Senate to vet next federal procurement policy chief
May 8th, 2012 | OMB Procurement | Posted by Sarah Chacko
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will meet tomorrow to vet Joe Jordan, the President’s nominee to lead the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.
Jordan joined the Office of Management and Budget in December as a senior adviser on procurement issues – the standard setup for potential nominees. Former OFPP Administrator Dan Gordon left the office Jan. 1.
Members in the contracting community have expressed concern that Jordan’s nomination could be held up by the elections but no signs of that yet. Industry and federal officials are eager to get a leader in place.
“In this time of budget austerity, procurement policies are important drivers of efficiency and effectiveness in the government,” Professional Services Council President Stan Soloway said in a statement soon after Jordan’s nomination was announced.
Jordan was previously the Small Business Administration’s associate administrator of government contracting and business development, which could be useful since small business contracting has become a bigger issue in the last year. Federal officials have strengthened contracting rules to ensure small subcontractors get their share of government work, and House members are considering legislation that would penalize agencies that do not meet their small business contracting goals.
Tags: administrator, Dan Gordon, Joseph Jordan, Office of Federal Procurement Policy, Senate confirmation
Federal procurement officials dispel industry myths
May 7th, 2012 | Procurement | Posted by Sarah Chacko
Building on an effort to improve communications between federal agencies and industry about government contracts, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy released part two of its “Myth-Busting” campaign to address misconceptions from industry.
The memo reiterates the importance of ”early, frequent and constructive engagement with industry,” especially for high-risk procurements and large information technology projects, that former OFPP administrator Dan Gordon introduced in a memo last year. That memo directed agencies to share more information with contractors.
Here are four of the eight myths OFPP listed in its memo, which was released today by Acting Administrator Lesley Field:
Myth: “The best way to present my company’s capabilities is by marketing directly to contracting officers and/or signing them up for my mailing list.”
Fact: Instead of sending contracting officers and program managers information they may not need, vendors should attend industry days, pre-solicitation conferences and vendor forums that agencies hold for specific upcoming contracts or growth areas. More of these opportunities have been added to the FedBizOpps website.
Myth: “It is a good idea to bring only business development and marketing people to meetings with the agency’s technical staff.”
Fact: Agencies want to know where a company’s capabilities fit in the marketplace and what technology they are bringing, which are usually better addressed by the technical experts at a company.
Myth: “Agencies generally have already determined their requirements and acquisition approach so our impact during the pre-RFP phase is limited.”
Fact: Agencies spend a great deal of effort collecting and analyzing information about what is available in the marketplace. They are looking for specific information from companies about what works, what doesn’t, and how it can be improved.
Myth: “Agencies have an obligation not to share information about their contracts, such as prices, with other agencies, similar to the obligation they have not to disclose proprietary information to the public.”
Fact: Agencies can and should disclosure of information regarding existing contracts between agencies to help ensure the government is getting the best value for taxpayers.
Tags: communication, contractor, industry, mythbusters, mythbusting, OFPP
PSC to senators: Contractors are feeling the pinch too
May 1st, 2012 | Procurement | Posted by Sarah Chacko
A recent call made by 26 senators to keep the Defense Department’s contract spending in check has prompted the Professional Services Council trade association to ”correct the record.”
Several Defense Department policies and spending cuts over the last few years have affected contractors, including a provision in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act capping Defense Department spending on services for fiscal years 2012 and 2013 at the level of the president’s 2010 budget request, PSC President Stan Soloway said in an April 30 letter to Sens. Sherrod Brown and Kirsten Gillibrand.
Brown and Gillibrand led 24 other senators on an April 25 letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta which urged him to carefully consider the workforce mix and to use civilian personnel where possible instead of awarding contracts.
“We understand that the defense budget must be adjusted to take into account new national security risks and budgetary realities. However, we are concerned that while the size of the civilian workforce is proposed to be cut back to FY 2010 levels, no comparable constraints were imposed on workforce hired through contractors,” the senators wrote. “We are concerned that this would incentivize managers to use contracting firms rather than civilian employees even when the latter costs less.”
PSC refuted the senators’ claim that federal employees cost less — a point that has been studied by several groups but has not yet resulted in a clear answer. But Soloway agreed with the senators in their support for allowing agencies the flexibility to manage their personnel as strategically as possible.
“In some functional areas, the government has a clear need to enhance its workforce capacity and capabilities,” he wrote. ”Likewise, it may well be necessary to increase contractor support for the mission-critical, high-end skills that the government does not compete well for in the broader human capital marketplace. Unfortunately, your letter does not recognize this balance.”
Tags: contractors, hiring freeze, Kirsten Gillibrand, Leon Panetta, PSC, Sherrod Brown, workforce
NASA to start market research for SEWP V
April 30th, 2012 | Procurement | Posted by Sarah Chacko
NASA will take tips on how to form the next iteration of its governmentwide IT contract this summer, agency officials announced today.
NASA’s Solutions for Enterprise Wide Procurement (SEWP) program office will hold 45-minute one-on-one interviews the weeks of July 9 and July 23 to get insight from contractors and interested parties on current and upcoming IT products and trends that will help build SEWP V, according to a news release posted on the SEWP website.
Sixty interview spots are available on first-come basis at https://www.sewp.nasa.gov/registration. The registration is also open to anyone who wants to receive updates on SEWP V.
SEWP V, like its predecessors, will be a governmentwide acquisiton contract, or GWAC. GWACs are available to any federal agency for information technology products and services, including computers and servers, network equipment, storage devices and software. Pre-approved vendors are eligible to compete for task orders placed by customer agencies under those contracts.
Agencies spent $2.3 billion through SEWP IV in 2011, according to the program office.
Forty-two vendors were awarded contracts on SEWP IV in 2007 and 2008. The competed SEWP IV contracts expire in 2014 and have a $5.6 billion ceiling. Four 8(a) non-competed contracts expire next year and are limited to between $3.5 million and $4 million.
Proposed whistleblower protections for contract employees passes committee
April 25th, 2012 | Procurement | Posted by Sarah Chacko
A Senate bill that would give federal contract employees the same whistleblower protections as federal employees passed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today.
Senate bill 241, introduced by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., would protect contractors who report improper spending or management on federal contracts from retaliation.
Contract employees who witness contract fraud currently can bring a civil claim, in the name of the government, against contractors under the False Claims Act. If the claim is successful, the whistleblower could receive up to 30 percent of the recovered funds.
However, the False Claims Act does not protect whistleblowers who witness waste, mismanagement and other illegal activities, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) said in a statement Wednesday. POGO and other government accountability groups voiced support for the bill earlier this week.
“These contractors are on the front lines and often put themselves at great personal risk to protect the public and expose waste,” POGO said. “This new act would bridge the gaps in current coverage, and comprehensively apply best-practice protections similar to those in the stimulus to all federal funds recipient whistleblowers.”
Under the bill, contract employees that have been demoted, fired or otherwise discriminated against for reporting contract waste and abuse could submit a complaint to an inspector general. The inspector general would then have 180 days to decide if they want to investigate the complaint. If the complaint is investigated, the inspector general must report the findings to the employee who made the complaint, the complainant’s employer and the head of the government agency holding the contract.
Tags: abuse, Claire McCaskill, contractor, false claims act, fraud, waste, whistleblowers
Legislation is not enough to protect gay contractors, equal rights advocates say
April 12th, 2012 | Procurement | Posted by Sarah Chacko
An executive order that would extend discrimination protections to gay federal workers is not forthcoming, a senior administration official said Thursday. Instead, the Obama administration is hoping that a bill mulling in Congress for the last 18 years will eventually bring about the workplace protections that gay rights advocates and lawmakers have been seeking.
Lawmakers have proposed but never passed legislation to extend workforce discrimination protections to cover sexual orientation during almost every session of Congress since 1994. Language to cover gender identity discrimination was added to the proposed bill, called the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, in 2007.
But the bill itself would not go as far as an executive order, according to experts at the Center for American Progress. CAP staff compared the proposed legislation to similar protections provided in a 1965 executive order that prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
The proposed bill would apply to employers with 15 or more employees, whereas a new executive order would likely cover any business that receives a government contract for more than $10,000, CAP experts said in a recent article.
Also, people who want to report gender identity or sexual orientation discrimination would file complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, under the proposed bill. Under an executive order, people discriminated against by federal contractors could also file complaints through the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which conducts more proactive compliance reviews on companies, CAP experts said in the article.
More than 16 million employees of federal contractors either work for companies or reside in states that do not provide explicitly protect workers from discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, according to a February report by UCLA’s Williams Institute, which conducts research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.
Freedom to Work, which seeks anti-discrimination policies for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender workers, collected more than 110,000 signatures in an online petition asking the president to issue the executive order. Seventy-two House members, led by Rep. Frank Pallone, D-NJ, signed a letter to the president requesting the order as well.
Officials from Freedom to Work, the Center for American Progress and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force met with White House officials this week to talk about President Obama’s plan to keep a campaign promise he made before becoming president. They left disappointed.
“It remains legal to fire or refuse to hire people based on their sexual orientation in more than half the country – 29 states; the same is true for gender identity in 34 states,” Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said in a statement. “Given the huge gap in statewide protections, the administration and Congress must step up to protect LGBT people and their families nationally.”
Tags: discrimination, executive order, gay, gender identity, LGBT, petition, sexual orientation
Has the President put the brakes on contractor disclosure?
April 10th, 2012 | Procurement | Posted by Sarah Chacko
Some say yes, at least for this year, the time has passed for President Obama to issue an executive order that would require federal contractors to disclose their political contributions. But some transparency advocates say a window of opportunity still exists for transparency into corporate political contributions.
The door is still open if the administration does not tie the award of contracts to political disclosure, the main objection of critics, Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, said Monday. The administration instead should require anyone who receives federal money, including grant recipients, to disclose their political contribution information after award, Amey said.
“Certainly, the disclosure of this information shouldn’t be so tightly constrained [to government contractors],” Amey said in a recent blog post. “With nearly $550 billion spent each year on grants, I would love to see the [executive order] include disclosure by all entities receiving federal funds.”
Critics calls the order, a draft of which was leaked around this time last year, an attempt to override the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That decision protected corporate donations to political, third-party organizations and drove millions of dollars into the 2010 elections.
Republicans moved quickly to stop any potential executive order with language in this year’s defense authorization bill and an omnibus appropriations bill. Civilian agencies are now prohibited from asking contractors to disclose contributions before an award. Defense agencies cannot ask for that information before or after an award.
The legislation still leaves room for the President to order contractors at civilian agencies to disclose their political contributions after the award of a contract. Groups like Public Citizen and lawmakers supportive of disclosure asked the President to issue a revised order around the time of his State of the Union speech this year, which unofficially marked the beginning of Obama’s campaign season, said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen.
“The door was wide open,” Holman said in an interview Monday. “The fact that the President didn’t go ahead with it at the State of the Union means that it’s just too little too late at this point.”
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., disagreed: ”Any time is the right time for the President to sign an executive order to bring disclosure and transparency to those who do business with the federal government,” Eshoo said through a spokesman.
In the meantime, Democrats in the House and Senate have introduced legislation that would require all corporations to disclose their political contributions greater than $10,0000. The Democrat-controlled Senate is working on a floor vote in the next few weeks, Holman said. Even without any Republican support, Holman said the vote on the bill will send the message that transparency is a priority for the administration, Holman said.
“It will force everyone to say yes or no when it comes to transparency of money and politics,” he said.
Tags: campaign contributions, Citizens United, contractor disclosure, executive order, political contributions
Feds and contractors need to talk more, agencies say
March 30th, 2012 | Procurement | Posted by Sarah Chacko
A handful of agencies are taking steps to improve coordination between program managers, contracting officers and contractors in hopes of delivering less wasteful, more effective IT acquisitions.
The Energy Department, for example, is using a series of agency-wide meetings to share ideas on what’s being bought and what contracts are used in certain information technology arenas, such as mobility, open government and geospatial, Pete Tseronis, the department’s chief technology officer, said at the Acquisition Excellence conference Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Companies can attend the events and network with the agency’s program managers and contracting officers, Tseronis said. But he has heard from contractors who are later bounced between the program office and the contracting officer when they try to get information about upcoming contracts or market their technologies to the agency, he said.
“Government has to fix something about dialogue,” he said. “Otherwise, why do these events?”
Acquisition officials at the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement are trying to improve communication between program managers and contracting officers so they can come up with better statements of work on a contract, said Brent Bushey, an ICE IT program manager. Pressures to award contracts quickly have driven acquisition officers to speed through those early discussions, he said.
“You say you want to go fast, but you have no idea what you’re trying to buy or how to articulate that,” Bushey said.
Government and contractor panelists at the conference, which was hosted by the General Services Administration and American Council for Technology’s Industry Advisory Council, agreed that companies can offer helpful insight to agencies about how best to structure program requirements. But contracting officers are afraid that meeting with a contractor about an upcoming procurement will look bad and give competing companies reason to protest their decisions, officials said.
That fear is a focus of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy’s campaign last year to encourage contracting officers to communicate with industry, called Mythbusters. Better communication should lead to fewer protests, not more, federal procurement officials said.
About a month ago, OFPP added a “vendor collaboration” link to the Federal Business Opportunities website where agencies post contract notices. The new link directs contractors to pre-solicitiation opportunities, such as requests for information and agency industry days.
OFPP is also planning a follow-up to the Mythbusters campaign that will focus more on issues faced by the contractor community, OFPP acting administrator Lesley Field said during the conference.
Readers, how would you describe communication between federal program and contracting offices? What about between the government and industry? Where are the hangups?
Tags: Acquisition Excellence, Information Technology, mythbusters, Office of Federal Procurement Policy
Senator MacCaskill’s grandsons ham it up for the camera.
March 29th, 2012 | Congress Defense Government reform Homeland Security Procurement Uncategorized | Posted by Blair Tomlinson
Spring Break fever was in the air today on Capitol Hill. Legislators have officially fled Washington D.C. and there will be no hearings until April 16th.
But before the final votes ensued, the Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight held a hearing where Senators McCaskill, Portman and Tester grilled witnesses from the Army, The Office of Personnel and Management and The Department of Homeland Security over contractor spending.
Meanwhile, Chairwoman McCaskill’s grandsons were in attendance. My guess is they are on their own Spring Break. They sat graciously through the hearing; only occasionally trying sneak into my shot. I’m sure they were absolutely enthralled with the subject of Contractors: How Much Are They Costing the Government.
When Grandma adjourned the hearing she let the boys smack the gavel to officially call the hearing to a close – then they really spotted me. And as kids do, they hammed it up for the camera. So, cute.
Senator McCaskill speaks with OPM Chief Operating Officer, Chuck Grimes, while her grandchildren ham it up for the camera, March 29, 2012.
Senators revisit lowering contractor compensation costs
March 16th, 2012 | Procurement | Posted by Sarah Chacko
Two senators are making another push to lower how much the government reimburses for contractor compensation costs with a bill introduced late Thursday.
Senate bill 2198, sponsored by Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, would limit the taxpayer reimbursement for government contractor compensation to the amount of the President’s salary – $400,000. Compensation includes wages, salary, bonuses and deferred compensation. The measure would extend the cap to all government contractor employees.
“The direct taxpayer-funded salaries of government contractors clearly need to be contained,” Sen. Grassley said in a statement. “There’s no justification for these payments to be higher than the salary of the President of the United States.”
Contractors can currently charge agencies up to $693,951 for the compensation of their top five employees, based on a federal executive compensation benchmark. Contractors outside of the top five can earn and be reimbursed for more than that. The cost of reimbursing those salaries shows up in the overhead rates companies charge on contracts.
President Obama asked Congress last year to scrap the formula that sets the reimbursement cap and instead tie it to what the government pays its own top executives, about $200,000. Boxer and Grassley attempted to lower the cap within the National Defense Authorization Act in December but were unsuccessful. The 2012 NDAA that passed extends the current $693,951 salary cap to all defense contractor employees, not just the top five.
Lesley Field, acting administrator of OMB’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy, asked Congress in January to take up the proposal again, calling the amount contractors can charge the government for their executives’ compensation “unjustified and unnecessary.”
Tags: Boxer, Commonsense Contractor Compensation Act of 2012, compensation cap, contractor, Grassley