spending | The Contracting Education Academy

July 8, 2020 By cs

Federal contract spending reaches its highest level ever in fiscal 2019, marking 4 straight years of growth

Spending is expected to increase even more for fiscal 2020, exceeding $600 billion even before coronavirus stimulus funding is included.

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

Federal contract spending grew for the fourth year in a row to reach $597 billion in fiscal 2019, its highest level yet and a 6% increase over the previous year, according to newly released data. Spending is expected to exceed $600 billion in fiscal 2020, without even including spending on economic stimulus funds in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The data, compiled by Bloomberg Government, encompasses prime and unclassified contract spending. Bloomberg released the findings in the ninth annual BGOV200 report, which ranks the top 200 federal contractors. The report analyzes market trends, contractors’ performance and other dynamics among 92 federal agencies in 20 purchasing categories during fiscal 2019.

The agencies with the biggest gains in contract spending in fiscal 2019 included: the Housing and Urban Development, Commerce and Defense departments, and the General Services Administration. Some of the top markets were: facilities and construction; professional services; information technology and aircrafts, ships/submarines and land vehicles.

The 200 companies won the same share of total contracts as in 2018 and 2017, which was 64%. The top six companies — all in the defense industry — were: Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., General Dynamics Corp., Raytheon Co., Northrop Grumman Corp. and United Technologies Corp. This was the same as last year, except McKesson Corp. was number six in 2018 and this year it ranked seventh. In 2019, 37 companies entered the top 200 for the first time.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/06/federal-contract-spending-reaches-its-highest-level-ever-fiscal-2019-marking-4-straight-years-growth/166484/

July 1, 2020 By cs

Pandemic oversight committee launches contract spending tracker

The committee stated in its first report that financial management could be a top challenge for agencies.

**Click on image above to see contract spending compiled by the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee.**

The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, established by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, has launched an online tool to track the federal government’s contract spending. The committee is one of the various entities overseeing the government’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic and is composed of 21 inspectors general. The relief package appropriated an unprecedented amount of money, so there has been increased pressure to ensure the funds are not misspent. As of last Tuesday, the federal government has committed to 7,474 contracts with 4,115 vendors and spending of $15.9 billion, according to ProPublica.

“Users can download the entire dataset to conduct their own analysis by examining contracts by category – for example medical services and equipment, janitorial services for government buildings, and personal protective equipment and safety supplies for government workers,” said the committee. There is also “an interactive map for users to explore the total amount of contract spending by state and county.”

The committee is using numbers from the Federal Procurement Data System to track the spending and will update the tracker weekly. The committee noted that contract documents aren’t usually made public because of their proprietary information, but individuals can try to obtain them through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2020/06/pandemic-oversight-committee-launches-contract-spending-tracker/166370/

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 22, 2020 By cs

What should vendors expect from Q4 2020?

The fourth quarter sprint to the finish line of the 2020 fiscal year starts in about a week. So what can federal contractors expect?

According to Cameron Leuthy, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Government, professional services will be big, the coronavirus pandemic will present both complications and opportunities, and small businesses should already be getting ready.

To project what’s coming, analysts usually look to the previous year as a template. In 2019, Q4 included 30% of all obligations for the entire fiscal year. The Defense Department alone spent just shy of $120 billion. The departments of Housing and Urban Development, Interior and State each had more than 50% of their total obligations for 2019 in the fourth quarter. September was particularly lucrative, with $94.3B spent that month alone, 66% of which came from DoD.

There are a number of reasons for that, Leuthy said. Sometimes those reasons include policy, or maximizing potential leverage with foreign governments, in the case of the State Department. Sometimes funds are just deliberately held back from obligations, though there can be legal ramifications for that.

“Civilian agencies did hold back in some cases, because of the difference between the amount the administration asked for and the amount that Congress eventually ended up appropriating,” Leuthy said. “There’s also an incentive, and a prudent one, to hold back obligations during CRs and not get ahead of yourself.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/contracting/2020/06/what-should-vendors-expect-from-q4-2020/

June 4, 2020 By cs

Federal procurement spending up $120 billion since 2015

Agencies spent more on procurement in fiscal 2019 than in any of the previous 10 years.

**Click on graphic above to see full GAO infographic.**

And no surprise, agency pending on multiple award contracts for IT and services spiked last year.

Now that all of the 2019 numbers are final, the predictions of a banner year for contractors and agencies when it came to buying products and services came true.

The Government Accountability Office found agencies spent $584 billion on procurement last year, up $20 billion over 2018 and more than $120 billion since 2015.

Bloomberg Government reported that agencies spent $448 billion on procurement in 2014 and a six-year low of $442 billion in 2015.

The Defense Department accounted for $381 billion while civilian agencies spent $205 billion.

Of that, GAO said agencies procured 83.5% of all contracts competitively, up from 64.4% in 2015. DoD continues to struggle with competition as GAO found the Pentagon’s rate dropped to 53.8% in 2019 from 55.4% in 2015.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/reporters-notebook-jason-miller/2020/06/federal-procurement-spending-up-120b-since-2015/

February 27, 2020 By cs

New NDIA study gives defense industrial base health a ‘C’ grade

A new battery of tests that aims to assess the overall health of the defense industrial base over time reported a barely-passing “C” grade in the inaugural edition, issued earlier this month.

The report card — dubbed “Vital Signs” by analysts at the National Defense Industrial Association and Govini — is partly a follow-on response to a first-of-its-kind report the Pentagon issued in 2018. That assessment showed some worrisome signs about the defense industry, but was a snapshot in time. NDIA officials said policymakers need a more repeatable deep-dive to understand the key problems on an ongoing basis.

From a Wall Street perspective, the industry is in very good shape. Publicly-traded companies in the sector are profitable, and have historically-high amounts of cash on hand even though they’re spending heavily on new plants and equipment. On a scale of 0 to 100, the NDIA report scores those measures — collectively called “competition” — at 96.

But that category is only one of eight in the report, and the picture is less rosy in many of the others.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/02/new-ndia-study-gives-defense-industrial-base-health-a-c-grade/

Spending is expected to increase even more for fiscal 2020, exceeding $600 billion even before coronavirus stimulus funding is included.

The committee stated in its first report that financial management could be a top challenge for agencies.

The fourth quarter sprint to the finish line of the 2020 fiscal year starts in about a week. So what can federal contractors expect?

Agencies spent more on procurement in fiscal 2019 than in any of the previous 10 years.

A new battery of tests that aims to assess the overall health of the defense industrial base over time reported a barely-passing “C” grade in the inaugural edition, issued earlier this month.

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