GSA acquisition team gets down to business

Steve Kempf wants FAS to be the No. 1 brand in acquisition

Some agency leaders can inspire employees with a vision of the future and motivate them to work hard to achieve it. Those leaders enter as if they rode in on a white stallion.

Other leaders arrive on a workhorse. They aren’t hailed with cheers or thunderous applause. Instead, they make people realize that it’s time to get down to business.

Steve Kempf has been commissioner of the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service since July, and he arrived leading a workhorse. In an interview before taking on that role, Kempf said his strategy “will largely be in the context of this administration, GSA’s current thinking and then finally where FAS wants to take the [Multiple Award] Schedules program.”

Kempf gave his first speech as commissioner Nov. 2 at the Coalition for Government Procurement’s annual Fall Conference. The gathering lacked an atmosphere of excitement or lavish praise for Kempf.

“He’s not making a lot of waves, and there are no big steps,” said John Howell, a partner at the Sullivan and Worcester law firm, after the speech.

It seems that the leaders on white stallions are already here and have cast their grand visions. Kempf specifically referenced Obama administration officials “who see GSA as an asset” and GSA Administrator Martha Johnson. Johnson has enthused GSA employees since 2009 with her vision of customer intimacy, innovation and operational excellence.

Kempf’s vision is simple, and it’s about work. “It’s very important for us to meet our obligations and our commitments” to make FAS the No. 1 brand, he said.

He said that in the next decade, FAS will become agencies’ first choice when they need to make a purchase because FAS will offer easy-to-use tools, fast service and a wealth of options.

Kempf is moving ahead on many fronts by taking the infrastructure that was already in place and making it work. He is launching new Web-based tools, including eOffer/eMod, which allows companies to electronically submit new offers and requested modifications to their schedule contracts. Early in 2011, GSA officials plan to enable government customers to manage their contracts online with such tools.

Kempf also said he recognizes the growing importance of data in this era of transparency. He said FAS customers need to have easy access to data about sales and pricing so they can see whether they’re getting the best deal for their money. And he plans to get that information for them.

A Knack for Getting Things Done

Roger Waldron, new president of the Coalition for Government Procurement and a retired GSA official, said Kempf is working on projects that started during Waldron’s tenure at the agency.

“He’s carrying them to fruition,” Waldron said, adding that the projects are important building blocks.

Although Kempf is not making waves, Howell and others are quick to say he was a good choice for FAS commissioner.

A GSA employee who attended the conference said Kempf knows FAS well. He joined GSA in 1992 as a marketing coordinator at the Office of Technology Assistance and has since held leadership positions at the Federal Systems Integration and Management Center, the Office of Integrated Technology Services and FAS.

Kempf knows FAS' challenges because he has been on the front lines for years and has worked on the operational and strategic sides, said the employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The employee added that Kempf couples experience with research. Kempf marshals his resources well and can often point employees to research that is relevant to their particular projects.

Kempf’s success as FAS commissioner will likely center on collecting more data about pricing and transparency. He will also be a leader in the emerging world of green procurement, the employee said.

Furthermore, Kempf is down to earth and doesn’t think of himself as above everyone else. “He’s not in an ivory tower or on a high horse,” the employee said.

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GSA contract expiration reflects market needs, experts say

GSA official says many GWACs won't be renewed as GSA markets its Alliant and Alliant Small Business contracts

The General Services Administration's plan to let many of its governmentwide information technology contracts expire, largely ending the era of big governmentwide acquisition contracts (GWACs), reflects the evolving needs of the market, experts say.

They say the federal IT market’s sales have been driving GSA to end and merge GWACs for several years now. There are too many GWACs, causing too much overlap of services. The result is scattered sales while the cost of running the contracts still dips deeply into GSA’s pockets.

GSA will continue to support only Alliant, its small-business companion contract and a few GWACs targeted to companies in specific socioeconomic categories, said Ed O’Hare, assistant commissioner of the Office of Integrated Technology Services at GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service.

For the long term, though, GSA will likely merge the GWAC program with the widely used Multiple Award Schedules program. “But that will take years, not months,” O’Hare said.

Before ending the GWAC program, GSA will first winnow down the number of marginally performing GWACs, such as Commerce Information Technology Solutions-NexGen, said Larry Allen, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement. In recent years, GSA has taken over several GWACs, such as COMMITS from the Commerce Department, and now the agency needs to streamline its efforts, he added.

GSA has said for more than a year that the overlapping GWACs are expensive for government and industry and should be pared down, said Bill Perlowitz, vice president of advanced technology at Apptis. No one should be surprised that the agency is saying it won’t renew many GWACs, particularly given the Obama administration’s desire for a more efficient government.

“GSA would be streamlining things” to close down or merge GWACs into its schedules program, said Hope Lane, officer of government contracts consulting at Aronson and Co.

Total IT sales figures have slipped slightly in the past several years. The fallout in 2004 over GSA’s mishandling of the Defense Department’s money has caused some DOD customers to turn to other IT contracts, such as the Navy Department’s SeaPort-e, Lane said.

Meanwhile, sales on GSA’s massive Schedule 70 have remained relatively flat at about $17 billion annually for the past three years, according to government figures.

The recently awarded Alliant and Alliant Small Business GWACs, which were delayed for two years, have a wide choice of services, which makes many other GWACs unnecessary, experts say.

"You can get pretty much anything you want from Alliant," Lane said.

Courtney Fairchild, president of Global Services, said GSA’s Alliant contracts, which were awarded earlier this year, were always meant to replace the expiring GWACs.

“I suppose the real question for industry is whether or not government agencies have enough faith in the Alliant contract to switch over,” she said.

Agencies that shy away from Alliant will still have the option to work with one of more than 15,000 companies in the schedules program.

GWACs offer options to agencies that the schedules program can’t, such as cost-reimbursement contracts. Unless GSA can tweak the schedules program’s rules to change that, GWACs will always have a place, Allen said.

In addition, GSA would have a tough time closing the socioeconomic-based GWACs, such as the 8(a) small-business Streamlined Technology Acquisition Resources for Services and the Veterans Technology Services GWACs.

“Would you want to stand before Congress and try to explain why you ended those contracts?” Allen asked.

On the other hand, any attempt to merge the GWAC and schedules programs would be “consistent with the spirit and message of the creation of the recent Federal Acquisition Service,” Fairchild said.

The reorganization of the Federal Technology Service and the Federal Supply Service into FAS allowed GSA to scrap dueling and repetitive contracts that might confuse customers.

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Acquisition workforce: Social media could be big draw

The government acquisition community ought to take a cue from President Barack Obama’s campaign strategy and use social media technology to bolster its ranks, one lawmaker says.

The government needs to be brave enough to draw on the younger generation’s new ways of interacting to help attract them to government service and to simply improve how agencies run, said Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.), speaking at a congressional hearing last week.

Many older federal employees may not be as comfortable with that technology, but the up-and-coming employees live by it. “This is their primary way of thinking,” he said.

Obama’s campaign captured young people’s attention like no other presidential candidate has before. It created Change.gov, a hip Web site describing Obama’s agenda. But Obama also sent out text messages and had a presence on Facebook, MySpace and numerous other social networking sites. Obama posted videos on YouTube. He even tweeted.

As a candidate, Obama was “a socially enabled, socially connected, socially aware, socially conscious leader,” Barry Libert, author of “Barack, Inc.: Winning Business Lessons of the Obama Campaign,” said in a recent speech.

At the hearing, Bilbray said the older generations that didn’t grow up with this technology will always be somewhat blind to it, unlike the younger people who have never known life without that technology.

“First of all, it intimidates us to some degree, and we may not understand it. But the potential is huge,” he said.

The next generation is heading toward more Web 2.0 tools and collaboration from the crowd.

The General Services Administration already has a technology-rich culture, said David Drabkin, acting chief acquisition officer at GSA, who testified at the hearing. The agency is adopting cloud computing and Web 2.0 collaboration tools internally and using social networking sites such as Facebook to interact with the public.

“We are on the edge,” he said.

Mary Davie, assistant Federal Acquisition Service commissioner for assisted acquisition services at GSA, is already thinking about the application of social media to acquisition. In a column in this week’s print edition of Federal Computer Week, Davie suggests opening the process of defining an acquisition’s requirements to get insight from a community of experts, inside or outside of the government.

“Using the wisdom of the crowd to define requirements and the best development process, participants could propose ideas based on experience, good practices, and standards, question and weed out bad ideas, build on one another’s ideas, and float the best to the top,” she writes.

Like Bilbray, Davie sees an opportunity not only to improve procurement but to appeal to younger recruits.

“Imagine what this might do to attract and retain the Net Generation workforce we are always seeking out,” Davie wrote.

At the hearing, Shay Assad, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition and technology, said technology will bring major changes in acquisition during the next two years.

The department is developing a database that will give Defense Department contracting officials quick access to information on business deals across the department, such as how the department negotiates with certain contractors, what they buy, and how much they may.

The system will be based on information collected by the Defense Contract Management Agency, which is the hub for analysis of the value and costs of DOD’s procurements.

At present, the individual services often don’t share information and know little about what the other services are buying, even from the same contractor, Assad said. “The fact of the matter is that we are not as capable as a number of organizations in terms of being able to share that information, but we are getting there,” he said.

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GSA looks to corral former customers

Procurement agency tries to win back lost business

Good news hasn't come very often to the embattled General Services Administration in recent years. So when some positive attention does come its way, GSA officials are eager to wave the results in front of its old go-it-alone customers — if only to show them that the agency has left its bad habits in the past.

Auditors from the Defense Department and GSA have been examining GSA’s books, and agency officials are confident the outcome will reveal that GSA can toe the regulatory line, said Ed O’Hare, new assistant commissioner for integrated technology services at GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service.

“We are confident we made the changes we needed to make, and we’ll fly through,” he said in a speech delivered in May.

Meanwhile, his marketing people are gathering a list of multiagency contracts and indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts that other agencies launched around the same time GSA was found to be assisting the Defense Department with illegal purchases. O’Hare is targeting his message of repentance to the officers in the agencies whose own IDIQs are about to expire. The contracts often last for five to 10 years.

He wants to convince those agencies that GSA is ready to take over the other IDIQs, relieving other agencies of the maintenance burdens that come with running a large contracting program.

His question is simply: “Do you really want to do this again?”

For added emphasis, O’Hare also intends to highlight GSA’s inexpensive usage fees. Agencies pay a 0.75 percent service fee to use the Alliant GWAC, and GSA is capping that fee at $150,000 a year.

“I defy anyone to do a GWAC less expensively than that,” O’Hare said.

GSA’s ‘come to Jesus’ moment

Although GSA says it has moved past the scandal that rocked it five years ago, the memories — and history — linger. On Jan. 8, 2004, the GSA inspector general reported a pervasive problem of improper task orders and contract awards by the agency’s client support centers (CSCs), which served DOD. The IG found that some GSA employees were using the Information Technology Fund for purchases of goods and services that were well outside the fund’s scope. As a result, DOD officials banned use of GSA for major purchases.

The list of GSA’s sins grew long, according to the IG: improper sole-source awards, allowing work outside the scope of contracts, and inappropriately using time-and-materials task orders. Although the IT fund is authorized only for acquiring IT equipment, software and related services, investigators found that CSCs were dipping into it to pay for a wide variety of inappropriate things, such as marine barriers, pathogen detection devices, and construction of classrooms and office buildings.

The GSA IG attributed the problems to a culture that emphasized revenue growth instead of adhering to proper procurement procedures.

“I think every organization has to have a ‘come to Jesus’ moment,” said David Drabkin, GSA’s chief acquisition officer. That IG report was GSA’s moment.

Although the problems applied only to one small piece of GSA’s operation, the public perception was that the agency was more broadly compromised. “One part of your business does badly, and it hurts everybody,” Drabkin said.

DOD customers were frustrated with GSA and showed it in 2004 and 2005. Sales in the multiple-award schedules program slowed, but the program kept GSA from losing money year over year, Drabkin said.

But O’Hare and Drabkin said the agency has reorganized and revamped its operations. GSA is a new place compared to several years ago. And with the problems solved, GSA is ready to work. This latest round of audits, as required by the fiscal 2007 National Defense Authorization Act, should close the file on GSA as a poor broker of procurement dollars, O’Hare said.

Good news

Kevin Carroll, former program executive officer for the Army’s enterprise information systems who was in charge of the Information Technology Enabled Services-2S contract, said the new audit results can only help GSA rebuild its image and agencies’ trust in it.

“They’re showing responsibility,” said Carroll, president of the Kevin Carroll Group. But, he said, GSA also must continue to re-establish and develop its business relationship with DOD. Just showing good audit results won’t be enough.

Greg Rothwell, former chief procurement officer at the Homeland Security Department and president of Everymay Consulting Group, said there’s a deeper issue that might be too tough for GSA to surmount with a good audit: Agencies have become accustomed to doing their own contracting, and they aren’t likely to dump their contracts just to return to GSA.

Martha Johnson, President Barack Obama's nominee to be GSA administrator, said the agency has suffered its decline largely because of new freedom for agencies. Legislative changes in the 1990s, such as the Clinger-Cohen Act, removed many of the rules that required agencies to use GSA. It’s now one option among many.

“If you own it, you can control it,” said Rothwell, who helped to launch DHS’ Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions (EAGLE) contract and the Internal Revenue Service’s first two iterations of the Total Information Processing Support Services (TIPSS) contracts. “If you can’t control it, it can’t be as responsive to the agency’s mission.”

Faster, better, cheaper

The reality of control and GSA’s rough times forced it to cater to its customers and listen to them, experts say. For instance, GSA is letting agencies use contracts other than its own when GSA assists a customer agency.

GSA is scrambling to get started on launching ways for agencies to get on board with the Obama administration’s emphasis on cloud computing. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra and Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra are advancing the administration’s policy, while GSA’s role could be to make it easy for agencies to use cloud computing services.

“We see the administration’s requirements, we respond by initiating some kind of contract action and make it fast and easy for government agencies to use,” O’Hare said.

He even wants to make cloud computing services available to agencies using a credit card, especially when they’re in a pinch for time.

“You don’t have to go to the CIO, you don’t have to go plan it, you don’t have to go buy servers or digital maps or do a [certification and accreditation]," he said. O'Hare envisions an agency employee logging on to a Web site, answering a few questions, and “boom, check out, you got it.”

O’Hare’s Office of Integrated Technology Services has awarded all of its major contracts, such as Alliant and Networx, and they’re ready for business. "I’ve got to get out there and talk to people and try to convince them we’ve already got it,” he said.

And he wants to make GSA work “faster, better and cheaper” than other agencies can offer. “My job is to make it work,” he said.

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GSA nominee faces Senate panel and charms 'em

Senators say nominee Martha Johnson has plenty of private-sector and government experience

Martha Johnson, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be administrator of the General Services Administration, seems to be a shoo-in for the job.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said at Johnson’s confirmation hearing June 3 that he would work to quickly get her nomination approved by the committee and then the Senate.

He also said Obama made a wise choice in nominating her. “GSA, the president and the government need you to be at your desk,” he told Johnson.

Other senators mentioned Johnson’s qualifications and experience in the nonprofit and private sectors and the federal government, particularly as chief of staff at GSA in the 1990s when David Barram was administrator.

Johnson said she’s thrilled to go back to GSA. “‘Thrilled’ is actually a code word for me and for the agency,” she said.

Johnson said her highest priorities are to:

1. Demand, model and secure an uncompromising demonstration of ethical behavior and an organizational culture of values and trust.
2. Guarantee consistent, prompt and high-value performance for GSA’s customers.
3. Work to meet the demands of the economic stimulus law.
4. Support the Obama administration’s promise of a more transparent government.
   
5. Build and nurture strong leadership.

Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the committee’s ranking member, told Johnson that agencies have turned from GSA to do their own procurements because they’re skeptical of GSA's services.

“Some agencies have lost confidence in the ability of GSA to provide the best products and at the best prices and have begun to negotiate their own contracts that duplicate services offered by GSA,” Lieberman said. “That defeats the purpose of GSA.”

The wave of interagency contracts is a market gesture against GSA’s performance, Johnson said. But another major underlying issue that has driven agencies to do their own procurements is the freedom to not use GSA. Legislative changes made the 1990s, including the Clinger-Cohen Act, lifted rules that made GSA the primary source for buying certain products and services. As a result, agencies decided to take the work into their own hands. They could more tightly control and tailor contracts to suit their needs, she said.

Although the competition among contracts often brings better value and lower prices, too much overlap can have the opposite effect, Johnson said, adding that she doesn’t believe GSA should be a monolithic source for purchasing.

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GSA to make new bid for agency customers

GSA to offer contracts in the areas of cloud computing, transparency

The General Services Administration is gearing up to offer help to federal agencies looking to participate in the Obama administration’s initiatives on transparency and cloud computing, a GSA official said today.

GSA hopes to win customers that otherwise might have developed their own contracts or services.

“We see the administration’s requirements, we respond by initiating some kind of contract action, and make it fast and easy for government agencies to use,” said Ed O’Hare, the new assistant commissioner for Integrated Technology Services (ITS) at GSA's Federal Acquisition Service. He spoke at a FedSources breakfast meeting.

Obama administration officials have created numerous Web sites, such as Recovery.gov and Data.gov, to offer more information to the public. The new chief information officer, Vivek Kundra, is also moving ahead on the use of cloud computing.

O’Hare described cloud computing as a data center wrapped up with software as a solution. He wants to make it possible for agencies to buy such services using government credit cards, especially when they’re under deadline.

“You don’t have to go to the CIO, you don’t have to go plan it, you don’t have to go buy servers or digital maps or do” certification and accreditation, O’Hare said. Instead, he would like agencies to be able to log onto a Web site, answer a few questions about their needs and then, “Boom, check out, you got it.”

With O’Hare as the chief of ITS, experts now expect greater attention to day-to-day operations. They say he has been on the industry side of GSA and worked inside the agency, and therefore understands how ITS runs.

When John Johnson retired earlier this month as assistant commissioner for ITS, major contracts had been awarded and customers were placing orders. That leaves O’Hare to deal with how the office runs.

“My job is to make it work,” O'Hare said. He wants to make ITS and GSA’s information technology services faster, better and cheaper than what other agencies can offer.

He also talked about reducing the time it takes to get an IT contract on GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules program. Contractors are frustrated because it can take months to get on the IT Schedule 70 or modify one of those contracts.

“I know we’ve got to do better,” O’Hare said.

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GSA schedules might get state, local business

Cities and states soon might have more access to the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedules contracts, if several new bills reach the president’s desk.

Last week, Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, introduced legislation that would allow state and local governments to use stimulus money to buy from among the more than 11 million supplies and services available on the schedules contracts.

Towns’ bill, the Enhanced Oversight of State and Local Economic Recovery Act (H.R. 2182), pushes forward his notion that the schedules contracts should be open to more than federal agencies. In 2008, President George W. Bush signed Towns' Local Preparedness Acquisition Act, which gave states and cities access to law enforcement and security-related schedule contracts.

Similarly, Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) introduced the Green Acquisition Act (H.R. 1766) on March 26. It would grant state and local governments access to the schedules contracts for environmentally preferable commodities and services. The bill was sent to Towns’ committee for consideration, and the legislation received a positive response, said Adam Sharon, a spokesman for Meek.

Meek introduced the bill after talking with several Miami-Dade County officials about the money they would save by buying green products from the federal schedules contracts.

“The ability to obtain green goods and services with this method will make our taxpayers’ dollars go a long way,” County Commissioner Sally Heyman said in April. She estimated that state and local governments would add $1 trillion in additional sales annually by opening GSA’s schedules.

Since 2002, state and local governments have been allowed to buy information technology products and disaster recovery products from GSA schedules using cooperative purchasing agreements.

Those agreements have boosted GSA’s sales on its IT Schedule specifically. Orders from states and localities jumped from $17.9 million in fiscal 2003 to $521.8 million in 2008, according to Input, a market research firm. And 2009’s orders are outpacing 2008, despite the economic downturn.

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Martha Johnson may bring old era back to GSA

Martha Johnson, the nominee for the top job at the General Services Administration, could bring back an old era of good times at GSA that many inside and outside the agency are already bubbling about, several experts said today.

Johnson, who was chief of staff for then-GSA administrator David Barram from 1997 to 2001, is someone agency employees consider to be one of their own, those experts said.

“She knows GSA inside and out, and she knows almost all of the people there,” said Dennis Fischer, who was GSA’s Federal Technology Service (FTS) commissioner 1997 to 2001.

He has received e-mail messages from numerous agency employees who are excited by the news that President Barack Obama picked Johnson as his nominee to lead GSA, said Fischer, who’s now a consultant.

“I think the place is probably electric,” he said.

The White House made its announcement about Johnson's nomination late April 3, and the e-mail messages quickly began arriving in Fischer’s inbox, he said. Bob Woods, former FTS commissioner at GSA from 1994 to 1997 and now president of Topside Consulting, said a large number of retired GSA officials expressed interest in returning to the agency because Johnson could be back. “That says a lot,” he said.

Unlike recent administrators, Johnson has experience inside GSA, which would give her an advantage in improving an agency that has suffered through contracting crises, lost business as customer agencies do their own contracting work, and leaders who lacked a deep understanding of the agency.

“GSA can’t be another place for someone to learn,” Woods said. Johnson's "disposition is great, but it’s her experience that is what’s needed.”

Johnson served as co-lead for the Obama Presidential Transition Agency Review Team for GSA. That work gave her a close look into what had been happening at the agency during the previous administration, several experts said, adding that the information would serve her well.

Johnson has been vice president of culture at Computer Sciences Corp. since 2007. As vice president, she helps direct the change in culture of the 90,000-person corporation.

GSA's Public Building Service (PBS) is likely to grab Johnson's attention as stimulus money pours into making federal buildings more energy efficient, said Larry Allen, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement.

“The congressional and public interest is high in how Public Building Service funds are dispersed,” he said.

Fischer and Woods said GSA's Federal Acquisition Service won't be forgotten. They said PBS has longtime officials who know how the organization operates, which will free Johnson to boost FAS’ reputation. Woods said that when GSA formed FAS by merging the Federal Supply Service and FTS, it lost two brand names that were central purchasing organizations. GSA must continue to rebuild its name, he said.

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GSA awards three BPAs to shore up support

The General Services Administration has awarded three more purchase agreements to Integrity Management, Acquisition Solutions, and Technical and Project Engineering for acquisition support services, according to a Federal Business Opportunities notice.

The blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) awarded March 25 mirror the two other agreements GSA awarded March 12 to Integrity Management and Acquisition Solutions. The purpose is to help GSA keep ahead of a large volume of business that is expected to flow through the procurement agency because of the $787 billion economic stimulus law, and officials have said they don’t expect the flow to subside after the initial phases of the spending spree.

The agency said it already has shortages in experienced acquisition employees, and the business stemming from the law will exacerbate that weakness, especially as it will come on top of GSA's regular business. "Hence the ongoing need for acquisition management support services," GSA wrote in the notice.

The BPAs are one year long with four option years and are worth an estimated $100 million, the notice states.

The first two BPAs are for use by GSA’s National Capital Region offices, and the three BPAs announced yesterday are for all 11 regional offices, the notice states.

The BPAs have been established with Integrity Management Consulting as the primary BPA holder and Acquisition Solutions and Technical and Project Engineering as the backup BPA holders for the regional offices, according to the notice.

In another matter, GSA today announced it awarded a $400 million, five-year BPA to Lockheed Martin to manage Federal Acquisition Service’s information technology system operations and program management support.

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GSA awards BPAs for support services

The General Services Administration awarded blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) on March 12 to Integrity Management Consulting and Acquisition Solutions for acquisition support services, according to a Federal Business Opportunities notice.

The BPAs will help GSA shore up support to handle floods of Recovery Act money that agencies are likely to funnel through the government’s primary procurement agency.

The BPAs are for one base year and four options years and are worth $100 million based on the expected revenue from all of the regions' similar contracts, which GSA expects to award soon, the notice states.

GSA will use the agreements to support specific projects related to the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The BPAs will also save money by finding discounts through agencywide mass purchases, the notice states.

All GSA offices, including the Federal Acquisition Service and Public Building Service, can use a primary and a backup BPA specifically established for their region of the country. GSA said it anticipates awarding in the near future the primary and backup BPAs for the remaining 10 GSA regions.

Integrity Management Consulting holds the primary BPA and Acquisition Solutions has the backup BPA for GSA’s National Capital Region and Central Office.

As agencies spend their economic stimulus money, GSA is preparing for a long-term influx of support services. It said it expects agencies’ need for its acquisition services encompasses more than the initial spending spree.

President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package became law Feb. 17.

The BPAs are through GSA’s Mission Oriented Business Integration Services Schedule contract. GSA can use the BPAs with Recovery Act funds or other purse sources, the notice states.

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Senate passes purchasing bill

The Senate has passed legislation to open to state and local governments the General Services Administration's contract for homeland security and law enforcement products and services.

The Local Preparedness Acquisition Act would open GSA’s Schedule 84 contract for cooperative purchasing agreements.

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GSA: Congress should broaden state, local access to GSA contracts

As the Senate considers legislation that would open several General Services Administration contracts to state and local agencies, a top GSA official said today that the measure should include more opportunities.

The Local Preparedness Acquisition Act, which the Senate might vote on this week, would open GSA’s Schedule 84 for security and law enforcement products and services to state and local governments. The House passed a similar bill in December.

Currently, those agencies can only use the schedule contracts through cooperative purchasing agreements or when they’re recovering from a disaster.

Jim Williams, commissioner of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, said state and local agencies should have had access long ago to GSA’s contracts and that the bill should extend beyond Schedule 84 and even beyond state and local governments.


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