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OSHA fines contractor and temp staffing agency $152,618

A worker died because a contractor failed to protect the worker, and a temp labor agency failed to ensure worker received safety training.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited All Power Construction Corporation of Huntsville, Alabama and staffing agency Labor Finders of Tennessee Inc. after a temporary employee installing sewer lines suffered a fatal injury in a trench collapse in Huntsville. All Power Construction Corp. faces $139,684 in proposed penalties and Labor Finders of Tennessee Inc. faces the maximum allowed $12,934 in proposed penalties.

OSHA issued willful and serious citations to All Power Construction on November 7, 2017 for allowing employees to work in a trench without cave-in protection, failing to provide a safe means to enter and exit the trench, and not having a competent person inspect the trench to identify potential hazards.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.constructionequipment.com/osha-fines-contractor-and-temp-staffing-agency-152618

See OSHA’s trenching and excavation standards at: https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/trenchingexcavation/standards.html

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‘Reinventing government,’ 25 years later

We are coming up next year on the 25th anniversary of the country’s first and perhaps only governmentwide management reform program organized around a coherent theme: the Clinton administration’s “reinventing government” effort.

In 1993, the first year of the Clinton administration, I went on leave from my job at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, where I was a professor of public management, to take a Senate-confirmed position in the Office of Management and Budget as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. That office of 30-odd civil servants did not buy anything itself but had the lead role in formulating governmentwide procurement policy.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the thinking about how to manage well in government began to turn toward performance. As political scientists William Gormley and Steven Balla have written, “The concept of performance came to rival accountability as a standard for evaluating executive branch agencies.”

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2017/12/06/kelman-25-years-of-acquisition-reform.aspx

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The reality of risk in third-party contract relationships

Government organizations rely on outside third-parties to provide the goods and services they need to operate effectively.  Contracting with an outside third-party exposes these organizations to significant risks.

Picture these scenarios:

  • A contractor prepared and submitted inflated invoices and false change orders for labor and materials on a project to build a water treatment plant for a State agency resulting in overbilling of $4.8 million.
  • A municipal government contracted with a fire safety company to annually inspect and re-size firefighter safety equipment. However, the company failed to perform this critical function, putting the safety of firefighters in jeopardy.
  • A freight merchant submitted false fuel and weight claims to the U.S. Government totaling $13 million for oversized air shipments when the standard load was actually delivered via ground transport.

Scenarios like these are just a few of the many risks affecting organizations that work with third-party vendors. As Government organizations continue to rely on outside suppliers or service providers, their exposure to risk and fraud increases.

You might be asking, “What measures could these organizations have taken to prevent and detect these scenarios?”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=596650

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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/

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Office of Government Ethics revises Executive Branch gift rules

Effective January 1, 2017, the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is revising the gift rules applicable to executive branch employees. 

Office of Govt EthicsThe revisions were prompted by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which requires OGE to periodically update its regulations.

For the most part, the revisions are non-substantive edits that enhance readability and remove gender references.

The OGE did, however make numerous changes that persons and organizations interacting with the federal government should be aware of to stay in compliance with ethics rules.

Notably, even if a gift qualifies for a specific exemption, the new rules “encourage” employees to decline a gift if they believe a “reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts would question the employee’s integrity or impartiality” by virtue of its acceptance.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=546920

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