policy | The Contracting Education Academy

August 5, 2019 By AMK

New DoD policy aims to crack down on alleged price gouging by TransDigm

Defense procurement officials have taken a step toward cracking down on what they have called price gouging within the military spare parts market. They issued a new edict that requires DoD contracting officers to gather cost and pricing data when they enter into agreements with TransDigm Group.

The memo, signed on Friday by Kim Herrington, DoD’s acting director for Defense Pricing and Contracting, tells contracting officers they must “require” that TransDigm turn over uncertified cost data to support the prices the company is charging the government. The mandate applies to situations where TransDigm or its subsidiaries are the only makers of a particular part, a scenario that applies to the vast majority of the company’s business.

The order also tells contracting officers to treat many of their contracts for parts the company makes as non-competitive — even when two or more resellers are bidding to supply the same item.

“The definition of adequate price competition does not address the fact that a sole manufacturer (such as TransDigm) participating in a competition can effectively control the competition by its ability to establish the material pricing for all other offerors,” Herrington wrote. “In these situations, the department does not consider such rigged competitions to be adequate price competition, based on independently submitted offers.”

The memo is highly unusual in that it targets one particular company, rather than laying out a broadly-applicable policy.

It was prompted by a February 2019 DoD inspector general report which found that TransDigm was routinely earning “excess profits” in its Defense contracts. For 17 of the 47 parts in a sample auditors examined, they calculated the company’s profit margins at 1,000% or more, and deemed all but one of the parts to have been marked up to unreasonable levels.

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2019/06/new-dod-policy-aims-to-crack-down-on-alleged-price-gouging-by-transdigm/

July 2, 2019 By AMK

Thornberry unveils potential punishments for DoD’s slow implementation of acquisition reforms

After spearheading the passage of dozens of reforms to the defense acquisition system over the last five years, House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) is proposing some measures to speed up the Defense Department’s implementation of those changes.

In a draft bill, which may be folded into the committee’s version of the 2020 defense authorization legislation, Thornberry is proposing a handful of measures to quicken DoD’s execution of its new powers and hasten efficiencies mandated by Congress in previous laws.

“The Pentagon’s record of implementing important reforms is mixed. This year, Thornberry’s bill is focused on compelling DoD to implement those reforms Congress has already passed into law,” a factsheet from Thornberry’s office states.

One of the more dramatic provisions in the bill prods DoD into reforming its fourth estate — the agencies that do not fall under military services. The 2019 defense authorization act mandated the Pentagon come up with a plan to reduce the fourth estate by 25%. DoD’s report to Congress was late and Thornberry felt it was inadequate and failed to identify mandatory savings.

Keep reading article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2019/05/thornberry-unveils-potential-punishments-for-dods-slow-implementation-of-acquisition-reforms

February 20, 2019 By AMK

POGO questions apparent contracting-out of ‘inherently governmental functions’

Recently, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) perused a few contractor job listings for congressional affairs specialists and budgetary analysts.

Reviewing the job descriptions, POGO was alarmed at the extent to which the jobs included tasks that are borderline illegal to contract out.

It’s no secret that the government relies on contractors to perform different tasks, and there is generally no problem with that given that the private sector has a vast amount of highly skilled workers. However, there are federal activities that, by law, must be performed by government employees, including determining agency policy, budget request priorities, and what supplies or services are to be acquired. Drafting congressional testimony or responses to congressional correspondence is also off limits to contractors.

One job announcement was so blatant that it even stated that a legislative affairs specialist would support the United States Cyber Command “With minimal guidance”’ or “With no guidance” to prepare background papers and talking points, and prepare leadership to testify before Congress, meet with Members of Congress, and meet with pertinent Congressional Committee Staff Members.

The government has become overreliant on contractors, and POGO is concerned about the blurred line between jobs that must be performed by a government employee and those that can be performed by a contractor. Jobs that must be performed by government employees are called “inherently governmental functions,” a term that generates much confusion and controversy. A 2014 Congressional Research Service report illustrates how multiple definitions of “inherently governmental” have been created over the years. The result is differences in controlling laws, regulations, White House policy and policy letters, which POGO has urged the government to clean up.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2016/08/to-be-or-not-to-be-contracted-out/

May 9, 2017 By AMK

A bipartisan approach to cyber

As the threat of cyberattacks continues to grow, government officials are asking what can individuals and businesses do to protect themselves.

“We are starting this conversation of when it is time to go on the offensive as it relates to cybersecurity,” said Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga 14). “This creates a lot of policy, ethics and privacy questions.”

Graves and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz. 9) heard some answers to those questions during a panel discussion they held at Georgia Tech Monday. The bipartisan event examined how public policy can help people and companies go on the offense to defeat and unmask cyber attackers.

In March, Graves put forth a discussion draft of a bill to allow the use of limited defensive measures to identify and stop attackers. While cyber policy discussions are taking place in Washington, Graves said they wanted to hear from others.

“Quite frankly we’re not satisfied with the direction of where policy has gone as it relates to cybersecurity,” he said.

Monday’s panel allowed for a robust discussion on cybersecurity from a policy perspective, an academic perspective and the private sector perspective.

In addition to Graves and Sinema, the other panelists were:

John Lens, a vice president for the Network and Security Business Unit at VMware.
Stephen Pair, co-founder and CEO of BitPay.
Peter Swire, the Huang Professor of Law and Ethics in the Scheller College of Business.
Candace Worley, chief technical strategist for McAfee.

Georgia Tech is a place “where government, industry and universities can come together to talk about some very, very challenging problems in the world,” said Stephen E. Cross, the Institute’s executive vice president for research.

The Institute has been developing cybersecurity solutions for more than 20 years. Tech houses nearly a dozen labs and centers dedicated to cybersecurity, and has more than 450 scientists, faculty and students involved with this research.

Georgia Tech is also home to the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), the state’s technology incubator. ATDC is currently incubating seven companies in the cybersecurity space and assisting 33 entrepreneurs and early-stage startups statewide with entrepreneurial education in cybersecurity.

Source: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2017/05/01/bipartisan-approach-cyber

July 12, 2016 By AMK

GSA finalizes major update to acquisition policy

Nearly a decade after a panel of experts recommended major changes to the way the government buys services, the General Services Administration (GSA) is going through with two significant updates.

GSA released the final data transaction reporting rule June 23 creating a requirement for government contractors to submit information about transactions through the schedule contracts and those governmentwide acquisition contracts run by the agency.

The agency says transactional data refers to the information generated when the government purchases goods or services from a vendor. It includes specific details such as descriptions, part numbers, quantities and prices paid for the items purchased.

In that final rule, which has been in the works for more than a year and has been drawn the ire of many vendors, GSA says “vendors will no longer be subject to the existing requirements for Commercial Sales Practices (CSP) disclosures and Price Reductions clause (PRC) basis of award monitoring, resulting in a substantial burden reduction.”

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition-policy/2016/06/gsa-finalizes-major-update-acquisition-policy/

Defense procurement officials have taken a step toward cracking down on what they have called price gouging within the military spare parts market. They issued a new edict that requires DoD contracting officers to gather cost and pricing data when they enter into agreements with TransDigm Group.

After spearheading the passage of dozens of reforms to the defense acquisition system over the last five years, House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) is proposing some measures to speed up the Defense Department’s implementation of those changes.

Recently, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) perused a few contractor job listings for congressional affairs specialists and budgetary analysts.

As the threat of cyberattacks continues to grow, government officials are asking what can individuals and businesses do to protect themselves.

Nearly a decade after a panel of experts recommended major changes to the way the government buys services, the General Services Administration (GSA) is going through with two significant updates.

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