Industry issues Recovery Act report card: B-
November 5th, 2009 | Agencies Economic Stimulus Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
Government averages a B- when it comes to managing Recovery Act spending. At least according to the grades issued today by market research firm INPUT, in its second report card on the Recovery Act.
Here is how government performed, according to the INPUT report card:
Speed of Spending: B+ (Previous Grade: B+)
Reviewer’s Comments: “The federal government has continued to show unusual adeptness in dispensing a tremendous amount of money very quickly…At its current spending pace, the federal government will achieve 87 percent of the goal set by the president of having $350 billion spent by Sept. 30, 2010”
Contracting Effectiveness: B (Previous Grade: C-)
Reviewer’s Comments: “Federal agencies significantly improved in the use of fixed-price contracts and the percentage of contract awards made to small businesses…The federal government has awarded 48 percent of reported contract obligations using fixed-price contracts, a 30 percent increase over INPUT’s initial report card.”
Transparency and Reporting: C- (Previous Grade: D)
Reviewer’s Comments: “Each new report has been late…and the data quality of each new report has been poor upon release. However, overtime the quality and completeness of reports have improved. INPUT expects this will continue to be the case with the new recipient reports…A major area of disappointment continues to be the lack of transparency surrounding grant applications for many of the grant programs funded by the Recovery Act.”
Jobs Created: Incomplete (Previous Grade: Incomplete)
Reviewer’s Comments: “While the efforts to count jobs created or saved is a laudable goal, INPUT believes that accurate reporting of job creation is ultimately unknowable because of the number of recipients reporting, the complexity of the reports and the vagueness in the definition of a saved job.”
Tags: INPUT, Recovery Act
GAO to report on GSA
November 4th, 2009 | Congress General Services Administration Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
The Government Accountability Office will report on the General Services Administration’s management of its supply schedules in the spring,said John Needham, a director of acquisition and sourcing management for the watchdog agency.
The report will look at whether GSA’s reorganization improved management of the Multiple Award Schedules program and the effectiveness of the management tools GSA has in place, he said. Mismanagement of the schedules program led to a series of contracting scandals five years ago. The scandals prompted GAO to add interagency contracts to its High Risk List.
In addition, the report will address concerns raised by the congressionally charted Acquisition Advisory Panel in a 2007 report, Needham said. The panel found that agencies weren’t competing orders placed through established interagency, multiple awards contracts. In addition, the panel raised concerns that there were too many interagency contracts competing with each other and hampering the government’s abilities to get a good price.
Needham spoke at the Coalition for Government Procurement’s fall conference today.
One step closer to OFPP, TSA administrators
November 3rd, 2009 | Congress Homeland Security OMB Procurement Transportation Security Administration | Posted by Elise Castelli
The Office of Management and Budget’s prospective procurement policy chief, Daniel Gordon, will face his first confirmation hurdle one week from today.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will quiz Gordon on his vision for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at 10 a.m. on Nov. 10. Gordon is slated to have his confirmation quiz alongside the president’s choice to lead the Transportation Security Administration, Erroll Southers.
Check in with FedLine and FederalTimes.com that day for complete coverage.
Tags: Daniel Gordon, Erroll Southers, OFPP, TSA
GAO: Agency use of cost contracts is down?
October 30th, 2009 | Procurement Uncategorized | Posted by Elise Castelli
Agency use of risky cost-based contracts has dropped over the last six-years, but the number of contracts coded as “combination contracts” is on the rise, the Government Accountability Office found in a report released today.
Between 2003 and 2008, the value of cost-reimbursement contracts, which pay vendors for their actual costs to perform the work, grew from $120 billion to $136 billion. But as a percentage of overall dollars spent through the procurement process, use declined. In 2003, the $120 billion represented 34 percent of the $298 billion spent. In 2008, the $136 billion was just 26 percent of the $528 billion spent, GAO found.
The report comes in the same week as the Office of Management and Budget told how agencies they should reduce the use of these contracts by another 10 percent by Oct. 1, 2010.
“However, this overall downward trend is misleading,” GAO said in the report. “A significant increase has been reported for obligations using the ‘combination’ contract type, a category that based on GAO’s analysis of 2008 data, includes many contracts with cost-reimbursement obligations that are not recorded as such.”
In fiscal 2004, agencies spent less than 1 percent — or $1.3 billion — of government obligations on “combination” contracts. In 2008, use swelled to 8 percent or $39 billion of total contract spending. Defense was the largest user of the contracts in 2008, spending $34 billion of the $39 billion in “combination” contracts, GAO found. In addition, billions in contracts had no contract type designated for fiscal 2008, the report said.
Regardless of how much agencies spent through cost-reimbursement methods, as opposed to less risky fixed-price contracts, agencies were not monitoring the contracts carefully, GAO said.
Of 92 cost-based contacts GAO reviewed for the report, only half of the contractors had accounting systems government auditors found were accurate in tracking costs, GAO found. Twenty had no evidence that systems were adequate and 20 more had outdated determinations of accuracy, GAO said. Outdated accuracy determinations and inadequate systems put government at risk for making improper payments, the report said.
Tags: cost-based contracts, GAO
OMB procurement guidance now available
October 27th, 2009 | OMB Procurement Uncategorized | Posted by Elise Castelli
UPDATE: OMB says the definition of inherently governmental functions is still being worked on. Expect to hear something by the end of the year.
The Office of Management and Budget just released two long-awaited procurement reform memos. The first is about increasing competition while reducing risk in contracting. The second is about strategic planning for the civilian agency acquisition workforce.
So far no word on a A third piece of expected guidance meant to clarify the definition of inherently governmental functions was not released today as expected [see update above]. That memo will help agencies carry out earlier guidance to insource certain contractor-performed work.
A full story on the new guidance will be posted on FederalTimes.com later today.
Tags: A-76, acquisition workforce, contract competition, contract oversight, contract type, insourcing, outsourcing, procurement guidance
Breaking: April Stephenson out as DCAA Director
October 26th, 2009 | Defense Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
UPDATE: Full story now on FederalTimes.com. Click here.
Embattled Defense Contract Audit Agency director April Stephenson was removed from her post earlier today, the Defense Department has announced.
Stephenson, who was spent her entire career at DCAA, was reassigned to the staff of DoD Comptroller Robert Hale. Hale, who oversees DCAA, replaced her with Army Auditor General Patrick Fitzgerald, said Navy Cmdr. Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman. Fitzgerald takes over Nov. 9.
The move was announced during an internal teleconference at 2 p.m. today. Following the teleconference DCAA staff was notified via email, James said.
Fitzgerald was chosen to take over the reformation of DCAA because he has “a fresh perspective and new ideas,” James said.
Stephenson’s leadership of DCAA has been dominated by the fallout from two Government Accountability Office reports that found auditors there cut corners, changed audit findings to be favorable to contractors without good cause, and rushed audits to completion to meet cost and management pressures.
At a hearing earlier this year, lawmakers on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee expressed concern over whether someone with a long history inside DCAA could effectively reform it.
More to come soon on FederalTimes.com.
Tags: April Stephenson, DCAA, Patrick Fitzgerald, Robert Hale
New procurement rules hit the street
October 14th, 2009 | Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
The group that crafts the Federal Acquisition Regulation has been hard at work. Today the FAR Council published seven new, interim or final rules in the Federal Register to enact congressional mandates. They are:
- A final rule limiting the term of a non-competitive contracts awarded during an emergency response to one year.
- A final rule granting Government Accountability Office auditors and investigators the right to interview contractor employees.
- An interim rule requiring that contract award fees be tied to positive outcomes.
- An interim rule limiting what charges contractors can pass along to the government from their subcontractors.
- An interim rule governing when services bought only by the government can be considered commercial.
- An interim rule establishing a registry of disaster response contractors to provide rapid response following an emergency.
- A final rule amending the National Response Framework by eliminating the term “incidents of national significance.”
Tags: FAR
FYI: DoD contractor headcounts now available…sort of
October 13th, 2009 | Defense Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
Two Defense Department agencies announced the release of their fiscal year 2008 contractor inventories in today’s Federal Register.
The inventory for the Missle Defense Agency, which posted its headcount here, doesn’t appear to include much information about the number of contractors performing the work. In fact, that column appears to be blank for most of the contracts listed in the 210 page document.
The Defense Contract Management Agency also posted a notice about its list, but at the time this is being posted, the list isn’t on the agency’s site. The notice says it has 30 days to post its contractor inventory.
In the 2008 Defense authorization bill, Congress required Defense agencies to take a headcount of the contractor employees performing services work in their offices. The goal is to grasp how many contractors are actually employed by DoD to improve management of the contracts and assist the department’s efforts to convert some of that work to federal employee positions.
White House procurement policy official is official
October 2nd, 2009 | OMB Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
It’s official: Daniel Gordon, the acting chief counsel of the Government Accountability Office, is President Barack Obama’s pick to lead the Office of Federal Procurement Policy inside the Office of Management and Budget.
Gordon has a long history in procurement law since he joined GAO in 1992. From 2000 through 2006 he led GAO’s procurement law division, which hears bid protests on government contracts. GAO’s bid protest decisions frequently set precedent for government contracting officers. In 2006, he was named GAO’s deputy general counsel and has served as GAO’s acting general counsel since May.
As administrator of OFPP, Gordon will lead Obama’s procurement reform agenda.
In announcing Gordon’s nomination, OMB Director Peter Orszag said in his blog:
Dan is a career contracting professional who understands that the top goal of our procurement efforts is to use taxpayers’ dollars smartly and effectively – that we get the most value for every dollar we spend. Dan will bring a fresh approach to procurement policy, but he also will rely on the expertise of the career procurement workforce to improve our procurement processes.
Check back with FederalTimes.com for a full report on Gordon’s nomination.
Tags: Daniel Gordon, OFPP
Agencies cannot SPOT combat contractors
October 2nd, 2009 | Procurement Uncategorized | Posted by Elise Castelli
Agencies are still having trouble spotting contractors on the battlefield, the Government Accountability Office reported today. That’s because they aren’t consistently using the new SPOT (Synchronized Redeployment and Operational Tracker) system designed to track information about contracts and contractor employees in Iraq and Afghanistan, GAO found in a new report.
Congress established the system in 2008 to help the Agency for International Development, the State Department and the Defense Department monitor and share information on contracts and contractor personnel in the combat zone. The information meant to be collected includes the number of contract personnel on the battlefield, the number of contractor employees killed or wounded, and the value and purpose of a contract.
However, each agency established different criteria for who must be registered. As a result, some required contractor personnel information isn’t in the system, GAO found. Because data varies on the nearly 226,500 contractor employees that are registered in the system, SPOT “data should not be used to identify trends or draw conclusions about contractor personnel numbers,” GAO said.
In addition, SPOT can’t track all the required contract information. For example, a memorandum between the agencies said contract values, competition information and descriptions of services must be pulled into SPOT from the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG). But GAO found:
This capability is not expected to be available until 2010. In the interim, the DOD officials overseeing SPOT’s development told us that SPOT users can manually enter competition information and descriptions, but there is no requirement for them to do so. Since SPOT is not designed to let users enter contract dollar values, the DOD officials stated that SPOT and FPDS-NG are being periodically merged to identify contract values. Even when the direct link is established, pulling FPDS-NG data into SPOT may present challenges because of how data are entered into SPOT.
Tags: contract oversight