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January 13, 2012 By AMK

SBA, to be elevated to Cabinet level, is among agencies Obama wants consolidated

On Friday (Jan. 13, 2012) President Obama announced he will ask Congress for the power to merge six federal trade and commerce agencies, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The WSJ report said Obama will ask Congress for “reorganizational” power. The last president to have this power was Ronald Reagan.

The new power would allow the president to propose mergers in order to save money and make the government work more efficiently, according to the report.

The plan would allow Obama to propose mergers that would be “guaranteed an up-or-down vote from Congress within 90 days,” the report said.

The six agencies Obama wants to consolidate include the Commerce Department‘s core business and trade functions, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Trade and Development Agency.

The report cited a White House official who said the merger would save taxpayers around $3 billion over the next decade by eliminating duplicate overhead costs.

In addition, between 1,000 and 2,000 jobs would be eliminated through attrition, according to the WSJ.

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: budget cuts, Commerce Dept., consolidation, export, import, reorganization, SBA, Trade Agreements Act

October 27, 2011 By AMK

House subpoenas four agencies for small-business noncompliance

Four federal agencies were issued subpoenas by the House Small Business Committee on Oct. 20 for not complying with the Small Business Act’s procurement policies, according to a committee staffer.

The departments of Justice, Agriculture, Treasury and State were summoned to appear before the the Small Business subcommittee on contracting and workforce on Nov. 1 to testify why they are in noncompliance.

At issue is the “structure” of these agencies’ Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization Offices (OSDBU) and “the fact that they are not reporting to the agency head or deputy head,” wrote Darrell Jordon, house committee spokesman, in an e-mail to Washington Technology.

OSDBUs were conceived in 1978 with the purpose of having federal agencies set aside contracts for small and disadvantaged businesses. The Small Business Act also has requirements that agencies report their procurement activities with small and disadvantaged businesses.

Justice, Agriculture, Treasury and State were warned of their missteps and given a chance to remedy the situation after a June Government Accountability Office small business contracting report found seven agencies not in compliance.

Following that report, letters to agencies were sent by subcommittee Chairman Mick Mulvaney (R-SC). As a result, the Interior Department and Social Security Administration are now in compliance, and a third, the Commerce Department, was pardoned due to an administrative issue.

In September, agencies were reminded of their noncompliance by memo and a hearing was held on Sept. 15 by the subcommittee to examine the GAO report and the economic impact of noncompliance.

As part of the subpoena procedure, the four agencies must produce a number of documents, including paperwork relating to their small business procurement programs, attainment of small business goals or challenges to decisions not to restrict competition to small business between Jan. 20, 2009, and Sept. 30, 2011.

About the Author: Alysha Sideman is an online content producer with 1105 Government Information Group. Published by Washington Technology – Oct. 21, 2011 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2011/10/21/small-biz-committee-subpoenas.aspx

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: Agriculture Dept., Commerce Dept., GAO, Interior Dept., Justice Dept., OSDBU, small business, small business goals, small disadvantaged, SSA, State Dept., Treasury, Treasury Dept.

October 13, 2011 By AMK

Agencies can improve suspension and debarment process, says GAO

Too many federal agencies are insufficiently protecting against contractor fraud or incompetence by using the suspension and debarment process, the Government Accountability Office reported Thursday. Agencies with records of scant use of the practice should beef up dedicated staff and commit to greater use of the interagency committee designed for this purpose, the auditors said.

“Agencies that fail to devote sufficient attention to suspension and debarment issues likely will continue to have limited levels of activity and risk fostering a perception that they are not serious about holding the entities they deal with accountable,” William Woods, GAO’s director of acquisition and sourcing management, told a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement Reform. But “we need to keep the process informal to avoid red tape, because agencies need to move quickly to protect the government’s interest,” he added.

GAO examined the number of suspensions and debarments imposed under the Federal Acquisition Regulation of 10 major contracting agencies over five fiscal years. Most active were the Defense Logistics Agency, the Navy, the General Services Administration and Homeland Security Department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Agencies with little or no use of the procedure were the Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice, State and Treasury departments, as well as DHS’ Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“The mountains of federal forms are frustrating” for many good contractors, said panel chairman Rep. James Lankford, R-Okla., “but certain contractors try to defraud, or are chronically poor performers. We need to find out why some agencies uncover the abuse and others don’t” so the government can enforce a process that “strengthens the integrity of overall contract system.”

The Defense Department has far and away the highest raw number of suspensions and debarments (1,616 over five years), but when viewed as a percentage of contracting dollars, as ranking member Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. noted, the Environmental Protection Agency has a far higher rate.

HHS, Connolly and Republican members pointed out, did not post a single contractor suspension or debarment in the past five years, despite a 2010 budget that included $368 billion in grants and $19 billion in contracts.

GAO’s Woods said he was surprised by the numbers at HHS. His report does not recommend any new legislation on suspensions (which are temporary) and debarments (which are long term), but calls for the agencies deemed inactive to mimic the organizational approaches of the active ones. That means assigning full-time dedicated staff and resources, developing detailed implementation guidance, and promoting a case referral process.

In addition, GAO recommends that the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy issue governmentwide guidance to ensure that agencies are aware of the elements of an active suspension and debarment program and the importance of cooperating with the Interagency Suspension and Debarment Committee. Witnesses at the hearing suggested that many agencies lack full commitment to that panel, which was created in 1986.

Under the Federal Acquisition Regulation and a parallel set of rules for nonprocurement contracting, agencies are responsible for examining contractors and uncovering fraud or nonperformance and then posting the companies on the website of the Excluded Parties List System maintained by the General Services Administration. Contractors’ rights are supposed to be protected through established procedures for challenging the listing through a timely meeting with top agency officials and a “mini trial” in which they can present evidence defending their record.

Nearly 84 percent of suspensions and debarments are required by statute — such as past violators of the 1970 Clean Air or 1972 Clean Water acts — according to GAO, which focused its study on the 16 percent that are discretionary.

The agencies deemed inactive generally accepted GAO’s conclusions. Nick Nyack, chief procurement official at Homeland Security Department, said, “We get this. We’re going to get it right and will be a best practices agency in short order.” Under questioning, he said it could be done within three months.

Three months was also the estimate for making changes the members elicited from Nancy Gunderson, suspension and debarment official at HHS. She said the department had terminated numerous grants and contracts for reasons such as questionable scientific integrity. But HHS efforts thus far on the issue have focused on promoting an electronic desk reference, staff training and looking at other agencies’ procedures, she said.

Agencies considered models were represented by Richard Pelletier, a suspension and department official at EPA, who said his agency since 1981 has maintained a “robust” approach that involves two offices with full-time staff.

Steven Shaw, deputy general counsel of the Air Force, stressed the importance protecting contractors’ rights by having officials who aren’t in the procurement chain “examine evidence, not just the fact of an indictment.” He favors a carrot-and-stick approach that includes regular meetings with important contractors and not mandatory debarments. The overall dollar figures, rather than the number of suspensions or debarments, he added, might be a better metric on agency activity than raw numbers.

—  by Charles S. Clark – Government Executive – October 6, 2011 – http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=49011&dcn=e_tma

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: Air Force, Commerce Dept., contractor performance, debarment, DLA, EPA, FAR, FEMA, fraud, GAO, GSA, HHS, Homeland Security, Justice Dept., Navy, OFPP, State Dept., suspension, Treasury Dept.

September 23, 2011 By AMK

Four departments resist call to comply with Small Business Act

Conflicting interpretations of agency internal reporting requirements in the Small Business Act have prompted a stalemate between four departments and congressional overseers examining the performance of programs designed to assure that small businesses get a fair share of federal contracting.

The Government Accountability Office in a report had found that seven agencies were not complying with the law’s requirement that the Offices of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization in every department except Defense must report directly to the agency.

At a hearing Thursday with the House Small Business Subcommittee on Contracting and the Workforce, a GAO specialist reported that the State, Commerce, Treasury and Justice departments recently had declined requests that they comply.

Subcommittee Chairman Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., told the hearing that a failure to comply presents a clear conflict of interest and is “completely unacceptable . . . President Obama says that ‘small business contracting should always be a high priority in the procurement process,’ but his administration disregards the basic protections for small business contractors,” Mulvaney said. “Instead of just lip service, he should make sure his administration is following the law in regards to small business requirements.”

OSDBUs were created in 1978 to help reserve some federal contracts for for-profit small business concerns in which socially and economically disadvantaged individuals own at least a 51 percent interest and manage and control daily business operations. Concretely, they seek to make sure that the tendency of contracting officers to bundle contracts for larger contractors does not exclude the disadvantaged. Reporting directly to an agency’s leader rather than only to its contracting officers is considered essential to fair consideration of contract awards, and more than half the agencies GAO surveyed said their OSDBUs report only to the agency head.

On Sept. 9, Small Business Administrator Karen Mills sent a memo to all agency heads asking them to comply. “Open and direct communication between the OSDBU director and the secretary, deputy secretary or their equivalent is paramount to ensure that small businesses receive the maximum practicable opportunity to compete for and win federal contracts that allow them to grow their businesses and create jobs,” she wrote.

GAO’s June report said seven noncomplying agencies also were out of compliance in 2003. They include Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, Justice, State, Treasury and the Social Security Administration. In August, Mulvaney sent letters to the noncomplying agencies asking them to respond by Aug. 31 about how they “intend to rectify the reporting relationship.”

William Shear, director of financial markets and community investments at GAO, explained at the hearing that Commerce and Justice disagreed that they’re not in compliance, while State and Treasury made a legal argument that they are free to delegate the authority for how OSDBUs report.

Shear told Government Executive that Agriculture didn’t reply, Interior sent a letter saying it will comply, and SSA promised to comply but hasn’t followed up with documentation.

Claims by Commerce and Justice that they are in compliance, Shear said at the hearing, “don’t fit the fact pattern” obtained when auditors interviewed the OSDBUs about interaction with agency heads. He said GAO found evidence of tension and frustration at OSDBUs in agencies that were not complying because contracting offices are not always fulfilling their needs. “But some tension is healthy,” Shear said. He noted that there are no sanctions for noncomplying agencies.

Ranking member Judy Chu, D-Calif., agreed with the call for compliance at the hearing, which also dealt with mentor-protégé programs and SBA’s performance on data on its procurement center representatives. “Failure to comply with this requirement not only shows a callous disregard for the law, but also shortchanges small businesses that end up suffering the consequences of OSDBU’s diminished agency standing,” she said.

A spokesman for Commerce, Kevin Griffis, told Government Executive that “the department is in compliance with the law, and both its record and the progress being made to continue to improve its performance speak for themselves. In 2010, the Small Business Administration, in its Small Business procurement score card, awarded the department a grade of ‘A’ for its procurement practices — up from the previous year’s ‘C.’

Justice spokeswoman Gina Talamona said in an email that the department “fully supports the mission of the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization. Consistent with the Small Business Act, department regulations provide that the director report directly to the deputy attorney general. Although OSDBU is located within the department’s Justice management division for administrative purposes, the director still reports to the deputy attorney general on substantive matters.”

Mulvaney said he plans to hold another hearing on OSDBUs and invite agency heads or senior officials from noncomplying agencies, adding, “They won’t enjoy it.”

— by Charles S. Clark – Government Executive – September 16, 2011 at http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=48818&dcn=e_gvet

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: Agriculture Dept., Commerce Dept., GAO, Interior Dept., Justice Dept., OSDBU, SBA, small business, Social Security Administration, State Dept., Treasury Dept.

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