The General Services Administration added four new services to its schedules contracts Jan. 16 as the agency pushes ahead with efforts to meet agencies’ security convergence needs, officials said today. Federal agencies will find out late this spring how well they contracted with small businesses in fiscal 2007, and receiving good grades is getting tougher, the Small Business Administration’s top official said.
One down, eight more to go — that’s the number of protests the General Services Administration faces before it can begin taking orders under the Alliant governmentwide information technology contract.Lawmakers couldn’t be clearer about how they feel about the Small Business Administration’s proposedSmall businesses will have another chance to snag a contract with the Army. Business on the General Services Administration’s information technology schedule contracts appears to be staying flat, an agency official said Thursday. The House Small Business Committee chairwoman today called a proposal regarding a women’s procurement program “silly” and said it won’t do much to send more contracts to women-owned small businesses. Many congressional offices are lagging behind the public's expectations for providing information services online, according to a new study. Managers at the Small Business Administration now must have several levels of approval before accessing an employee’s e-mail inbox. When Small Business Administration officials pried into the e-mail inbox of an employee supplying anonymous testimony to the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, the committee chairman said the result could have a chilling effect on oversight. Lead systems integrators cannot have a financial interest in a major acquisition when they are working closely with the Defense Department on the details of that purchase or one related to it, under a new interim rule.Congress gave the Small Business Administration more money in its fiscal 2008 appropriations bill than President Bush requested for the agency, which some senators say is a signal to the president that SBA needs more funding in 2009. The General Services Administration added a company to its Alliant contract that it initially passed on, the company said today. 
The widespread award and use of multiple-award contracts in the past three years have caused some agency confusion and borderline illegal practices. Although some problems have been cleared up recently, the Bush administration is deciding on the best way to oversee the hundreds of contracts agencies are using.Lawmakers, frustrated by the Office of Management and Budget’s practice of putting federal projects on various watch lists without explaining why, have decided to do something about it. Defense Department contracting officers need to talk more often to industry to improve the process of awarding contracts, a new memo states. The Small Business Administration’s attempt to give women who own small businesses better odds of getting a government contract may not help after all, lawmakers say. 