contract award | The Contracting Education Academy

January 23, 2020 By cs

NDAA requires COs to provide information to unsuccessful offerors for task and delivery orders less than $5.5 million

The FY 2020 NDAA mandates the FAR be revised to require Contracting Officers to provide the rationale for award and other information to unsuccessful offerors for task or delivery orders.

Currently, FAR Part 16 only requires a debriefing be provided for task and delivery orders valued over $5.5 million.

The FY 2020 NDAA requires FAR Part 16 be revised to require that Contracting Officers provide information to unsuccessful offerors on contracts above the Simplified Acquisition Threshold but below $5.5 million.

This new information could prove invaluable for contractors hoping to gain insight and improve their proposals for future opportunities.

The annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has long been used to impose government-wide procurement reforms. The recently enacted NDAA, signed by President Trump on December 20, 2019, continues this practice, by requiring agencies to provide unsuccessful offerors on smaller dollar task or delivery orders above the Simplified Acquisition Threshold an explanation as to why their proposal was unsuccessful as well as the rationale for the award.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/ndaa-requires-contracting-officers-to-30028/

July 16, 2019 By AMK

Proposed rule offers foreign military sales as a potential pathway to commerciality

Earlier this month, the FAR Council issued a proposed rule to expand the definition of “commercial item” under the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to include certain items sold in substantial quantities to foreign governments. This new rule implements section 847 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2018 (Pub. L. 115-91), and has the potential to extend commercial item status to defense articles that have been sold to foreign militaries, including sales under the Foreign Military Financing program.

Ensuring the commercial item status of products and services has long been a key point of federal contracting compliance for many businesses, as commercial item contracts typically avoid many of the more burdensome provisions imposed by the FAR. While the term “commercial item” is often generalized to refer to items offered for sale to the general public for non-governmental purposes, the definition of “commercial item” under FAR 2.101 includes certain items used for governmental purposes and sold in substantial quantities to multiple state and local governments. See FAR 2.101. This provision permitted products like protective equipment used by police and fire departments to be deemed commercial items.

Specifically, the FAR provides that a “nondevelopmental item” can qualify for commercial item status “if the procuring agency determines the item was developed exclusively at private expense and sold in substantial quantities, on a competitive basis, to multiple State and local governments.” See FAR 2.101. While the foregoing provision is limited to sales to state and local governments, the FAR separately defines “nondevelopmental item” as “[a]ny previously developed item of supply used exclusively for governmental purposes by a Federal agency, a State or local government, or a foreign government with which the United States has a mutual defense cooperation agreement.” (emphasis added) So while the FAR defines “nondevelopment item” to include products sold to foreign governments, the commercial item definition only extends to products sold to state and local governments.

The proposed rule expands the commercial item definition to include nondevelopmental items sold in substantial quantities to foreign governments. While this change results in adding only four words to the FAR, it represents a potentially significant expansion to the concept of commerciality in federal contracting, as items used exclusively for defense applications would potentially be deemed commercial items under the proposed rule. The notice of proposed rulemaking is clear that intent of the rule is to include defense articles previously developed at private expense for U.S. allies under the definition of commercial item.

Keep reading article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2019/05/proposed-rule-offers-foreign-military-sales-as-a-potential-pathway-to-commerciality/

June 18, 2019 By AMK

RPA takes hold in agency procurement

Robotics process automation “is exploding” across government, according to Joanie Newhart, associate administrator of acquisition workforce programs in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Cybersecurity experts have a new tool in the fight against hackers – a decoy robot. Researchers at Georgia Tech built the “HoneyBot” to lure hackers into thinking they had taken control of a robot, but instead the robot gathers valuable information about the bad actors, helping businesses better protect themselves from future attacks.

Speaking at the Shared Services Leadership Coalition RPA conference, Newhart said OFPP is monitoring how agencies are using RPA, especially when it comes to procurement. The Department of Health and Human Services is piloting RPA for the closeout phase of acquisitions, and the General Services Administration is using it to smooth out some of its internal processes such as sifting through data to find unpaid invoices. At the Department of Treasury, RPA is facilitating background reviews of contractor performance to help its contracting officers with their due diligence in awarding contracts, she said.

Those kinds of RPA applications could transform federal acquisition in only a few years, as they take over repetitive internal tasks, according to Newhart. OFPP, she said, plans share some of its observations on RPA with agencies soon.

Keep reading article at: https://gcn.com/articles/2019/05/30/rpa-procurement.aspx

December 19, 2018 By AMK

USASpending.gov needs better search and better data, watchdog says

The Treasury Department needs to build more search functionality into its online government spending database and do a better job highlighting what data might be inaccurate, according to a congressional watchdog.

The department must do more to secure the site and comply with federal open data policies, the Government Accountability Office said in a report published last Thursday.

Treasury is mandated by Congress to report quarterly agency expenditures on USASpending.gov, which offers the public a detailed breakdown of the more than $4 trillion the government spends every year. While publishing spending data promotes government transparency and oversight, auditors found the site lacks a number of features that would give citizens greater insight into how taxpayer dollars are being spent.

The site doesn’t provide structured, machine-readable metadata on agency contracts and obligations, going against recommendations from the Office of Management and Budget, the report said.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/12/usaspendinggov-needs-better-search-and-better-data-watchdog-says/153561/

September 6, 2018 By AMK

How has federal contract spending changed over time?

DataLab, a unit operated by the U.S. Treasury Department, recently undertook an analysis of ten years of federal contract spending data. The results are thought-provoking.

Take a look at what they discovered when they examined the USAspending.gov database:

Over the past decade, federal spending on contracts increased from fiscal year 2007 through 2010, following the surge in federal funding related to the Recovery Act. As the Recovery Act tapered off in 2011, contract spending began to decrease, which accelerated following sequestration in 2013. By 2015, contract spending had fallen 27 percent from its 2010 peak, before rebounding slightly in the following years.
Seasonal trends in contract spending occur within each year. Spending tends also rise and fall on a monthly cadence, with roughly one small peak and one small drop per month. During the last month of the federal fiscal year — September — contract spending spikes, especially one week prior to the end of the government’s fiscal year.
End-of-year spikes consistently occurred across the decade, and generally followed the broad rise and fall of spending. On average, September spikes accounted for between 6-8 percent of the annual spending in a fiscal year.
USAspending.gov data captures two types of activity related to contracts: 1) the issuance of new contracts, and 2) modifications to existing contracts. Splitting spending on contracts into these two categories, DataLab found that spending on new contracts tended to spike in September. Modifications, however, displayed less variance and did not spike as drastically at the end of each fiscal year. This suggests that new contracts — not modifications—drove the spikes at the end of each fiscal year.
USAspending data also captures what the government received from a contract (i.e., goods or services.) This categorization scheme, utilizing Product and Service Codes, contains almost 6,000 different categories, ranging from Dining Facility Maintenance to Buoys. For this analysis, DataLab collapsed these 6,000 categories into seven high-level groups. Notably, contracts classified as Facilities, Equipment, and Construction, displayed about 3.5 times the level of variance over the decade as total contract spending, and over 50 times the variance of spending on Weapons and Ammunition. Unlike the other categories, contracts for weapons ammunition did not spike at the end of the fiscal year.

DataLab also looked at USAspending data to determine the relationship between the passage of continuing resolutions, new appropriations, and the amount of spending on contracts across the government. Here’s what they found:

Continuing resolutions caused contract spending to spike in the same week, which was not observed for the passage of new appropriations. These findings cohere with qualitative research conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which noted in February 2018 that “some agency officials reported delaying contracts and application times for grants while under a [continuing resolution].” If agencies are unable to issue new contracts because adequate funds are not available under continuing resolutions, needs accumulate, and then are satisfied once funding is available.
Notably, DataLab found that the passage of new appropriations resulted in a statistically significant decreases in total contracts and especially on professional services contract spending. This suggests that new appropriations allow the government to engage in longer-term budgeting, potentially facilitating forward-looking spending decisions.
DataLab also noted that research and development spending was less variable and less impacted by continuing resolutions, suggesting that this type of service is likely to follow a distinct pattern for contract issuance from the typical cycles followed by other goods and services. As one of the smallest categories of spending, it is possible that this type of contract is partially sheltered from the timing of congressional appropriations.
Other categories showed evidence of very large spikes in spending in response to congressional appropriations, such as transportation and logistic services. Further research as to why specific types of spending are more reactive to continuing resolutions would need to be done to explain why.

To see this report, including trends displayed in graphs and tables, visit: https://datalab.usaspending.gov/contracts-over-time.html

The FY 2020 NDAA mandates the FAR be revised to require Contracting Officers to provide the rationale for award and other information to unsuccessful offerors for task or delivery orders.

Robotics process automation “is exploding” across government, according to Joanie Newhart, associate administrator of acquisition workforce programs in the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

The Treasury Department needs to build more search functionality into its online government spending database and do a better job highlighting what data might be inaccurate, according to a congressional watchdog.

DataLab, a unit operated by the U.S. Treasury Department, recently undertook an analysis of ten years of federal contract spending data. The results are thought-provoking.

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