FOIA | The Contracting Education Academy

January 27, 2015 By AMK

VA failed to vet dubious contractors

An internal VA study has found that an east coast office that handles about $4 billion in business each year didn’t do enough checks to vet the backgrounds of companies to which it awarded contracts.

The internal study by consultants found that the Department of Veterans Affairs‘ “Service Area Office East” failed more than half the time to perform at least one of the required responsibility determination reviews, which include checking lists of banned companies or checking basic corporate facts with Dun and Bradstreet and other databases.

The study, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, found the office would often neglect to fill out required paperwork on why they selected “high risk” contractors and found 94 percent of Federal Supply Schedule contracts had some kind of problem, including lack of proof that contracting officers pushed for government price reductions.

Some contract files didn’t even have signatures.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/5/va-failed-to-vet-dubious-contractors/

December 10, 2014 By AMK

Pentagon may be forced to release aircraft manufacturer’s contract data

A little-known unit at the Defense Department may have to release data considered proprietary by a major contractor under a Nov. 23 district court ruling favoring a small business advocacy group.

The Petaluma, Calif.-based American Small Business League on Wednesday announced its legal victory. A northern California district judge agreed that the Pentagon should honor the league’s request under the Freedom of Information Act for data Sikorsky submitted to the Comprehensive Subcontracting Plan Test Program.

That program since 1990 has authorized negotiation, administration and reporting of subcontracting plans on a plant, division or company-wide basis to “determine whether comprehensive subcontracting plans will result in increased subcontracting opportunities for small business while reducing the administrative burden on contractors,” according to the Pentagon website.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2014/12/pentagon-may-be-forced-release-aircraft-manufacturers-contract-data/100175/

March 31, 2014 By AMK

What went wrong with GSA’s Networx transition?

A pair of internal analyses by the General Services Administration finds much to criticize in the structure of federal telecommunications contract Networx, portraying it as too complex, inflexible and mismatched to the way agencies buy telecom services.

The Government Accountability Office has estimated that a protracted agency transition to Networx from the predecessor governmentwide telecommunications contract caused agencies to miss out on $329 million worth of savings and GSA to spend an extra $66.4 million on supporting it. In the end, the transition took three years longer than anticipated.

GSA provided the two reports – one from July 2012, another from September 2012 – after FierceGovernmentIT submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for them. Agency officials decided to release the documents independently of FOIA, and we withdrew the request after being promised the reports.

Among the observations the analyses make is that while GSA initially defined more than 50 telecom services for Networx, only six services account for more than 80 percent of business volume.

“Networx has thousands of contract line items and millions of service permutations,” the July 2012 report says. “It is no surprise that agencies indicate the Networx program is too complex.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/what-went-wrong-networx-transition/2014-03-10

August 21, 2013 By AMK

Vendor settles in case over Chinese-made supplies

When contractor Malcolm Wilson lost out in a competition to outfit four federal buildings in Illinois with lamps, he suspected the winning vendor of supplying products made in China, a violation of the Trade Agreements Act.

To find out, he filed a Freedom of Information Act with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which oversaw the project, to learn the model of lamp the competitor was supplying, then sent an email to the lamp maker asking where the product as made.

China, the manufacturer responded.

One year after Wilson filed a False Claims Act lawsuit against the competitor, Supplies Now Inc., the company agreed to pay $270,000 to resolve the case, according to the General Services Administration’s Office of Inspector General, which announced the July 30 settlement Monday.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20130805/ACQUISITION01/308050010/Vendor-settles-case-over-Chinese-made-supplies#

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.

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