Interior Dept. | The Contracting Education Academy

May 2, 2016 By AMK

An excess of multiple-award contracts is creating new problems for government

For the better part of the past decade, procurement shops throughout the federal government couldn’t seem to stop themselves from creating new contract vehicles.

There’s something alluring about seeding and cultivating a multiple-award contract (MAC), with dozens of companies clamoring to participate and the promise of hundreds of millions of dollars blooming under a vehicle of your creation. Since 2005, thousands of multiple-award indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) programs have sprung up, many with multi-billion-dollar ordering ceilings.

The contract vehicle garden is now overgrown. Supply clearly exceeds demand.

Just look at IT services. The 10 largest contract vehicles have $17 billion in annualized ordering capacity. But those vehicles hosted under $12 billion in actual orders last year, leaving 37 percent excess capacity. Examples of underutilized contracts abound. The Interior Department’s cloud computing IDIQ has a $1 billion annualized ceiling. It attracted just $27 million in spending in fiscal 2015, according to federal procurement data.

The excessive excess capacity won’t last.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2016/04/excess-multiple-award-contracts-creating-new-problems-government/127645

December 30, 2014 By AMK

House lawmakers call for OFPP to issue reverse auction guidance

House lawmakers are pressing the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to update the Federal Acquisition Regulations to detail how best agencies should use reverse auctions.

Reps. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) and Sam Graves (R-Mo.), chairmen of the Veterans Affairs and Small Business committees, respectively, wrote to Anne Rung, OFPP administrator, Dec. 4, asking for a FAR case to be opened immediately to address reverse auctions.

“As you may well know, while our two committees recognize that reverse auctions, when properly used, may deliver savings to the taxpayer, we have long been concerned that some are misusing this tool to evade competition and compliance with other procurement regulations,” Graves and Miller wrote in the letter obtained by Federal News Radio.

Graves and Miller highlight findings from the December 2013 report from Government Accountability Office as well as recent GAO bid protest decisions detailing agency struggles with reverse auctions.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/517/3765084/House-lawmakers-call-for-OFPP-to-issue-reverse-auction-guidance

April 4, 2014 By AMK

Scam targets GSA schedule holders using spoofed federal email addresses

The General Services Administration’s schedules program has been victimized by spear phishing attacks costing vendors more than $1.5 million, and law enforcement officials say, is increasing.

GSA alerted Schedule 70 and 75 vendors Wednesday that since July 2012 the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency and GSA inspectors general have been investigating a series of fraudulent orders placed online to GSA vendors from criminals posing as federal contracting officials, according to an email to Schedule-70 and 75 vendors, which Federal News Radio obtained.

The hackers ordered HP printer toner cartridges using official federal employee email credentials but fake phone telephone numbers and stolen credit cards.

Law enforcement officials now say scammers are targeting orders for laptop computers, though it’s unclear if these two cases are related. But GSA said “there are some significant similarities and we’re following up on investigative leads to make further determinations.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/490/3595717/Scam-targets-GSA-schedule-holders-using-spoofed-federal-email-addresses

March 18, 2014 By AMK

Strategic sourcing’s impact on small biz needs measurement and monitoring, GAO says

“Strategic sourcing” is a method used by the federal government to improve procurement efficiency by moving away from numerous individual procurements toward a broader aggregate approach. Since 2005, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has encouraged federal agencies to use strategic sourcing.

Now, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report on how strategic sourcing affects small businesses, including small disadvantaged businesses. The report discusses: (1) how OMB, GSA, and selected agencies have considered small businesses in their strategic sourcing efforts, and (2) the extent to which data and performance measures are available on the inclusion of small businesses in strategic sourcing initiatives.

In its review, GAO found that OMB and the General Services Administration (GSA) have developed guidance on strategic sourcing that stresses the importance of including small businesses. GAO’s review of documentation for three ongoing government-wide strategic sourcing initiatives showed that GSA considered the inclusion of small businesses in the strategic sourcing process. For example, when developing strategic sourcing initiatives for office supplies and print management, GSA identified the current market share of small businesses with these products and also set aside specific contracts for various categories of small businesses, such as service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. In addition, GAO’s review of agency-wide strategic sourcing initiatives at each of five agencies — Departments of Defense (DOD), specifically Army and the Defense Logistics Agency; Homeland Security (DHS); Housing and Urban Development (HUD); and the Interior and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) — showed that the agencies generally considered the inclusion of small businesses.

However, data and performance measures that would provide a more precise understanding of the inclusion of small and disadvantaged businesses in strategic sourcing initiatives are limited. GAO’s specific findings include:

Although GSA has collected baseline data on proposed government-wide initiatives, it has not developed a performance measure to determine changes in small business participation going forward.
DHS has collected some data on contracts awarded to small businesses under strategic sourcing initiatives, but it and the other agencies in GAO’s review generally did not have baseline data and performance measures to determine how small businesses were affected by strategic sourcing. OMB guidance requires agencies to establish baselines for small business participation prior to implementing strategic sourcing and set goals for small business participation.
In addition, federal internal control standards state that information is needed to determine whether the agency is achieving its compliance requirements under various laws and regulations. Without baseline data and performance measures, the effect of strategic sourcing initiatives on small businesses will be difficult to determine.
Moreover, OMB has not monitored agencies’ compliance in reporting baseline data and performance measures on the inclusion of small businesses in government-wide and agency-wide strategic sourcing initiatives. OMB required agencies to submit annual reports on the implementation of strategic sourcing from fiscal years 2005 through 2007 and prepare information for acquisition status sessions from fiscal years 2010 through 2012. (No reporting was in place for fiscal years 2008 or 2009.) However, virtually none of this information included baseline data or measures of the effect of strategic sourcing on small businesses.
Federal internal control standards state that effective monitoring should assess the quality of performance over time. Without effective monitoring, it will be difficult for OMB to help ensure that agencies are tracking the impact of strategic sourcing on small businesses.

As a part of its report, GAO made recommendations to GSA, selected agencies, and OMB to improve data collection and performance measures related to the inclusion of small businesses in strategic sourcing. DOD, DHS, GSA, HUD, and OMB agreed with GAO’s recommendation. Interior partially agreed, suggesting that a more effective approach would be to work with OMB and other agencies to develop common approaches. NASA disagreed, stating it already tracks related spending for the agency. GAO believes its recommendations remain valid as discussed in the report.

To download the complete report, click here.

March 12, 2014 By AMK

Government on pace to meet small-business contracting goal — but will the bar get higher?

It appears the federal government has fulfilled its annual contracting promise to small businesses for the first time in seven years — and perhaps just in the nick of time, as lawmakers are looking to raise the bar going forward.

Government data available online currently show that federal agencies spent $83.2 billion at small companies last fiscal year, representing slightly more than 23 percent of the $355 billion in prime federal contracts officials consider viable for small firms. If so, it will mark the first time since 2006 that the government has met its statutory goal of spending at least 23 percent of all federal contracting dollars at small businesses.

More than a quarter of the contracts were awarded by the Defense Department, while the SBA, Federal Communications Commission and Interior Department each spent most of their contracting dollars at small businesses, according to the federal government’s online small business dashboard, which tracks government spending by agency.

SBA officials, who compile the data, declined to comment on the current numbers, saying they could change and the agency will issue an official tally later this year.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/government-on-pace-to-meet-small-business-contracting-goal–but-will-the-bar-get-higher/2014/02/26/d3ba6e98-9ef5-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html

Also see: Small business contracting numbers inflated by errors and exclusions, data show – http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/small-business-contracting-numbers-inflated-by-errors-and-exclusions-data-show/2013/07/28/7fa2a4fc-f2f6-11e2-8505-bf6f231e77b4_story.html

For the better part of the past decade, procurement shops throughout the federal government couldn’t seem to stop themselves from creating new contract vehicles.

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