A little commentary from the General Services Administration on our website urges government buyers to use the agency’s multiple-award schedule contracts.
The venerable MAS contracts generate about $45 billion in annual sales.
Over the years, GSA has continually tinkered with the awards schedules to keep the program relevant. Now it’s about to collapse the 24 individual schedules into one. GSA will release the new consolidated schedule and its terms and conditions on Oct. 1, with a goal of moving all vendors to one schedule by the end of fiscal 2020. GSA let industry know about the consolidated schedule plan late last year.
No change in federal procurement is ever simple.
Center Law Group’s Barbara Kinosky, whom I’ve interviewed from time to time, wrote this about the consolidation: “We understand modifications to add the new consolidated [special item numbers] will not be accepted after Sept. 30 until sometime in mid-January 2020 after contractors have accepted the mass modification incorporating the new consolidated schedule terms and conditions.”
See what I mean?
Once the conversion is done, buyers and sellers will, in theory, have a simpler, more uniform contracting system to deal with. The consolidation is one of many updates and improvements GSA is making to modernize the MAS and the supporting tools like e-modification.
Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/tom-temin-commentary/2019/08/the-danger-in-gsas-online-marketplaces/
