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Pentagon R&D spending still lags behind an otherwise healthy Defense budget

The last few years of increases to the Defense budget have been, in general, good news for contractors. But it’s an uneven picture.
Click on image above to see full report.

In particular, Pentagon spending on research and development still hasn’t recovered from the cuts imposed by the 2011 Budget Control Act even as spending on products and services has risen significantly.

Those findings are part of the latest annual analysis of DoD contract spending data by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Overall, CSIS found contract spending has risen 35% since 2015, the low point of the Defense drawdown. That figure includes a 4% increase between 2018 and 2019.

But when it comes to R&D spending, the recovery has been much, much slower. In 2019, the department spent about $30 billion on R&D contracts. That’s well below what it spent in 2012, and even adjusting for inflation, about the same as pre-9/11 level spending.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2020/10/pentagon-rd-spending-still-lags-behind-an-otherwise-healthy-defense-budget/

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FPDS reports will officially move to beta.SAM by mid-October

Users will no longer be able to run contract award reports through FPDS.gov, though that site will retain other capabilities.

As of October 17, federal vendors, contracting researchers and watchers and any other interested party, will no longer be able to run or access contract award data reports through the Federal Procurement Data System at FPDS.gov.

On that date, the General Services Administration expects to have completed the full migration of FDPS’s reporting functions—administrative, static, standard and ad hoc reports—to the beta.SAM.gov website under the Data Bank page.

“At that time, beta.SAM.gov will be the only place to create and run contract data reports and the reports module in FPDS.gov will be retired,” according to an update in GSA’s new beta.SAM.gov newsletter.

Originally, all of the reports functions were slated to transfer to beta.SAM.gov in March. However, GSA opted for a “soft launch” this spring, with an “agile iterative improvement process” set to conclude in October.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/08/fpds-reports-will-officially-move-betasam-mid-october/167685/

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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.
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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/

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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/

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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/

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