PSC | The Contracting Education Academy

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/

March 2, 2020 By cs

Change is hard vs. real problems: The tale of the beta.sam.gov portal

In the three months since the General Services Administration transitioned to the beta.sam.gov portal for contract opportunities from the decades-old FedBizOpps.gov site, the raw numbers show concerns over the site have settled down.

The site has seen almost 900,000 visitors and 120,000 registered users since November. The number of calls to GSA’s help desk is at or below the levels that came in during the pre-transition time.

“We don’t get any more help desk calls or asks for intervention than we did with the legacy FBO. And the calls we do get are generally around two things: how to log in and do multi-factor authentication and the second is how to use the new search features because they look very different than the legacy site,” said Judith Zawatsky, assistant commissioner in the Office of Systems Management in GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, in an interview with Federal News Network.

But if you dig deeper, particularly the folks who understand the inner workings of the new site, frustration and disappointment over the transition and functionality of beta.sam.gov continue.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/02/change-is-hard-vs-real-problems-the-tale-of-the-beta-sam-gov-portal/

February 18, 2020 By cs

GSA praised for progress on contracting schedule consolidation

As the second phase of the General Services Administration’s merger of 24 multiple-award schedules into a single contracting vehicle started at the end of January, experts applauded the progress the agency has made.

Initially, GSA put only new contracts on the consolidated schedule when it was first published in October. Then on Friday, GSA started the process of restructuring the terms and conditions of current contracts so that they are in sync with those on the new, single contracting vehicle. Contractors have until July 31 to accept the changes. Agencies purchase about $31 billion in goods and services every year through the schedules, and GSA assured them they should not experience disruptions throughout the merger.

“We’re right on track with [the multiple award schedule] consolidation,” GSA Administrator Emily Murphy said in a recent press release. “Moving to a single schedule is good for federal agencies, our industry partners, and our acquisition workforce. It’s a key piece of the picture for making it easier to deliver solutions.“

The Professional Services Council, a trade organization that has over 400 member companies that contract with the federal government, “applauds GSA’s continued progress in phase two of the multiple award schedules consolidation to meet the critical milestones needed to modernize the GSA schedules program,” said Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel. “PSC has long supported a single schedule that will make it easier for contractors to offer products, services, and solutions, and for agencies to find these offerings.”

GSA announced its plans for the consolidation in November 2018 after many vendors and federal buyers complained about the different terms and conditions for contracts across schedules that led to inconsistencies in the contracting process, Nextgov reported. In addition to making the process for obtaining more than 10 million commercial products easier, the agency wanted to lower the entry barrier for small businesses, technology start-ups and others that might want to contract with the government.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/02/gsa-praised-progress-contracting-schedule-consolidation/162837/

February 14, 2020 By cs

Federal contracting community shreds FBO replacement site in letter to GSA

“If this had the same notoriety as Healthcare.gov, people would have been fired.”

The transition of the federal contracting opportunities website from Federal Business Opportunities, better known as FedBizOpps or FBO, to the Contracting Opportunities page of beta.SAM.gov caused concern ahead of the migration and frustration after the move. Three months after the transition finished, the government contracting community’s anger has yet to be assuaged.

Last week, the Professional Services Council — an industry group representing 400 federal contractors — sent a letter to the General Services Administration detailing its members’ concerns and asking for immediate action.

“It was … with consternation and concern that PSC watched the dissolution of GSA’s FedBizOps portal and the difficult transition to beta.Sam.gov as its replacement,” PSC Executive Vice President and Counsel Alan Chvotkin wrote in the letter to Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Julie Dunne. “Regrettably, initial ‘bumps in the road’ have continued beyond the functionality that GSA announced would not be carried over from the old system, and our members asked that we bring their views to your attention.”

PSC members decried the new site, with many telling GSA they would prefer to see the old FBO site recommissioned.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/02/federal-contracting-community-shreds-fbo-replacement-site-letter-gsa/163076/

See our earlier articles on this subject at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/?s=beta

See GSA memo regarding transition of FBO.gov to beta.sam.gov at: FBO Has Transitioned to Beta 2

Hints for using the new Contract Opportunities function in beta.SAM.gov are here: https://interact.gsa.gov/blog/helpful-hints-new-contract-opportunities-function-betasamgov-how-use-search-filters

December 26, 2019 By cs

Experts praise new acquisition workforce training requirements

Experts welcomed provisions in a defense policy bill that will reform the training requirements for federal procurement officials to better align with those in the private sector.

At the time of this posting, the House passed the $738 billion fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act and the Senate is expected to vote on it.

“Most of these changes do not dramatically impact the acquisition system. A lot of them are just amendments to pre-existing acquisition reform legislation,” said Robert Burton, partner with Crowell & Moring LLP and former deputy administrator and acting administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. However, he noted that “one of the most significant provisions” directs the Defense Department to redesign the workforce training process to align with that of the private sector for the first time.

The bill gives the Defense secretary the authority to create certification requirements using either internationally or nationally recognized standards.

“The two workforces will be more aligned in their training and career paths and will be able to communicate more efficiently and also it will provide opportunities for … movement between the federal government and private sectors as far as acquisition personnel being able to rotate more easily between the two sectors,” Burton said. In the past, “it’s been a problem” that the government and private sectors are “not aligned in their thinking and training.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/12/experts-praise-new-acquisition-workforce-training-requirements/161894/

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.

In the three months since the General Services Administration transitioned to the beta.sam.gov portal for contract opportunities from the decades-old FedBizOpps.gov site, the raw numbers show concerns over the site have settled down.

As the second phase of the General Services Administration’s merger of 24 multiple-award schedules into a single contracting vehicle started at the end of January, experts applauded the progress the agency has made.

“If this had the same notoriety as Healthcare.gov, people would have been fired.”

Experts welcomed provisions in a defense policy bill that will reform the training requirements for federal procurement officials to better align with those in the private sector.

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