FAPIIS | The Contracting Education Academy

March 27, 2013 By AMK

Sharing contractor performance data in eight easy steps

The Obama administration is pressing the acquisition workforce to get better at telling other agencies, through a governmentwide online performance database, how well contractors do their jobs.

Joe Jordan, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, wants to improve the quantity and quality of data agencies put into the Federal Award Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS).

FAPIIS is the foundation for good data, Jordan stressed in the memo, dated March 6.

“However, ” he added, “agencies must increase their use of these tools, as underreporting performance information leaves the government vulnerable to poor acquisition outcomes in the future.”

Keep reading this article at: http://fcw.com/articles/2013/03/18/contractor-performance-data.aspx

January 17, 2012 By AMK

Public release of contractor data delayed

Contractors can still challenge information tjat goes into the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity System, but they have just a two-week window before the information becomes public.

The new provision takes affect Jan. 17, 2012. The start date was missing when the final rule was published Jan. 3.

Any information that agencies enter into database from Jan. 17 onward will be subject to a two-week delay before it is transferred to the publicly available part of FAPIIS. Past performance information won’t be published at all. Contractors will receive notice when new information about their company goes into FAPIIS, and they will have 7 days to point out information that should be exempt under the Freedom of Information Act.

In the new Federal Register notice, officials wrote that the delay until Jan. 17 will give agencies time to complete necessary system changes to support the two-week waiting period before contractors’ information goes live.

The current system is designed to automatically transfer information to the publicly available part of FAPIIS. Until officials make the change, companies would not have an opportunity to request withholding the information, the notice states.

FAPIIS is a one-stop website for contracting officers and federal employees to look at the history of companies’ work with the federal government. It includes data from the Performance Information Retrieval System, as well as information from other databases, including the Excluded Parties List System, which cites companies that are suspended or debarred from federal contracting.

The final rule gives companies seven days to find any information that should not be disclosed because it should be considered exempt. In such a case, officials will remove the information from FAPIIS to resolve the issue.

If the government official does not remove the item, it will be automatically released to the public website within 14 days after beginning entered into FAPIIS, according to the notice.

About the Author: Matthew Weigelt is a senior writer covering acquisition and procurement for Federal Computer Week. This article appeared Jan. 11, 2012 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/01/10/fapiis-contractor-information.aspx?s=wtdaily_120112.

January 6, 2012 By AMK

Deadline set fighting disclosure of contractor work history

The Obama administration solidified an interim rule that requires agency officials to post a government contractor’s work history in a publicly accessible website.

The Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) is a one-stop web site for contracting officers and federal employees to look at the history of companies’ work with the federal government.

FAPIIS includes data from the Performance Information Retrieval System, as well as information from other databases, including the Excluded Parties List System, which lists companies that are suspended or debarred from federal contracting. The overall purpose of FAPIIS is to make it easier for contracting officers to get an overall assessment of a company before awarding a contract by not having to search numerous databases.

A year ago, acquisition officials issued an interim rule making all the information public, except for past performance reviews by agencies.

The final rule took effect Jan. 3.

In the Federal Register notice about the rule, officials recognized the risks about the information going public though.

The final rule gives companies seven days to find any information that should not be disclosed because it should be considered exempt from disclosure. In such a case, officials will remove the information from FAPIIS to resolve the issue.

If the government official does not remove the item, it will be automatically released to the public site within two weeks after the review period began, according to the notice.

About the Author: Matthew Weigelt is a senior writer covering acquisition and procurement for Federal Computer Week. This article appeared Jan. 4, 2012 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/01/04/fapiis-public-disclosure-objections.aspx?s=wtdaily_050112.

October 4, 2011 By AMK

Move over, FAPIIS – POGO freshens up its contractor misconduct database

The federal government’s largest contractors have paid $25.3 billion in fines and penalties for everything from A to Z: from improper accounting practices to selling the government defective Zylon body armor. These and more than 1,400 other misconduct instances can be found in the Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD), which has now been updated with fiscal year 2010’s top 100 ranking. [Note: The FCMD is published by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit watchdog group.]

The top 100 features 7 new contractors, including international accounting firm Deloitte LLP, package delivery company United Parcel Service (UPS), and linguistic services provider Mission Essential Personnel. The FCMD now includes misconduct information on 160 of the federal government’s largest suppliers of goods and services.

The top 100 contractors received $276 billion in contracts last fiscal year, accounting for slightly more than half of the $536 billion in contracts awarded that year. As of today, these 100 contractors have accumulated 821 misconduct instances. Thirty-eight of the top 100 have zero or one instance, a reminder that misconduct need not be accepted as a cost of doing business with the federal government.

As has occurred in the past, the USAspending.gov data on which the top 100 ranking is based contains errors. Therefore, you will see double listings for Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman.

Among the instances you will find in the FCMD:

A Department of Defense Inspector General finding that Boeing overcharged the Army by about $13 million (131.5 percent) for spare helicopter parts.
A DoD Inspector General audit report issued 4 months later that found United Technologies’ Sikorsky Aircraft unit overcharged the U.S. Army by as much as $12 million for Blackhawk helicopter spare parts.
BP’s agreement to provide $1 billion to begin restoration efforts following last year’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The assault plea of a former DynCorp employee who stabbed a man in Afghanistan in November 2010.
FedEx’s agreement to pay the United States $8 million to resolve allegations of overcharging federal agencies for package deliveries.
The $4 million settlement of claims that Fluor employees defrauded the federal purchase card (“P-card”) program at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Nuclear Site.
Honeywell International’s payment of millions in fines to federal and state authorities for environmental and safety violations at its uranium hexafluoride (UF6) conversion facility in Illinois.
Humana’s $3.4 million fine for violating Florida’s Medicaid fraud reporting law.
IBM’s $10 million settlement of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act charges that its Korean and Chinese subsidiaries gave bribes to government officials.
Corruption charges brought against former SAIC employees alleged to have received kickbacks and overcharged New York City on the CityTime information technology project.

POGO’s FCMD complements the federal government’s contractor responsibility database, the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System, or FAPIIS. POGO was pleased to discover the recent addition of several new useful features to FAPIIS, which is on its way to becoming an indispensable resource that strengthens accountability over the more than $1 trillion in taxpayer money spent each year on federal contracts and grants.

— Neil Gordon is a POGO Investigator. Published Sept. 29, 2011 at http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2011/09/move-over-fapiis-pogo-freshens-up-its-contractor-misconduct-database.html.

February 8, 2011 By AMK

DoD contracts went to excluded vendors

The Pentagon obligated millions of dollars in payments to contractors that were on lists of “excluded parties” because of previous fraud, a report made public Wednesday said.

The report, produced by the Defense Department’s office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, found that between 2007 and 2009, DoD did business with at least 16 vendors who were either suspended or debarred at the time the funds were obligated. Congress mandated the report in the 2010 Defense appropriations bill.

The spending included nearly $3.4 million to five vendors who were suspended and almost $2 million to 11 debarred vendors.

DoD’s report explained that in some cases, contracting officers knowingly continued ordering from the excluded vendors “to ensure mission accomplishment and for safety and mission requirements.” In others, however, Defense officials failed to check the vendors against the governmentwide Excluded Parties Listing System.

“The Federal Acquisition Regulation was misinterpreted and/or training was inadequate with regard to EPLS – an issue subsequently addressed by commanders,” the report stated.

The report found that DoD and the justice system have adequate remedies to pursue and prosecute contractor wrongdoing, but said the review that led up to the report revealed the need for new guidance on EPLS within the DoD contracting community.

The report stated that the director of Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy’s new guidance also will include instructions for using the new Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS).

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who inserted language into the 2010 Defense spending bill mandating the report, made the information public. He seized on the report’s broader revelation that DoD had continued contracting with companies who had been subject to criminal or civil fraud judgments at some point.

The report found that DoD spent $345 million on payments to vendors that had been criminally convicted during the three-year period, $4.9 billion to vendors with civil judgments against them during that time and nearly $46 million to contractors that had reached out-of-court settlements related to fraud.

“With the country running a $14 trillion national debt, my goal is to provide as much transparency as possible about what is happening with taxpayer money,” Sanders said in a statement. “The sad truth is that virtually all of the major defense contractors in this country for years have been engaged in systemic fraudulent behavior, while receiving hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.”

The government in recent years has been aggressive in combating fraud. The Small Business Administration suspended GTSI for small business contracting violations.

The Environmental Protection Agency suspended IBM in 2008 as well for alleged procurement integrity violations.

DoD said its Panel on Contracting Integrity would examine the new report and make further recommendations to Defense leadership based on their review.

– By Jared Serbu, Feb. 2, 2011, Federal News Radio

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