Agencies prodded to reduce postage costs
May 20th, 2012 | General Services Administration Postal Service | Posted by Sean Reilly
In the mood for a little irony? Even as Congress is laboring to rescue the U.S. Postal Service from a protracted financial crisis (proposed solutions include pumping billions of dollars into the mail carrier), federal agencies are now under orders to take steps that will reduce their spending on postage.
Among those steps: Using flat-rate boxes and envelopes whenever possible; taking more advantage of USPS discounts; and reducing hard-copy mailings between agencies, according to a recent General Services Administration bulletin to agency heads.
As reasons for the new policy, GSA cites several Obama administration executive orders instructing agencies to reduce waste, cut greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen environmental management. The amount of money at stake is substantial: In fiscal 2011, agencies spent more than $1.2 billion on mail.
The new bulletin doesn’t say by how much agencies should now reduce mailing costs. Last year’s total represents almost a 15 percent drop from 2010, although much of that reduction may be related to the end of the 10-year census. An employee in GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy referred questions Wednesday to the agency’s press office. As of Friday, FedLine hadn’t gotten responses from GSA spokeswoman Diane Merriett, but we’ll update this post if we do.
Acting GSA administrator: Budget cuts make GSA more important than ever
May 15th, 2012 | General Services Administration | Posted by Andy Medici
Dan Tangherlini, acting administrator at the General Services Administration, said Tuesday that budget cuts has made the agency more important than ever.
“In this time of fiscal austerity and budget uncertainty, the role of the GSA and the expertise of our contracting officers have never been more vital,” Tangherlini said.
Tangherlini said in a video address at the kickoff to the GSA Training Conference and Expo inSan Antoniothat agencies must continue their critical operations while funding ways to scale back on overhead costs.
The White House tapped Tangherlini to replace Administrator Martha Johnson on April 2 and clean up the agency after GSA Inspector General Brian Miller released a scathing report documenting widespread waste and mismanagement, especially at GSA’s Region 9 office inSan Francisco.
The IG report detailed GSA’s spending on a lavish $822,000 2010 conference in Las Vegas and numerous other examples of waste. The report prompted not only Johnson’s resignation, but the firing of GSA Public Buildings Commissioner Bob Peck and Johnson’s senior counsel Stephen Leeds, and the placement of 10 employees on administrative leave.
He also condemned the actions of GSA employees who helped organize the conference and said the “misconduct was irresponsible, indefensible, and completely contrary to the way that GSA does business and delivers value to our customer agencies.”
“The circumstances of my arrival are well documented, and I won’t dwell on them, but I would like to say that the actions of those responsible for the Western Regions Conference cut to the heart of who we are and what we do,” Tangherlini said in the video.
GSA names FedRAMP third party assessment organizations
May 15th, 2012 | Cybersecurity General Services Administration Information Technology | Posted by Nicole Johnson
An initial group of nine organizations has been selected to provide independent security reviews of cloud products and services used in the federal government.
As part of the Federal Risk and Authorization program (FedRAMP), expected to launch June 6, vendors must work with an approved third party assessment organization, or 3PAO, to validate if they’ve implemented baseline security standards. For years, these security reviews have varied across government and have cost agencies millions of dollars each year.
Approved 3PAOs include (click here for contact information):
COACT, Inc.
Department of Transportation Enterprise Service Center
Dynamics Research Corporation
J.D. Biggs and Associates Inc.
Knowledge Consulting Group, Inc.
Logyx LLC
Lunarline, Inc.
SRA International, Inc.
Veris Group, LLC
A review board, comprised of officials from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and GSA, selected the first wave of 3PAOs. As part of the FedRAMP process, vendors must contract with a 3PAO to assess the security of their products and services.
“The accreditation process will eventually migrate to a board managed by private sector organizations,” according to FedRAMP concept of operations document. “After the private sector accreditation body has been established, the FedRAMP PMO (program management office) will establish a transition timeframe for all 3PAOs to be accredited by the privatized board.”
Update:GSA cancels Oracle IT contract
April 19th, 2012 | General Services Administration Information Technology | Posted by Sarah Chacko
The General Services Administration is canceling Oracle Corp.’s Schedule 70 contract for information technology services because the company failed to meet the terms of its contract agreement, the agency confirmed.
The company can finish work on existing task orders, but agencies cannot place new orders or extend existing task orders with Oracle after May 17, GSA announced on its website Wednesday. Blanket purchase agreements with Oracle through Schedule 70 will terminate on May 17. Agencies can still purchase Oracle software from technology resellers that have Schedule 70 contracts.
An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment.
“Based on the GSA’s review of Oracle America, Inc.’s IT Schedule 70 contract… which offers only professional services, it was determined that it was not in the best interest of the government to continue the contract,” Mary Davie, an assistant commissioner at GSA, said in an emailed statement.
GSA notified agencies about the cancelled contract on the FedBizOpps website.
Oracle earned more than $387 million in total schedule sales in fiscal 2011, according to data from FedSources. The company earned more than $203 million in direct contracts across the government during that time, according to USASpending.gov.
The company had recently resolved past issues with GSA. In October, Oracle Corp. agreed to pay $199.5 million to settle a False Claims Act lawsuit that alleged the company intentionally gave GSA inaccurate information about discounts it gave to commercial customers and failed to pass those discounts on to the government, according to a Justice Department news release annoucing the settlement.
No reason was given for the schedule contract cancellation on the GSA website. A spokeswoman for Oracle declined to comment.
More details to come …
Tags: GSA, Information Technology, Oracle Corp., Schedule 70
IG: GSA commissioner’s wife had her own parking spot
April 18th, 2012 | General Services Administration | Posted by Stephen Losey
GSA Inspector General Brian Miller testifies April 18 / Tom Brown
General Services Administration regional commissioner Jeff Neely’s wife had her own parking space at a federal building, the agency’s inspector general said today — even though she is not a federal employee.
The revelation was the latest nugget to come out of the ongoing conference spending scandal that has already brought down large swaths of the agency’s leadership. And judging by IG Brian Miller’s comments to the Senate Appropriations financial services and general government subcommittee, plenty more is likely to come out. The OIG is conducting “many more investigations,” he said, though he could not say exactly how many.
“Every time you turn over a stone, we find 50 more … instances” of wrongdoing, Miller said. “We find one thing after another.”
Miller said that his office only discovered today that Neely’s wife Deborah had her own space throughout 2012.
Neely apparently brought his wife along to multiple GSA events, including a 2009 scouting trip to Las Vegas to prepare for the infamous 2010 Western Regions Conference — an excursion that resulted in some embarrassing photos.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., criticized Neely earlier this week for allowing his wife to take part in agency events at taxpayer expense.
“The impression conveyed by these documents is that Mr. Neely and his wife believed they were some sort of agency royalty, who used taxpayer funds to bankroll their lavish lifestyle,” Cummings said at a hearing Monday.
Neely, who is the Region 9 commissioner for GSA’s Public Buildings Service, is on administrative leave.
Miller told the Senate subcommittee — as he also did yesterday — that Neely often put people down who tried to raise concerns about the spending habits at GSA’s Region 9 and “squashed [them] like bugs.” As a result, a culture grew where people were afraid to speak up when something was wrong.
But that is now changing, Miller said.
“We have been receiving a lot of whistleblower complaints since this report was released,” Miller said. “It has gotten tremendously better.”
Tags: GSA, Jeff Neely, Las Vegas, scandal
GSA conducts FedRAMP stress test
April 13th, 2012 | General Services Administration Information Technology | Posted by Nicole Johnson
Federal officials have completed two test runs of the government’s new cloud computing assesment program to work out any kinks before the June launch.
The General Services Administration, which manages the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), held training sessions for chief information officers from GSA and the Defense and Homeland Security departments to simulate their roles on an interagency review board, said Dave McClure, associate administrator of GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies. CIOs reviewed mock security assesments to discuss if they met FedRAMP standards.
Starting in June, the interagency board will review companies on GSA’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service contract and others that are providing similar services to agencies across government. Vendors that are not initially reviewed by the board will have to show they meet FedRAMP security standards through an approved independent assessor.
“We are trying to get the process worked out and tested,” McClure said. “How do we set this up so that we streamline [FedRAMP] and… become aggressive solution finders for answers to questions or problems?”
There is often miscommunication between the agency and vendor on what is acceptable proof to verify security of a service or product, said McClure, who spoke at an Association for Federal Information Resource Management event Friday morning. GSA will soon provide standard templates for agencies and cloud providers to use throughout the process, McClure said.
“It creates shared expectations up front… based on clear tangible documents that explain what needs to be done,” said Kathy Conrad, principal deputy associate administrator for GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies.
The interagency group of CIOs, called the joint authorization board, will have to meet virtually and in person to work through the FedRAMP review process, McClure said. The board will rely heavily on technical representatives to help review vendors’ security packets and streamline the review process.
Still, there are other issues that must be addressed, such as continuous monitoring.
GSA has not decided how the government will determine the ongoing security of its vendors. What information will be exchanged and who can access the information has not yet been determined, McClure said.
GSA is still working through program logistics, but CIOs are confident that FedRAMP will have many benefits.
FedRAMP will drive greater adoption of cloud computing in the federal government and spur increased competition for federal business, said DHS CIO Richard Spires, who also spoke at the event.
The program is also in line with the federal CIOs vision for shared services, said GSA CIO Casey Coleman.
“It’s not going to be perfect, but we have spent a lot of time trying to think through how to make sure this works well,” McClure said.
Tags: FedRAMP
GSA official in 2011 e-mail: Conference organizer’s reprimand a ‘slap on the wrist’
April 13th, 2012 | General Services Administration | Posted by Andy Medici
The administration’s original response to the General Services Administration’s lavish $822,000 conference was merely a “slap on the wrist,” a senior agency official wrote in July 2011. Top GSA administrators were aware of the 2010 conference and its lavish spending, but Jeff Neely, who organized the conference, was only suspended early in April.
At the end of 2011 — long after the White House knew about the troubled conference — Neely received a $9,000 bonus.
Read the whole story shortly on the front page of federaltimes.com.
GSA’s Tangherlini: ‘Our commitment is not to awards and parties’
April 10th, 2012 | General Services Administration | Posted by Stephen Losey
Acting GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini (from Treasury Department website)
Acting General Services Administration head Dan Tangherlini just posted a YouTube video addressing the burgeoning conference spending scandal — and he is not happy. The infamous 2010 Western Regions Conference didn’t just violate travel, acquisition and good conduct rules, he said: It undermined GSA’s entire purpose.
Just as importantly, those responsible violated rules of common sense, the spirit of public service, and the trust that America’s taxpayers have placed in all of us. Among other things, GSA creates and manages the rules and regulations governing travel and conferences. As a result, the actions of those responsible for the Western Regions Conference cut to the heart of what we do and who we are. They undermine both our mission and the trust we have developed with our customers — including the most important customer of all, the American public.
This will “never happen again,” Tangherlini said. He went on to outline some steps that have been taken in response to the revelations, such as an agency-wide review of all conferences and events and the suspension of GSA’s troubled Hats Off awards program, pending a “top-down review.” And in his most stinging rebuke, Tangherlini said:
Serving our customers well is reward enough. It is a signal that our commitment is to our service, our duty and our nation, and not to conferences, awards or parties.
It’s clear that Tangherlini understands just how damaging these revelations have been to GSA — and that he doesn’t want to hear anybody around him say the conference was no big deal. One of his first comments in this damage-control video is, “If you haven’t already, I urge you to read the report. When you do, you’ll see that what took place was completely unacceptable. [...] I speak for the overwhelming majority of GSA staff when I say we are shocked and deeply disappointed by these indefensible actions.”
Tags: conference, Dan Tangherlini, GSA, scandal
GSA’s conference scandal: What do you think?
April 10th, 2012 | General Services Administration | Posted by Stephen Losey
The General Services Administration’s conference spending scandal shows no signs of quitting. House Republicans have chomped down on it hard as an example of out-of-control government waste, and GSA officials are dropping left and right. The fallout is bound to affect federal employees across the government, and change how agencies think about travel and conferences.
We’d like to hear from you. What’s your take on GSA’s conference spending? Is it a big deal to you, or does it just reflect the status quo in the government? Has your office instituted any changes yet? Are you already getting pressure to rein in travel and conference spending? And what do you think the focus on this issue is doing to the public image of feds?
E-mail us at slosey@federaltimes.com or amedici@federaltimes.com. If you’d like to talk anonymously, that’s fine.
Tags: conference, Las Vegas, scandal, what do you think?
The hits keep coming from GSA’s Vegas conference
April 9th, 2012 | General Services Administration | Posted by Stephen Losey
The General Services Administration’s infamous Las Vegas conference is turning into a viral video bonanza. The clip of a GSA employee rapping about becoming commissioner and blowing cash exploded last Thursday, even reaching the Daily Show. And today, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., released another video in which GSA employees sing about going green to the tune of Patti LaBelle’s “Ready for a Miracle.”
This new one … well … let’s just say it’s no “When I’m Commissioner.” At this point, I’m not sure what’s worse — the government waste or the butchering of a gospel classic. And the awards-show banter following the song suggests it was made during office hours, which makes it look even worse. (“Was there anybody in Region 7 that wasn’t in that thing?” “If they didn’t work on Friday, chances are they weren’t in that video.”
Huffington Post also uploaded a slew of videos from GSA’s 2010 conference Friday, including this disturbing one about a surly, smoking office clown that must be seen to be believed.
UPDATE: GSA’s comment on the latest videos is the same as their last: “These videos reinforce once again the complete lack of judgment exhibited during the 2010 Western Regions Conference. Our agency continues to be appalled by this indefensible behavior, and we are taking every step possible to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”