HHS | The Contracting Education Academy

October 22, 2020 By cs

Pentagon transitioning its COVID-19 acquisition task force to permanent office

The Joint Acquisition Task Force the Pentagon set up to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t going away, even when the pandemic finally does.

Defense officials have decided to turn it into a permanent assisted acquisition organization to help other federal agencies deal with complex procurement problems.

The department set up the task force earlier this year to serve as the single coordinator for the acquisition support it offered to other agencies during the COVID response. Since then, it’s executed more than $3 billion in contracts for other agencies — mostly the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But Ellen Lord, DoD’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said department leaders determined the interagency cooperation function needs to be an enduring capability. Starting in 2021, the Joint Acquisition Task Force (JATF) will become the Defense Assisted Acquisition Cell (DA2C), and will be part of the existing Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell (JRAC).

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/09/pentagon-transitioning-its-covid-19-acquisition-task-force-to-permanent-office/

October 19, 2020 By cs

Civilian agency contract spending reaches record high in FY20

The novel coronavirus pandemic largely contributed to the increase, Bloomberg Government reports.

Civilian agencies’ contract spending hit a record high of $228 billion in fiscal 2020, an increase of 17% ($33.5 billion) from 2019. The surge in spending is mainly due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs and Energy departments drove the increase in spending, Bloomberg Government said in a report. Of the $228 billion, 26% or $59.4 billion went to small businesses, a $6.5 billion increase from fiscal 2019.

“In previous years there’s been single digit jumps, so this is a huge jump compared to previous years,” Robert Levinson, senior defense analyst at Bloomberg Government, told Government Executive. He noted that there is a 90-day delay for the Defense Department’s contract spending for security purposes and there is also classified spending that will never be released.

HHS, which spent $41.2 billion in fiscal 2020 in contract obligations, accounted for 44% of the $33.5 billion in overall increased civilian contract spending. The majority of HHS’ spending was for vaccines, research, ventilators and other pandemic-related efforts. Some of these contracts, such as for a public relations campaign to “inspire hope” about the pandemic and new data reporting system, have drawn concern from Democratic lawmakers.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/10/civilian-agency-contract-spending-reaches-record-high-fiscal-2020/169127/

October 12, 2020 By cs

When politics and procurement mix, the effects can be deadly

Important components of the pandemic response have bypassed essential rules and protocols, but the problems go beyond the current crisis.

As the national response to the pandemic and associated economic crisis continues to unfold, it is becoming increasingly clear that we are again in territory where politics meets procurement. And that should be a concern for every American.

Let’s start with the obvious: The effective and efficient execution of any portion of the pandemic response largely hinges on the effective and efficient performance of our acquisition system.

The process by which federal contracts and grants are awarded is critical to support the manufacture and distribution of protective equipment, ventilators, or therapeutics and to deliver assistance to individuals and businesses struggling to survive. It therefore follows that the responsiveness of the acquisition system to meet these critical needs in large part determines the efficiency and effectiveness of our government’s response.

This is why it is so disturbing to read about cases in which important components of the national response have involved clear efforts to simply ignore the rules and protocols, from basic due diligence and pricing analyses to transparency. Yet, that is exactly what we have seen too often in recent months, including actions associated with Project Airbridge; sole source contracts for vital equipment that proved faulty; tens of millions of dollars wasted on a contract for ventilators that the Health and Human Services Department had to terminate; a complete lack of transparency around huge contracts for vaccine distribution; contracts awarded to an 11-day-old company that just happened to be founded by a former administration official; enormous grants made to a company in a manner that has raised serious ethical and other concerns, and more.

Even worse, all of these cases share another common denominator: the actions were directed and sometimes executed by senior political officials who, it could fairly be argued, are not versed in good acquisition practices and who may be driven by incentives other than the mission itself.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/09/when-politics-and-procurement-mix-effects-can-be-deadly/168553/

April 29, 2020 By cs

Emergency acquisitions group at center of GSA’s coronavirus response

For the General Services Administration, the surge in contracting to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and now the fourth stimulus bill is business as usual.

Even with the activation of its emergency acquisitions group and new authorities, the Federal Acquisition Service is striking the balance between helping the Department of Health and Human Services, FEMA and other agencies, and pushing forward with key modernization initiatives.

Julie Dunne, the commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA, said that contracting officers and other acquisition employees are meeting all the demands coming from multiple directions.

“I’ve heard from customers and other folks that GSA has not missed a beat in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. A lot of that is due to our telework capability and, in large part, the GSA IT shop has just been phenomenal,” Dunne said in an exclusive interview with Federal News Network. “Things we are seeing a lot of demand for, you won’t be surprised to hear, medical equipment, hand sanitizer and masks. We also are doing a lot in the IT world in terms of trying to support other agencies with telework capacity.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition/2020/04/emergency-acquisitions-group-at-center-of-gsas-coronavirus-response/

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has established a webpage where all contract-related developments related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are summarized. Find the page at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/coronavirus-information-for-contracting-officers-and-contractors/

March 9, 2020 By cs

HHS’ shutdown of assisted acquisition services remains painful, wasteful

The Department of Health and Human Services is not just failing its agency and contractor customers but also, once again, demonstrating why “the government” gets maligned as wasteful, insular and uncaring.

With its decision to end its assisted acquisition services through its Program Support Center, HHS is putting more than $1 billion in contracts at risk. It’s hanging large and small agencies out to dry — ranging from the Defense Department to the Environmental Protection Agency to the Office of Special Counsel — by canceling contracts and giving them little time to prepare for the changes. And it is withholding payment to potentially hundreds of small and large contractors, putting some at risk of closing down or facing employee layoffs and additional contract costs.

At the same time, HHS is paying tens of thousands of dollars in prompt payment penalties to those same contractors for avoidable mistakes, inching ever closer to what experts would call waste and abuse.

“Since the beginning, HHS PSC was inflicting pain on themselves,” said Ron Robinson, a former program manager for Copper River Technologies, which provided contract support and financial analyst services until December when PSC ended its three-year contract two years early. “It is horrible the way HHS has handled this. They should be held accountable, and it doesn’t seem like anyone wants to. There wasn’t communication. There was a lack of transparency. You see that time and again with them suspending warrants and putting four people on administrative leave without telling them why.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/03/hhs-shutdown-of-assisted-acquisition-services-remains-painful-wasteful/

The Joint Acquisition Task Force the Pentagon set up to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t going away, even when the pandemic finally does.

The novel coronavirus pandemic largely contributed to the increase, Bloomberg Government reports.

Important components of the pandemic response have bypassed essential rules and protocols, but the problems go beyond the current crisis.

For the General Services Administration, the surge in contracting to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and now the fourth stimulus bill is business as usual.

The Department of Health and Human Services is not just failing its agency and contractor customers but also, once again, demonstrating why “the government” gets maligned as wasteful, insular and uncaring.

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