Simplified Acquisition | The Contracting Education Academy

September 11, 2017 By cs

GSA relaxes rules to speed contracting for hurricane relief efforts

Eight days after addressing Hurricane Harvey in Texas, the General Services Administration on Thursday pivoted to the Irma storm aimed at Florida, relaxing certain contracting rules to encourage speed and local awards.

Senior Procurement Executive Jeffrey Koses signed a “memorandum raising thresholds for areas included in the Irma declaration response,” a GSA spokeswoman told Government Executive. The Irma memorandum follows an Aug. 29 directive issued in anticipation of rebuilding in the aftermath of the Houston-area flooding from Harvey.

The Harvey memo cited sections of the Federal Acquisition Regulation allowing GSA to raise the micropurchase threshold to $20,000 for any contract to be awarded and performed, or purchase to be made in support of the designated disaster areas. “The simplified acquisition threshold is increased to $750,000, or $13,000,000 for commercial items,” the memo to GSA contracting professionals said. The authority extends to any necessary leasing of property.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2017/09/gsa-relaxes-rules-speed-contracting-hurricane-relief-efforts/140856/

September 5, 2017 By cs

Micro-purchase and simplified acquisition thresholds raised for Hurricane Harvey response

The General Services Administration (GSA) has issued a directive allowing federal agencies engaged in emergency relief activities to raise dollar thresholds at which streamlined procurement rules can be used.

Under GSA’s temporary rules, the micro-purchase threshold is raised from $3,500 to $20,000. (In a recent Class Deviation, the Dept. of Defense raised its standard micro-purchase threshold to $5,000.) In addition, GSA raised the simplified acquisition threshold from $150,000 to $750,000 for non-commercial items and from $6.5-$7.0 million to $13 million for commercial items.

With micro-purchases the federal agencies can bypass many of the ordinary competitive requirements under the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). For instances, holders of Governmentwide purchase cards (GPC) can make contract awards without soliciting competitive quotations if they consider prices to be fair and reasonable. Micro-purchases do not require provisions or clauses. The FAR’s detailed rules on micro-purchases are set forth primarily in FAR 13.2.

FAR Part 13 governs purchasing below the simplified acquisition threshold. It sets forth shorter terms and conditions, especially in the areas of reporting requirements and subcontracting. Simplified acquisition transactions above the micro-purchase threshold are reserved for small businesses.

The threshold increases will remain in effect until December 31, 2017.

GSA’s new guidance is tied to the Presidential declaration of Hurricane Harvey as a “major disaster.” Meeting the legal definition of “emergency” in GSA’s FAR Class Deviation entitled Exercise of Special Emergency Procurement Authorities means that the emergency acquisition flexibilities listed in FAR 18.2 are available for use, along with the existing acquisition flexibilities enumerated in FAR 18.1.

Agency contracting officers are required to give preference to local firms in the disaster area in accordance with the Stafford Act, implemented at FAR 26.2. GSA notes that contracting officers should first consider small business local area set-asides when feasible.

GSA’s Aug. 29, 2017 memorandum entitled “Relief Efforts for Hurricane Harvey” is at: https://gsa.gov/portal/getMediaData?mediaId=168826

May 3, 2017 By cs

8 trends to keep ahead of in federal contracting

The Trump administration has most of Washington on the edge of their seats waiting to see what comes next, and federal contracting is no different.

“Everyone knows the federal market is driven by budgets, and budgets are driven by the presidential budget request,” Kevin Brancato, director of government contracts research at Bloomberg Government, said in an April 27, 2017 webinar. “What I would advise federal contractors to look at is agency priorities and see where they align with the president’s priorities … and you’ll likely see those agencies is where the money will be spent.”

But he said that all the budget really changes is which agencies spend the money, not so much how they spend it. That’s why he said he expects to see these eight trends continue into 2018: Category Management, Shared Services, Compliance Standards, First Time Vendors, “Other” Transactions, Cybersecurity, Simplified Procedures, and Trump’s Tweets.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition/2017/04/8-trends-to-keep-ahead-of-in-federal-contracting/

December 8, 2016 By cs

Defense bill includes numerous provisions to prod DoD toward commercial buying

Last week’s House-Senate agreement on the 2017 Defense Authorization Bill contained about 100 provisions dealing with acquisition — not all of which we’ll even attempt to summarize in this space.

commercial-buying-2017-ndaa But several were built around a common reform theme Congress began in last year’s bill, attempting to reform the acquisition system to suit a world in which leaders of the Defense committees believe that most innovation is happening in the commercial sector.

Besides restructuring and bifurcating the large front office that’s currently responsible for both acquisition and R&D, the bill adds several new authorities that build on last year’s trend of letting DoD sidestep the traditional acquisition system.

“The national security problem starts from the fact that we no longer drive research and development,” Bill Greenwalt, a senior Senate Armed Services Committee staffer, said at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security last week. “We reformed the system 20 years ago to try to access commercial items, but it’s not as agile as we would like it to be. It’s risk-averse, it’s compliance-oriented, and it’s optimized to win the Cold War against an adversary that thought in five-year plans.”

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/dod-reporters-notebook-jared-serbu/2016/12/defense-bill-includes-numerous-provisions-prod-dod-toward-commercial-buying/

November 8, 2016 By cs

GAO: No “public posting” of solicitation in closed government office

An agency failed to meet its obligations to properly publicize a simplified acquisition valued between $15,000 and $25,000 where the agency placed the solicitation in a three-ring binder at the reception desk in a government office–and that office was closed during most of the relevant time.

bia In a recent decision, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) affirmed that principle that even when the dollar value of a simplified acquisition doesn’t meet the requirement for electronic posting on FedBizOpps, the agency still must take reasonable steps to maximize competition.

GAO’s decision in Bluehorse Corp., B-413533 (Oct. 28, 2016) involved a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) solicitation for diesel fuel for a school district served by the BIA in New Mexico.

After identifying an emergency need for the diesel fuel, the BIA prepared an RFQ on Saturday, July 30. The RFQ was prepared under the procedures for the streamlined acquisition of commercial items under FAR 12.6, and called for a performance period of delivery from August 2, 2016 through April 30, 2017.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gao-no-public-posting-of-solicitation-in-closed-government-office/

Eight days after addressing Hurricane Harvey in Texas, the General Services Administration on Thursday pivoted to the Irma storm aimed at Florida, relaxing certain contracting rules to encourage speed and local awards.

The General Services Administration (GSA) has issued a directive allowing federal agencies engaged in emergency relief activities to raise dollar thresholds at which streamlined procurement rules can be used.

The Trump administration has most of Washington on the edge of their seats waiting to see what comes next, and federal contracting is no different.

Last week’s House-Senate agreement on the 2017 Defense Authorization Bill contained about 100 provisions dealing with acquisition — not all of which we’ll even attempt to summarize in this space.

An agency failed to meet its obligations to properly publicize a simplified acquisition valued between $15,000 and $25,000 where the agency placed the solicitation in a three-ring binder at the reception desk in a government office–and that office was closed during most of the relevant time.

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