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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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Denett: Proposed bills include "poison pills" for competitive sourcing

Lawmakers are working on several major bills that could undermine the Bush administration's competitive-sourcing initiative, according to the government's top procurement official.

Language in those bills would make it difficult to create a fair environment in which federal employees and private companies compete for non-inherently governmental work.

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Retiree bills face uncertain future

Two bills that would soften the expected blow from a wave of federal worker retirements face an uncertain future in Congress.

The bills, introduced by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), would make it easier for agencies to rehire retired federal employees to stave off anticipated staffing problems. The chairmen of committees reviewing the measures have not decided if they will consider them in committee.

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Bush threatens to veto a bill that would stengthen IGs

Democrats in the House, citing political pressures that interfere with the work of inspectors’ general, passed legislation last week that would reinforce the independent role of IGs as agency watchdogs. The legislation faces a divided Senate and White House officials who oppose the bill.

Democratic leaders said the legislation is necessary because of numerous recent instances of IGs appointed by President Bush who seem more concerned about covering up potential political embarrassments than doing their jobs.

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Agencies can rehire retired experts

As more federal acquisition experts retire, agencies are struggling to fill the knowledge gap. By using a little-known provision in the General Services Administration Modernization Act of 2006, managers can pull retirees back into contracting jobs without any pension penalties.

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Contracting reform bill heads to Senate

Acquisition reforms moved forward today when the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee easily approved the Senate’s version of the Accountability in Contracting Act, which would institute far-reaching reforms.

The bill would create a position within the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to lead workforce programs. The person in that job would supervise training, oversee an intern program and help build a strategic plan for the contracting workforce. The bill would authorize appropriators to give $5 million in fiscal 2008 and 2009 to the workforce training fund.

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House votes in favor of small businesses

After some wrangling earlier this week, the House has decided agencies should give 30 percent of their contracting dollars to small businesses.

This morning, the House voted 371 to 55 for an amendment that aims to return the benchmark to 30 percent, as required in the originally proposed Small Business Fairness in Contracting Act.

The proposed amount had decreased when the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recently cut it to 25 percent, still 2 percent higher than the 23 percent goal current law dictates. Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) voted against the amendment but for passage of the bill.

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House panel puts anti-bundling bill on fast track

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

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

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Senate supports penalties for illegal hiring

Companies found hiring illegal workers would be blocked from getting government contracts, according to a provision in a minimum wage bill approved by the Senate Jan. 25.

An amendment with that provision in the Senate’s version of the Fair Minimum Wage Act (H.R. 2) passed by 94-0.

Under the amendment, contractors with illegal hiring practices would be banned from getting a new government contract for up to 10 years, depending on whether they currently had a contract with the government.

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Bill proposes database on slave records

A bill introduced Jan. 10 would set up a national online database to aid black Americans’ search for information on their ancestors.

The Preservation of Records of Servitude, Emancipation and Post-Civil War Reconstruction Act (H.R. 390) would establish an electronic database in the National Archives to house records from the Southern Claims Commission, the Freedman’s Bank, slave payrolls and slave manifests.

Many federal agencies already have these records, which will be used to form the database.

The bill also would give grants to state and local entities to build similar catalogs. It proposes $5 million to build the database and another $5 million for grants.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) introduced the legislation.

The bill has been sent to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee for consideration.

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