transparency | The Contracting Education Academy

October 12, 2020 By cs

When politics and procurement mix, the effects can be deadly

Important components of the pandemic response have bypassed essential rules and protocols, but the problems go beyond the current crisis.

As the national response to the pandemic and associated economic crisis continues to unfold, it is becoming increasingly clear that we are again in territory where politics meets procurement. And that should be a concern for every American.

Let’s start with the obvious: The effective and efficient execution of any portion of the pandemic response largely hinges on the effective and efficient performance of our acquisition system.

The process by which federal contracts and grants are awarded is critical to support the manufacture and distribution of protective equipment, ventilators, or therapeutics and to deliver assistance to individuals and businesses struggling to survive. It therefore follows that the responsiveness of the acquisition system to meet these critical needs in large part determines the efficiency and effectiveness of our government’s response.

This is why it is so disturbing to read about cases in which important components of the national response have involved clear efforts to simply ignore the rules and protocols, from basic due diligence and pricing analyses to transparency. Yet, that is exactly what we have seen too often in recent months, including actions associated with Project Airbridge; sole source contracts for vital equipment that proved faulty; tens of millions of dollars wasted on a contract for ventilators that the Health and Human Services Department had to terminate; a complete lack of transparency around huge contracts for vaccine distribution; contracts awarded to an 11-day-old company that just happened to be founded by a former administration official; enormous grants made to a company in a manner that has raised serious ethical and other concerns, and more.

Even worse, all of these cases share another common denominator: the actions were directed and sometimes executed by senior political officials who, it could fairly be argued, are not versed in good acquisition practices and who may be driven by incentives other than the mission itself.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/09/when-politics-and-procurement-mix-effects-can-be-deadly/168553/

March 29, 2020 By cs

Agencies have spent more than $300 million in response to the COVID-19 outbreak

Federal buyers spent more than $4.8 million on hand sanitizer alone in the last two months.

**According to the CDC, a novel coronavirus, formally named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), is identified as the cause of a worldwide outbreak of respiratory illness.**

Federal agencies have spent upward of $300 million over the last two months in response to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Between February 1 and March 22, agencies reported spending more than $297.8 million on telework products and services—such as virtual meeting rooms, collaboration tools and virtual private networks—and health products like hand sanitizer and ventilators, according to data maintained in the Federal Procurement Data System.

An analysis by The Pulse of GovCon, a federal contracting market intelligence firm, looked at all federal spending data tagged with the National Interest Action code “COVID-19-2020” and variations, such as “covid-19,” “covid19,” and “coronavirus.” The analysis shows agencies spent $6.5 million on ventilators, nearly $4.8 million on hand sanitizer, $3.7 million on gloves and $3.2 million on disinfectants. The balance was spent on personnel support services and IT products and support for teleworking.

But Pulse analysts stressed that the data is likely incomplete at this time.

“Many contracting offices supporting COVID-19, particularly those relocated to the disaster recovery area, do not have access to their normal contract writing systems and thus have not been able to populate FPDS-NG contemporaneously with the contract awards they have made,” they said in a summary report. “Others have not had time to enter data due to the tempo of operations.”

Analysts also noted these figures do not include Defense Department spending, as that data is kept on a 90-day delay for the sake of national security.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/03/agencies-have-spent-more-300m-response-covid-19-outbreak/164097/

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/

March 27, 2020 By cs

Defense industry to DoD: If we send workers home, will you penalize us?

Defense industry executives are being forced to choose between risking employees’ health by sending them into factories amid the coronavirus outbreak, or missing the delivery deadlines in their Pentagon contracts.

Initially, many contractors welcomed the federal government’s March 20 declaration that the defense industrial base is a critical part of America’s infrastructure, and that a good portion of its employees would be “expected to maintain their normal work schedule.” But just four days later, as the COVID-19 death toll rises and state after state announces stay-at-home orders, it has become clear that normal work schedules aren’t generally advisable — or even possible.

On Wednesday, Boeing will shut down its massive assembly factories in the Seattle region that build commercial airliners and military tankers and submarine-hunting aircraft. While some work can be done remotely, such as the re-engineering of the KC-46 refueling system, assembling the planes and their unique components cannot.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/03/defense-companies-want-more-direction-relief-pentagon-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/164077/

March 26, 2020 By cs

White House updates contracting and technology guidance for federal agencies

During the coronavirus outbreak, the Veterans Affairs Department got a greenlight to rehire experts and the Justice Department clarified its stance on working in states with shelter-in-place orders.

This past weekend, the Trump administration published several memo of additional guidance for federal employees, contractors and agencies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Days after directing agencies and departments to offer “maximum telework flexibilities” for federal employees, the Office of Management and Budget updated its agency guidance regarding millions of federal contractors.

The guidance, from OMB’s Deputy Director for Management Margaret Weichert, instructs agencies to do three main things.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2020/03/white-house-updates-contracting-and-technology-guidance-federal-agencies/163992/

March 23, 2020 By cs

DoD urges Contracting Officer transparency in COVID-19 impacts

The Department of Defense’s Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment issued Guidance on March 10, 2020, addressing internal and external communications in response to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

The Guidance states that the Contracting Officers (as distinguished from Program personnel) hold the contractual authority to address contract performance impacts related to COVID-19. Moreover, the Guidance encourages close communication between Contracting Officers and contractors, and stresses Contracting Officer transparency, a term not normally seen in contract administration guidance. In pertinent part the Guidance states as follows:

“Communication between the Government and contractors is key to total workforce safety and mission continuity. Therefore, contracting officers should be as transparent as possible as they make decisions potentially impacting contract performance or contractor personnel. Contracting officers should also encourage their contractor site leads/leadership to engage with their employees as soon as possible to share information and discuss any COVID-19 concerns they have, and ask their contractors to identify potential impacts to the welfare and safety of their workforce or contract performance, which impacts our total force.”

The Guidance contains three important messages for defense contractors who may be impacted by COVID-19.

First, defense contractors can cite this Guidance as a basis to submit questions to the Contracting Officer and request program-specific information about acquisition planning and related issues affecting their contracts.
Second, the Guidance encourages affirmative efforts by contractors to communicate with their employees about personnel impacts and employee concerns. While social distancing practices may prevent contractors from town hall or other company-wide meetings, technology solutions will substitute for this.
Last, the Guidance asks contractors to identify (presumably to the Contracting Officer) workforce impacts to health and safety, and contractor performance.

Keep reading this article at: https://governmentcontractsnavigator.com/2020/03/18/dod-urges-contracting-officer-transparency-in-covid-19-impacts/#more-941

See: Planning for Potential Novel Coronavirus Contract Impacts – DoD – Mar 10 2020

Important components of the pandemic response have bypassed essential rules and protocols, but the problems go beyond the current crisis.

Federal buyers spent more than $4.8 million on hand sanitizer alone in the last two months.

Defense industry executives are being forced to choose between risking employees’ health by sending them into factories amid the coronavirus outbreak, or missing the delivery deadlines in their Pentagon contracts.

During the coronavirus outbreak, the Veterans Affairs Department got a greenlight to rehire experts and the Justice Department clarified its stance on working in states with shelter-in-place orders.

The Department of Defense’s Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment issued Guidance on March 10, 2020, addressing internal and external communications in response to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.

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