Contractors ask GSA to freeze cyber-related regulations

May 23, 2013 by

Federal suppliers are urging officials to stop computer security rulemakings for contractors until the government issues blanket cyber guidelines for all key industries in the fall. The argument is not that contractor-specific regulations are bad but that they could potentially conflict with the forthcoming national standards.

President Obama, as part of a February executive order, initiated a voluntary program for safeguarding life-sustaining networks, including energy, health care and water treatment systems. By November, the government must publish a draft set of standard policies and techniques, such as promptly installing antispyware updates. The government also must decide if and how these standards should be incorporated into federal contracts.

But — independently — multiple computer security mandates for contractors already are at various stages of development.

The separate cyber rules for government vendors are “all well intentioned. For the longest time, nobody was paying attention to cybersecurity. Now, everybody is paying attention to cybersecurity,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president for the Professional Services Council, a trade association that represents contractors.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2013/05/contractors-ask-gsa-freeze-cyber-related-regulations/63244/?oref=nextgov_today_nl 

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GSA owes more than $3 million to small businesses

May 22, 2013 by

The General Services Administration has failed to fully pay 1,334 federal contractors, shorting them by more than $3 million since 2008, according to a House committee report released Thursday.

The amount may not be large, but lawmakers on the Republican-led House Small Business Committee emphasized the importance of such companies.

“Contracting with small businesses is good for the economy and it’s good for the taxpayer because small companies bring cost-savings to the federal government,” Sam Graves (R-Mo.), the committee chairman, said in a statement. “But when federal agencies don’t live up to their end of the bargain, small businesses are discouraged from competing and taxpayers lose the benefits of government efficiency.”

The agency did not fulfill a “guaranteed minimum payment” clause outlined in many of its contracts, the report said.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/exclusive-gsa-failed-to-pay-thousands-of-small-government-contractors-since-2008/2013/05/15/305c4422-bd93-11e2-9b09-1638acc3942e_story.html 

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MAS vendors don’t always provide accurate information or qualified labor, says GSA OIG

May 21, 2013 by

The General Services Administration still permits vendors that provide  inaccurate commercial sales data and supply unqualified labor to remain on  schedules contract vehicles, says the agency’s inspector general.

In the report, auditors say problems related to vendors providing accurate commercial  sales practices and providing price justifications improved somewhat from fiscal  2010 to fiscal 2011, but still remain a concern. The prevalence of unqualified  labor rose in fiscal 2011.

While the prevalence of CSP issues dropped 14 percent from fiscal 2010,  auditors still found that more than two-thirds of vendors in preaward audits  during fiscal 2011 provided contracting officers with flawed CSP information  that “adversely affected the contracting officers’ determination of fair and  reasonable pricing for those contracts,” says the report.

Problems include instances when schedule contractors offered discounts at a  level greater than they disclosed to GSA, auditors say.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/mas-vendors-dont-always-provide-accurate-information-or-qualified-labor-say/2013-03-11

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Feds investigate office supply vendor

May 10, 2013 by

The government is investigating whether an office supply contractor has been improperly selling products made in China in violation of the Trade Agreements Act, court records show.

The General Services Administration’s inspector general’s office has been investigating Florida-based Capitol Supply Inc. for more than two years, according to a motion the IG filed earlier this week in U.S. District Court in Washington. The motion asks a judge to force Capitol Supply Inc. to turn over billing, sales and other information in response to two subpoenas.

Separately, the Justice Department this week joined in a False Claims Act lawsuit filed against Capitol Supply. The suit, filed back in 2010 but unsealed on Monday, accuses the company of selling illegal office products to the government.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20130418/ACQUISITION03/304180004/Feds-investigate-office-supply-vendor

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Contracting professionals need to travel … and train

May 4, 2013 by

No one can forget the image released a year ago of a government executive holding a champagne glass in toast while sitting in a Las Vegas hot tub — paid for with federal dollars. Congressional leaders were rightfully indignant and called for a halt to such events. However, taxpayer costs for government acquisition may now be increasing as a result of overreach policies implemented since then.

The less than $1 million expenditure for the General Services Administration Western Region conference in 2010, wasteful as it was, has evolved, justifying the imposition of far more comprehensive restrictions on the government acquisition community that are not reducing government waste or budget deficits. Though nominal savings come from prohibiting training, travel and public interaction, this is overshadowed by the hidden increased costs caused by gaps in knowledge, business communications and relationships otherwise derived through in-person interactions and learning. A workforce improperly trained or communicating poorly with industry results in badly managed contracts and misunderstandings that cost taxpayers. In a time of increased contracting activity, as agencies realign their budgets to meet deficit reduction targets, it is no surprise that contractor protest activity is up. Nondelivering contracts affect federal budgets more adversely than small short-term agency training cuts.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20130428/ADOP06/304280004/Contracting-professionals-need-travel-8212-train 

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OFPP brings no predisposed notions to strategic sourcing

April 26, 2013 by

The Strategic Sourcing Leadership Council delivered a set of proposals for how and where to expand the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative.

But not every suggestion sent to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in March was about a new contract or expanding a current blanket purchase agreement.

Joe Jordan, the administrator of OFPP, said the council wants to move forward with a number strategic sourcing efforts, including technology hardware and software, laboratory supplies, janitorial and sanitation, mobile and wireless products and services and others.

“We are now working with them to say ‘what is the solution?’ It doesn’t mean in all those categories, there is one governmentwide contract,” Jordan said, after a panel discussion on strategic sourcing at an event sponsored by the Coalition for Government Procurement in Arlington, Va. Wednesday. “We are putting all that commodity under management with an executive agent that has a deep content knowledge and all of the large buyers at the table, along with the Small Business Administration, to figure out what the right solution is. In some cases, it will mean reduced contract duplication, better leveraging our spend and driving volume based discounts. In other cases, it’s more terms and conditions and taking administrative costs out of the approach.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/517/3290214/OFPP-brings-no-predisposed-notions-to-strategic-sourcing

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Federal acquisition executives grapple with retirement wave

April 24, 2013 by

As the government’s largest buyer, the Defense Department is building up expertise in its acquisition workforce, with perhaps with greater success than some other agencies in this era of contract austerity, the exception likely coming at the most senior executive level.

So said Shay Assad, director of defense pricing, defense procurement and acquisition policy, on Wednesday (Apr. 17, 2013) speaking before an Arlington, Va., audience of contractors in the Coalition for Government Procurement. His own section of the Pentagon, despite the pay freeze and likely furloughs, he said, “has done remarkably well” in retaining talent, with employees who’ve moved on “only in the single digits, mostly because either they decided we weren’t right for them or they weren’t right for us.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2013/04/federal-acquisition-executives-grapple-retirement-wave/62606/?oref=river

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Focus of IG investigation now oversees GSA’s IT supply schedule program

April 22, 2013 by

An ongoing investigation by the Office of Personnel Management’s inspector general into contract steering and wasteful spending raises questions about a former OPM official who left the agency in September 2011 to oversee the General Services Administration’s biggest federal supply schedules program.

The probe found that top OPM officials steered consulting work to prominent human resources expert Stewart Liff, raising broader concerns about the overall procurement practices inside the agency’s human resources services division, according to an interim report by OPM Inspector General Patrick McFarland.

Investigators found that Liff was hired in 2010 and 2011 without competitive bidding through a “pass-through company,” with three task orders paid out on the contract totaling about $450,000.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20130416/ACQUISITION01/304160003/Focus-IG-investigation-now-oversees-GSA-8217-s-supply-schedule-program?odyssey=nav%7Chead

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President’s budget moves spending transparency site from GSA to Treasury

April 17, 2013 by

President Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal moves control over the spending transparency website USASpending.gov out of the General Services Administration and gives it to the Treasury Department.

The budget also requests $5.5 million in additional funding for Treasury to manage the site, a Treasury spokeswoman said. The site was previously paid for with the e-government fund, a pot of congressionally-mandated money devoted to using the Internet and other electronic communications to improve citizen services and public access to government information.

“Treasury will conduct an analysis of the operation and information in USASpending and determine what changes in the medium or long term may be warranted,” the spokeswoman said. “The collection of government wide financial management information is closely aligned with Treasury responsibilities.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2013/04/presidents-budget-moves-spending-transparency-site-gsa-treasury/62456/?oref=ng-HPriver

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Are we headed for an acquisition brain drain?

March 29, 2013 by

The top federal procurement officer on Mar. 21, 2013 called for “not a tweak but a full rethink” of the government’s planning for its acquisition workforce, warning that as many as 40 percent of the 36,000 federal contracting officers could retire in the next five years.

Joe Jordan, administrator of the White House Office of Federal Procurement Policy, compared the coming brain drain to water flowing out of a “giant bathtub,” saying he plans to push agencies to “widen the aperture of who they recruit.”

Hiring managers should sell their agencies “as a good place to work for anyone who is smart and wants to serve” and then train them at facilities such as the Federal Acquisition Institute, Jordan told an audience of vendors and agency staff at the “Acquisition Excellence” conference hosted jointly by the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council and the General Services Administration. “Retaining these people in an era of continuing resolutions and pay freezes is a real challenge.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2013/03/are-we-headed-acquisition-brain-drain/62011/?oref=dropdown

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