acquisition workforce | The Contracting Education Academy

March 29, 2020 By cs

Agencies have spent more than $300 million in response to the COVID-19 outbreak

Federal buyers spent more than $4.8 million on hand sanitizer alone in the last two months.

**According to the CDC, a novel coronavirus, formally named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is identified as the cause of a worldwide outbreak of respiratory illness.**

Federal agencies have spent upward of $300 million over the last two months in response to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Between February 1 and March 22, agencies reported spending more than $297.8 million on telework products and services—such as virtual meeting rooms, collaboration tools and virtual private networks—and health products like hand sanitizer and ventilators, according to data maintained in the Federal Procurement Data System.

An analysis by The Pulse of GovCon, a federal contracting market intelligence firm, looked at all federal spending data tagged with the National Interest Action code “COVID-19-2020” and variations, such as “covid-19,” “covid19,” and “coronavirus.” The analysis shows agencies spent $6.5 million on ventilators, nearly $4.8 million on hand sanitizer, $3.7 million on gloves and $3.2 million on disinfectants. The balance was spent on personnel support services and IT products and support for teleworking.

But Pulse analysts stressed that the data is likely incomplete at this time.

“Many contracting offices supporting COVID-19, particularly those relocated to the disaster recovery area, do not have access to their normal contract writing systems and thus have not been able to populate FPDS-NG contemporaneously with the contract awards they have made,” they said in a summary report. “Others have not had time to enter data due to the tempo of operations.”

Analysts also noted these figures do not include Defense Department spending, as that data is kept on a 90-day delay for the sake of national security.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/03/agencies-have-spent-more-300m-response-covid-19-outbreak/164097/

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has established a webpage where all contract-related developments related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are summarized. Find the page at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/coronavirus-information-for-contracting-officers-and-contractors/

March 27, 2020 By cs

Defense industry to DoD: If we send workers home, will you penalize us?

Defense industry executives are being forced to choose between risking employees’ health by sending them into factories amid the coronavirus outbreak, or missing the delivery deadlines in their Pentagon contracts.

**Click on image to update information.**

Initially, many contractors welcomed the federal government’s March 20 declaration that the defense industrial base is a critical part of America’s infrastructure, and that a good portion of its employees would be “expected to maintain their normal work schedule.” But just four days later, as the COVID-19 death toll rises and state after state announces stay-at-home orders, it has become clear that normal work schedules aren’t generally advisable — or even possible.

On Wednesday, Boeing will shut down its massive assembly factories in the Seattle region that build commercial airliners and military tankers and submarine-hunting aircraft. While some work can be done remotely, such as the re-engineering of the KC-46 refueling system, assembling the planes and their unique components cannot.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/03/defense-companies-want-more-direction-relief-pentagon-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/164077/

March 26, 2020 By cs

White House updates contracting and technology guidance for federal agencies

During the coronavirus outbreak, the Veterans Affairs Department got a greenlight to rehire experts and the Justice Department clarified its stance on working in states with shelter-in-place orders.

This past weekend, the Trump administration published several memo of additional guidance for federal employees, contractors and agencies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Days after directing agencies and departments to offer “maximum telework flexibilities” for federal employees, the Office of Management and Budget updated its agency guidance regarding millions of federal contractors.

The guidance, from OMB’s Deputy Director for Management Margaret Weichert, instructs agencies to do three main things.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/03/white-house-updates-contracting-and-technology-guidance-federal-agencies/163992/

March 24, 2020 By cs

Agencies initiate emergency acquisition authorities

The Defense Department raised its threshold for 8(a) sole source contracts to $100 million as required by the 2020 Defense authorization bill. While not related to coronavirus outbreak, the timing is important.

At least four agencies have implemented emergency acquisition authorities to make it easier to award contracts to support coronavirus relief efforts.

The General Services Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the IRS raised the micro-purchase threshold (MPT) and the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) in the last week.

The Defense Department on March 17 raised the threshold for sole source 8(a) contracts to $100 million as required under the 2020 Defense authorization bill.

This is a huge increase, given typically the threshold for 8(a) contracts at DoD has been $22 million. Congress increased the threshold for the first time since 2015.

For the rest of the government, the 8(a) sole source threshold is $7 million for manufacturing requirements or $4 million for all other requirements.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition-policy/2020/03/agencies-initiate-emergency-acquisition-authorities/

March 23, 2020 By cs

DoD urges Contracting Officer transparency in COVID-19 impacts

The Department of Defense’s Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment issued Guidance on March 10, 2020, addressing internal and external communications in response to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

**Click on image above to download DoD Acquisition’s March 10, 2020 memo.**

The Guidance states that the Contracting Officers (as distinguished from Program personnel) hold the contractual authority to address contract performance impacts related to COVID-19. Moreover, the Guidance encourages close communication between Contracting Officers and contractors, and stresses Contracting Officer transparency, a term not normally seen in contract administration guidance. In pertinent part the Guidance states as follows:

“Communication between the Government and contractors is key to total workforce safety and mission continuity. Therefore, contracting officers should be as transparent as possible as they make decisions potentially impacting contract performance or contractor personnel. Contracting officers should also encourage their contractor site leads/leadership to engage with their employees as soon as possible to share information and discuss any COVID-19 concerns they have, and ask their contractors to identify potential impacts to the welfare and safety of their workforce or contract performance, which impacts our total force.”

The Guidance contains three important messages for defense contractors who may be impacted by COVID-19.

First, defense contractors can cite this Guidance as a basis to submit questions to the Contracting Officer and request program-specific information about acquisition planning and related issues affecting their contracts.
Second, the Guidance encourages affirmative efforts by contractors to communicate with their employees about personnel impacts and employee concerns. While social distancing practices may prevent contractors from town hall or other company-wide meetings, technology solutions will substitute for this.
Last, the Guidance asks contractors to identify (presumably to the Contracting Officer) workforce impacts to health and safety, and contractor performance.

Keep reading this article at: https://governmentcontractsnavigator.com/2020/03/18/dod-urges-contracting-officer-transparency-in-covid-19-impacts/#more-941

See: Planning for Potential Novel Coronavirus Contract Impacts – DoD – Mar 10 2020

Federal buyers spent more than $4.8 million on hand sanitizer alone in the last two months.

Defense industry executives are being forced to choose between risking employees’ health by sending them into factories amid the coronavirus outbreak, or missing the delivery deadlines in their Pentagon contracts.

During the coronavirus outbreak, the Veterans Affairs Department got a greenlight to rehire experts and the Justice Department clarified its stance on working in states with shelter-in-place orders.

The Defense Department raised its threshold for 8(a) sole source contracts to $100 million as required by the 2020 Defense authorization bill. While not related to coronavirus outbreak, the timing is important.

The Department of Defense’s Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment issued Guidance on March 10, 2020, addressing internal and external communications in response to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

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