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November 28, 2017 By AMK

Former procurement officer indicted on wire fraud and money laundering charges

A federal grand jury sitting in the District of New Mexico returned an 11-count indictment against a former procurement officer employed at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), a nuclear research and development facility of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), for orchestrating a scheme to obtain a $2.3 million contract through fraudulent means.

Carla Sena, 55, of Albuquerque, New Mexico was charged with three counts of wire fraud, one count of major fraud against the United States and seven counts of money laundering.

According to the indictment, SNL was managed and operated by Sandia Corporation (Sandia) during the relevant time period.  In late 2010, Sena was assigned by Sandia to manage the bidding process for the award of a contract for moving services at SNL.  In anticipation thereof, Sena created New Mexico Express Movers LLC (Movers LLC), prepared a bid on Movers LLC’s behalf, and submitted the bid to Sandia under someone else’s name to conceal her involvement.  Sena made several material and fraudulent misrepresentations in Movers LLC’s bid that would have resulted in disqualification, but she used her position at SNL to ensure that these misrepresentations went undetected.  Sena also used her position to access other bidders’ documents and information that she in turn leveraged to ensure award of the contract to Movers LLC.  As a direct result of Sena’s scheme to defraud, Movers LLC received approximately $2.3 million in DOE funds.  The indictment further alleges that, between December 2011 and April 2015, Sena transferred via negotiated checks at least $643,000 of these fraudulently obtained proceeds to legitimate businesses owned by her father with the intent to conceal her subsequent use of the proceeds for personal gain.

The indictment is the result of an ongoing investigation by the DOE Office of Inspector General and is being prosecuted by the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section.

The fact that a defendant has been charged with a crime is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-procurement-officer-federally-funded-nuclear-research-and-development-facility

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: corruption, DOE, Energy Dept., fraud, IG, money laundering, OIG, R&D, Sandia National Laboratories

May 16, 2017 By AMK

Union urges Congress to make Pentagon quantify services contracting

The American Federation of Government Employees is asking Congress to step in and require the Defense Department to “improve the oversight and management for the vast sums it spends so carelessly on contracted services,” its president said in a late-April letter to congressional chairmen.

“Anything less is handing a blank check to the Pentagon to waste [money] on contracted services,” wrote national president J. David Cox in a letter urging that Congress require implementation of Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations that would establish more detailed long-term projections in spending on such services as information technology, research and development, and facilities maintenance.

“This action is needed to ensure that funds are properly allocated to the readiness and recapitalization priorities of the Department of Defense and not diverted to headquarters contracts,” Cox said.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2017/05/union-urges-congress-make-pentagon-quantify-services-contracting/137594/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: contract administration, contract services, DoD, GAO, monitoring, oversight, R&D, service contracts, spending, surveillance, technology

December 8, 2016 By AMK

Defense bill includes numerous provisions to prod DoD toward commercial buying

Last week’s House-Senate agreement on the 2017 Defense Authorization Bill contained about 100 provisions dealing with acquisition — not all of which we’ll even attempt to summarize in this space.

commercial-buying-2017-ndaaBut several were built around a common reform theme Congress began in last year’s bill, attempting to reform the acquisition system to suit a world in which leaders of the Defense committees believe that most innovation is happening in the commercial sector.

Besides restructuring and bifurcating the large front office that’s currently responsible for both acquisition and R&D, the bill adds several new authorities that build on last year’s trend of letting DoD sidestep the traditional acquisition system.

“The national security problem starts from the fact that we no longer drive research and development,” Bill Greenwalt, a senior Senate Armed Services Committee staffer, said at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security last week. “We reformed the system 20 years ago to try to access commercial items, but it’s not as agile as we would like it to be. It’s risk-averse, it’s compliance-oriented, and it’s optimized to win the Cold War against an adversary that thought in five-year plans.”

Keep reading this article at: http://federalnewsradio.com/dod-reporters-notebook-jared-serbu/2016/12/defense-bill-includes-numerous-provisions-prod-dod-toward-commercial-buying/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition reform, acquisition workforce, commercial item, commercial products, Congress, DoD, FAR, Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, market research, NDAA, R&D, Senate Armed Services Committee, simplified acquisition

November 18, 2016 By AMK

Proposed IR&D DFARS rule would competitively punish technology innovators

A proposed Department of Defense rule is causing contractors to evaluate their independent research and development (IR&D) overhead rates and competitive bid strategies.

US DoD logoUnderstanding that it will punish innovative contractors for engaging in independent research and development (IR&D) and taking on risks that would otherwise be borne by the government, on November 4, 2016, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) proposed a rule amending the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) to “ensure that substantial future independent research and development expenses, as a means to reduce evaluated bid prices in competitive sources selections, are evaluated in a uniform way during competitive source selections.”

In essence, DoD wants to ensure that the government’s possible reimbursement of allowable IR&D overhead costs is reflected in a contractor’s total evaluated offer price for competitively awarded contracts to create a level playing field where none, for good reason, has previously existed.

This proposed rule was issued after DoD had requested input on concepts for how to evaluate contracts that relied upon IR&D and the near universal industry condemnation of these concepts. Rejecting industry’s opposition, the proposed rule would significantly reduce contractor incentives to engage in IR&D by reducing the benefits contractors receive from successful IR&D projects. In light of these proposed changes, contractors should immediately evaluate their IR&D and competitive bid strategies on the assumption that this proposed rule will be made final in the near future.

For major defense acquisition programs and major automated information systems acquisitions, the proposed rule would require that contracting officers adjust upward a contractor’s total evaluated offer price to the extent the contractor is expected to rely upon future IR&D costs to reduce its proposed price. Accordingly, in order to support this objective, the proposed rule requires an offeror to “include documentation in its price proposal to support this proposed approach” of using IR&D to meet contract requirements. The rule would apply to contracts above the simplified acquisition threshold, but would not apply to contracts for commercial items.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=543898

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: commercial item, DFARS, DoD, IR&D, overhead rate, R&D, SAP

October 20, 2016 By AMK

Cutting through the red tape to faster, smarter acquisition

The fundamental mismatch between the speed of acquisition and the speed of government is an endless topic of conversation among government and industry alike. But while most officials tend to blame the rules, some leaders believe hide-bound people and processes are a bigger problem. 

reverse-industry-day“Culturally, we have not necessarily come to that awareness that it takes a team,” said Air Force Lt. Gen. William Bender, the service’s chief information officer, before launching into an examination of a typical Air Forces systems development program during the Oct. 4 Synergy Forum in Washington, D.C.  That typical program, he said, begins with a two-year process “to determine if a materiel or non-materiel solution is required,” continues with a year to define the requirements, “two more years to get it into the budget, and four years to deliver it.”

The status quo is not working, he said.

Bender’s solution is a new acquisition framework he’s developing and hoping to sell to Air Force leadership. Others are trying their own solutions.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govtechworks.com/cutting-through-the-red-tape-to-faster-smarter-acquisition/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: 18F, acquisition reform, acquisition workforce, Air Force, Army, DHS, DoD, GSA, innovation, IT, procurement reform, R&D, reverse industry day, TechFAR Handbook, technology

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