OMB | The Contracting Education Academy

August 12, 2020 By cs

IRS floats experimental contract vehicle to help Administration meet procurement CAP goals

The IRS wants to mash up acquisition data to find insights into federal buying patterns and is using its experimental Pilot IRS procurement vehicle to test out new ideas.

The tax collection agency is working with the Office of Management and Budget on the Frictionless Acquisition Cross-Agency Priority, or CAP, goal, which “calls upon the government to modernize the collection, analysis, availability, and visualization of acquisition data for smarter and faster mission decision-making.”

To supplement this work, IRS officials are looking at current and innovative ways to combine distinct databases and sources on labor and wage rates into coherent, easy-to-use datasets with visualization and other analytical tools.

As part of this effort, the agency tapped its relatively new Pilot IRS program, which uses procurement methods in the Federal Acquisition Regulation to develop a phased funding contract vehicle that supports research and development. The program launched in early 2019 with a $7 million funding ceiling. But after some early successes — and well-managed failures — the program is growing in scope, both monetarily and programmatically.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/08/irs-floats-experimental-contract-vehicle-help-administration-meet-procurement-cap-goals/167442/

July 22, 2020 By cs

We need $10 billion to pay contractors’ Coronavirus expenses, Pentagon tells Congress

It’s the first time a defense official has put a specific price tag on DoD’s COVID relief efforts.

The Pentagon needs Congress to approve “around $10 billion” to cover defense contractors’ coronavirus-related expenses, a top defense official said Monday.

Alan Shaffer, deputy defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, became the first Defense Department official to put a price tag on the relief effort.

“If there is another supplemental or stimulus package for realistic economic adjustment, we could be looking at somewhere around $10 billion in additional program costs,” Shaffer said during a taped appearance on the Government Matters television show that aired Monday afternoon.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/07/we-need-10b-pay-contractors-coronavirus-expenses-pentagon-tells-congress/166852/

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/

June 30, 2020 By cs

Pentagon requesting ‘lower double digit billions’ to support COVID-hit defense contractors

The U.S. Department of Defense’s chief purchasing officer said the Pentagon has filed a budget request in the “lower double-digit billions” to support defense contractors disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Ellen Lord, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, said the Pentagon submitted the multibillion-dollar request to the White House Office of Management and Budget in order to sustain the hiring and workforce levels of key defense contractors.

When asked during a press conference to provide a more precise estimate of the “lower double-digit billions” Lord did not provide further specifics.

The funding request, made under Section 3610 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, authorizes the federal government to reimburse Federal contractors for paid leave where they have been sickened by the coronavirus, or where conditions have required healthy workers to stay home.

Keep reading this article at: https://americanmilitarynews.com/2020/06/pentagon-requesting-lower-double-digit-billions-to-support-covid-hit-defense-contractors/

June 25, 2020 By cs

Pentagon IG offers advice for effective contracting during pandemic

With billions of dollars in CARES Act funding yet to be spent and several billion more potentially in the appropriations pipeline, it’s far too early to tell how effectively the Defense Department is spending its share of the disaster funding.

**Click on image above to download the report.**

But according to the Pentagon’s inspector general, DoD — and its auditors — have more than enough experience with prior emergencies to know what to do, and what not to do, to make sure money is spent well even when contracts have to be executed quickly.

In a new special report, drawing on 36 earlier audits that dealt with contracting during previous emergencies, the OIG tries to outline what it considers best practices for contracting under time pressure.

“It is a very fast paced, ever changing environment right now with this pandemic. But what contracting officers are experiencing right now is similar to pressures that were present during past disaster response and relief efforts. So our intent here was to highlight best practices and lessons learned that really span a significant portion of time,” Theresa Hull, the assistant inspector general for audit acquisition, contracting, and sustainment said in an interview for Federal News Network’s On DoD. “Our reports go back to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 but also include the more recent hurricanes, Florence and Irma, and we highlighted four areas that the contracting community should be aware of: Communication and coordination; documentation, consistency in the contracting process, and staffing and training.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/on-dod/2020/06/pentagon-ig-offers-advice-for-effective-contracting-during-pandemic/

June 17, 2020 By cs

Pentagon says it needs billions to repay contractors for employee leave

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act gave the Defense Department the authority to reimburse federal contractors who faced sudden expenses because of COVID-19.

But the bill didn’t include any new funding to make those payments, and DoD officials are telling Congress they need billions of additional dollars to make contractors whole.

One section of the law — Section 3610 — lets agencies repay contractors who put their employees on paid leave rather than furloughing or laying them off. The idea was to keep as much of the industrial base workforce as possible in a ready state.

But those reimbursements are “subject to the availability of appropriations,” which aren’t expected to come through until Congress passes the next round of coronavirus relief. DoD officials have submitted a rough cost estimate to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

But in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment, declined to provide an exact figure, saying only that it’s likely to be in the double-digit billion dollar range. In any event, the bill is expected to be so large that DoD can’t pay it out of its existing budget without affecting other programs, she said.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/06/pentagon-says-it-needs-billions-to-repay-contractors-for-employee-leave/

The IRS wants to mash up acquisition data to find insights into federal buying patterns and is using its experimental Pilot IRS procurement vehicle to test out new ideas.

It’s the first time a defense official has put a specific price tag on DoD’s COVID relief efforts.

The U.S. Department of Defense’s chief purchasing officer said the Pentagon has filed a budget request in the “lower double-digit billions” to support defense contractors disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

With billions of dollars in CARES Act funding yet to be spent and several billion more potentially in the appropriations pipeline, it’s far too early to tell how effectively the Defense Department is spending its share of the disaster funding.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act gave the Defense Department the authority to reimburse federal contractors who faced sudden expenses because of COVID-19.

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