GAO | The Contracting Education Academy

December 22, 2017 By cs

GAO: Email delivery receipt didn’t confirm proposal submission

When an offeror submits a proposal by email, does a delivery receipt mean that the agency necessarily received the proposal in its inbox?

At least under the facts of one recent GAO bid protest, the answer was “no.”

In that case, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) held that an email delivery receipt wasn’t sufficient to demonstrate that the agency received the electronic proposal.

In ManTech Advanced Systems International, Inc., B-414985, (Oct. 20, 2017), the GAO examined a proposal submitted by ManTech to provide cyber security services to the Air Force. ManTech submitted its proposal under a task order solicitation issued under the Air Force’s Cyber Security and Information Systems Technical Tasks IDIQ.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gao-email-delivery-receipt-didnt-confirm-proposal-submission/

December 13, 2017 By cs

Census can move forward after $283 million contract dispute

AT&T will no longer protest a Census Bureau contract to provide mobile devices for workers for the 2020 Census, according to an official from a congressional watchdog agency.

In a letter dated Nov. 8, a Census official told the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that AT&T would no longer contest the $283 million mobile contract awarded to CDW-G, a GAO official involved in the protest told Nextgov. Instead, the companies reached an agreement in which AT&T would assist CDW-G in Census operations as a subcontractor, the Census official wrote.

The resolution of the mobile contract dispute allows work to resume on preparations for the 2020 Census, which are already far behind schedule.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/policy/2017/12/census-can-move-forward-after-283-million-contract-dispute/144320/

November 29, 2017 By cs

Protests are down, but their effectiveness is up

GAO has issued its Bid Protest Annual Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2017. Most notably, the effectiveness rate hit 47%.

The effectiveness rate looks at all cases filed, and measures the percentage of cases in which a protester obtains some relief, whether through a sustain by GAO or voluntary corrective action by the agency.

That’s right: Protesters obtained relief in almost half of all protests last year. And this year’s 47% effectiveness rate is a new all-time high — continuing a steady upward march over the past several years. When GAO began measuring the sustain rate in 2001, it was just 33%. By 2008, it had risen to 42%. It then held pretty steady through 2012, but has been rising since:

FY 2012          42%
FY 2013          43%
FY 2014          43%
FY 2015          45%
FY 2016          46%
FY 2017         47%

Meanwhile, GAO’s sustain rate looks only at those protests that reach a decision on the merits, and measures the percentage of those protests that are sustained by GAO. This year’s sustain rate dropped to 17%, but for several reasons the sustain rate has always been volatile, reaching as high as 29% and as low as 12% in the last 15 years.

So while this year’s rate of sustains by GAO dipped, the number of voluntary corrective actions went up.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2017/11/gaos-annual-report-protests-effectiveness/

November 21, 2017 By cs

No surprise: Agencies taking small, slow steps to improve reporting of spending data

The first details of the impact that the three-year-old Data Accountability and Transparency (DATA) Act is having on agencies emerged two weeks ago.

The Government Accountability Office released its first mandated report on data quality and use. GAO found an expected mixed bag of success and struggles when it comes to standardizing and reporting procurement and grants data.

“In the three years since enactment, the Office of Management and Budget, Treasury and federal agencies have made significant strides to address many of the policy and technical challenges presented by the act’s requirements, including standardizing data elements across the federal government, linking data contained in agencies’ financial and award systems, and expanding the type of data reported,” GAO states in its report. “However, our audit of the initial data submitted by agencies and made available to the public on Treasury’s Beta.USAspending.gov website shows that much more needs to be done if the DATA Act’s promise of improving the accuracy and transparency of federal spending data is to be fully realized.”

Auditors say agencies continue to struggle with inconsistencies in their data on acquisition awards, reporting incomplete information and ensuring the data meets the need of the end users.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/agency-oversight/2017/11/no-surprise-agencies-taking-small-slow-steps-to-improve-reporting-of-spending-data/

November 15, 2017 By cs

Defense authorization bill allows pilot program on curbing bid protests

Buried in the $700 billion fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization bill that House-Senate conferees unveiled on Wednesday is a compromise on disputed language aimed at reducing the number of time-consuming contractor bid protests.

Contractors, contracting officers and staff of the Government Accountability Office — which adjudicates the protests filed by companies that lose out on an award — had been awaiting the fate of language in the Senate version that would have required companies larger than $100 million in the previous year’s revenues that protest unsuccessfully to pay the costs of processing the protest at Defense and GAO.

Too many “frivolous” protests cause delays in the procurement of weapons systems, the unnamed senators argued.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/defense/2017/11/defense-authorization-bill-allows-pilot-program-curbing-bid-protests/142445

When an offeror submits a proposal by email, does a delivery receipt mean that the agency necessarily received the proposal in its inbox?

AT&T will no longer protest a Census Bureau contract to provide mobile devices for workers for the 2020 Census, according to an official from a congressional watchdog agency.

GAO has issued its Bid Protest Annual Report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2017. Most notably, the effectiveness rate hit 47%.

The first details of the impact that the three-year-old Data Accountability and Transparency (DATA) Act is having on agencies emerged two weeks ago.

Buried in the $700 billion fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization bill that House-Senate conferees unveiled on Wednesday is a compromise on disputed language aimed at reducing the number of time-consuming contractor bid protests.

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