our basic culture regarding how we do business,” Burton said, adding that he’s confident that agencies can change. “We have no other choice.”

Agencies are turning to the performance-based approach with their growth in complex services contracts, and that is pushing contracting officers and program managers into new ways of thinking about work statements.

To help with their thinking, the Coast Guard’s project managers and contracting officers go to the CAAT, even though the agency no longer requires it. The CAAT developed more than 400 work statements from 2002 to 2005 and more than 90 in 2007. The team has handled a total of roughly 800 statements since 2002.

“The CAAT team really helped me get through the darkness,” Souther said.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Work (statements) of art

Commerce delayed new contracting policies

Acquisition officials at the Commerce Department have been slow in applying new contracting policies, letting some polices sit idle for more than a year, a report by the department's inspector general's office has found.

Commerce officials failed to tell its contracting officers about monitoring certain subcontracts, and they allowed training deadlines to slip by.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Commerce delayed new contracting policies

IG criticizes VA use of Magic Quadrant

The Veterans Affairs Department’s use of a widely known industry guide that measures manufacturers may have stymied competition for a $248 million contract, according to recent report.

VA officials incorrectly used Garnter’s Magic Quadrant market guide by relying too heavily on its gauges, the report states.

Read the story: FCW.com News - IG criticizes VA use of Gartner's Magic Quadrant

New standards for background investigations

President Bush has established a new council and two new positions to create governmentwide standards for checking the backgrounds of government employees and contractors.

An executive order issued June 30 established the Suitability and Security Clearance Performance Accountability Council. The council will review procedures for investigating and ruling on whether a person should be allowed access to sensitive information or federally controlled buildings. The goal is to standardize those procedures governmentwide, the order states.

The president also established two new positions: the suitability executive agent and the security executive agent.

Read the story: FCW.com News - New standards for background investigations

GSA watchers praise Williams nomination

Government officials and acquisition experts welcomed the news that President Bush has chosen Jim Williams to head the General Services Administration, an agency trying to stabilize itself after several years of troubles.

Last week Bush nominated Williams, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, to become the agency’s administrator, ending speculation that Bush might let the position remain unfilled until the next administration takes office. The job has been open for nearly two months, after Lurita Doan abruptly resigned in late April at the White House’s urging. While Deputy Administrator David Bibb had stepped in as acting administrator, he recently announced that he will retire in September.

Read the story: FCW.com News - GSA watchers praise Williams nomination

MAS panel wants more feedback

Government and industry have willingly and generously shared their opinions on improving the General Services Administration’s schedules program, but the most important constituency has been relatively silent.

In four meetings that the Multiple Award Schedule Advisory Panel has held since May, only one customer agency has spoken before the panel, Eldred Jackson, deputy director of administration at the Justice Department’s Justice Program Office.

Read the story: FCW.com News - MAS panel wants more feedback

New law opens some of GSA's contracts

President Bush signed a bill that opens some of the General Services Administration’s contracts to state and local governments to make some purchases.

The Local Preparedness Acquisition Act (H.R. 3179), signed June 26, authorizes state and local governments to use GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules to buy law enforcement and security-related items, including firefighting and rescue equipment.

Jim Williams, the president’s nominee for GSA administrator, has said he supports the legislation but wants to open all schedules contracts for use by state and local governments.

Read the story: FCW.com News - New law opens some of GSA's contracts

Commerce official nominated to head SBA

Santuanu “Sandy” Baruah has been nominated to head the Small Business Administration. Baruah is now assistant secretary of economic development at the Commerce Department. The White House announced the nomination June 25.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Commerce official nominated to head SBA

Williams nominated as GSA administrator

Jim Williams, the commissioner of the General Services Administration's Federal Acquisition Service, has been nominated to be GSA's administrator, the White House announced today.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Williams nominated as GSA administrator

Are schedule prices a good deal?

The Multiple Award Schedule Advisory Panel discovered its mission last week. Meeting for the fourth time, the panel narrowed its attention to five areas.

The panel will focus on stakeholders’ views of the schedules program, their expectations, the program’s business model, pricing policies and whether companies in the program offer agencies the same price they would offer their most-favored commercial customers.

The overarching question facing the panel is whether General Services Administration contracts offer agencies the lowest price.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Are schedule prices a good deal?

New guidelines to improve interagency contracting

Long before Paul Denett became administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in 2006, interagency contracts had multiplied out of control, at least in the eyes of some procurement experts. Denett now says he wants “a little less of the Wild West” in interagency contracting.

OFPP identified one category of interagency contracting — multiagency contracts — as particularly needing stricter controls. Denett targeted MACs in a new policy guidance that OFPP issued June 6, but some procurement experts say it may be too little, too late.

Read the story: FCW.com News - OFPP offers new guidelines to improve interagency contracting

Bill would halt competitions for a year

A House appropriations bill in its early stages seeks to block use of the public/private competition system for a year and let next president deal with the issue, a House member has said.

Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Financial Services and General Government appropriations subcommittee, said June 17 the governmentwide provision would halt "this administration’s controversial and detrimental federal workforce program.”

Read the story: FCW.com News - Bill would halt competitions for a year

Panel seeks input from GSA's customers

Career officials from several agencies could receive invitations to speak to a panel that's reviewing the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedules program.

At a meeting June 17, the Multiple Award Schedule Advisory Panel said it will request input from auditors, inspectors general, officials at large and small agencies, and congressional staff members so the members can get a better sense of what’s happening with the $36 billion buying program run by GSA.

Read the story: FCW.com News - Panel seeks input from GSA's customers

New interagency contracts might need approval

Officials might finally be cracking down on interagency contracts after years of concern about their proliferation. Paul Denett, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, wrote in a June 6 memo that OFPP wants to establish a process for reviewing business cases for new multiagency contracts (MACs).

Such a review could help stem abuses of MACs, said Neal Fox, consultant and former assistant commissioner of acquisition at the General Services Administration. The Federal Acquisition Regulation has specific rules governing MACs, but agencies often ignore them. Meanwhile, creating MACs allows agencies to skirt OFPP rules and oversight that apply to other contracts, Fox said.

Read the story: FCW.com News - New interagency contracts might need approval

GSA expects schedules office by July

The General Services Administration could set up a new office as early as July to oversee its multiple-award schedule contracts, a GSA official said today.

Leaders of the offices in charge of various schedule contracts are still negotiating the details of the new office’s role, said Steven Kempf, assistant commissioner for acquisition management at GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service. However, he added that the new office likely wouldn’t play a heavy-handed role in supervising the $36 billion program.

Read the story: FCW.com News - GSA expects schedules office by July