transparency | The Contracting Education Academy

March 22, 2019 By AMK

Why contracting challenges put VA on the ‘High-Risk’ list

The Department of Veterans Affairs has not updated some of its purchasing regulations since 2008, and the resulting problems created for contracting officers at the agency have caused the Government Accountability Office to designate the problem a high-risk area for 2019.

“The VA acquisition is a huge part of the mission over at the Department of Veterans Affairs. They do about $26 billion in procurements each year, and tens of thousands of procurement actions. Since 2015, we’ve had over 31 recommendations that we’ve done there and, unfortunately, 21 of those remain open, and so the high-risk designation centers on a couple of longstanding weaknesses that they’ve had in the acquisition area,” said Chris Mihm, managing director of the GAO Strategic Issues Team, in an agency podcast.

“First is that they don’t have a consistent and coordinated set of policies and regulations across the department. Second is that there is the importance of just a human capital, to make sure that their people are trained, to make sure that their workloads are being appropriately managed. Third, there’s problems that we’ve seen in terms of data and transparency over the acquisition process. And then fourth, that we’re very concerned about the absence of a strategic approach to procurement at the department.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/management/2019/03/07/why-contracting-challenges-put-va-on-the-high-risk-list/

June 22, 2018 By AMK

Congress puts more scrutiny on OTAs

In the wake of Oracle’s successful protest of a $950 million “other transaction authority” award by the Army to REAN Cloud, House appropriators are putting the Defense Department on notice that they’ll be keeping a close eye on future OTA awards.

For appropriators, as was the case for the Government Accountability Office, the issue is the use of such awards for procurements that don’t fit the experimental or prototype model that OTAs were intended to handle.

The flexible procurement authority is “an important tool to provide flexibility and agility for cutting-edge research and development projects and prototypes,” lawmakers wrote in a legislative report accompanying the defense funding bill released by the House Appropriations Committee on June 13. “However, the Committee is concerned with the lack of transparency on the use of OTA authority for follow-on production procurements.”

The bill requires that the Secretary of Defense notify House and Senate defense committees 30 days in advance of obligating funds for production contracts under other transaction authority.

Keep reading this article at: https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2018/06/15/congress-ota.aspx

February 20, 2018 By AMK

New GSA administrator seeks to shine light where the shadows of federal procurement live

The General Services Administration is exploring how it can add more transparency to the procurement process, particularly with its $35 billion schedules program.

Since its inception, GSA’s schedules program has been hidden behind a wall where only vendors with a contract could see the solicitations and awards. The lack of transparency about what happens on those “members-only” contracts has frustrated good government groups, the media and vendors who aren’t on the contracts, but may want to join.

So GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, who was confirmed by the Senate about two months ago, has made transparency one of her four goals and is seeking not just an agency solution to this challenge, but one that would work governmentwide.

“It was one of the first conversations I had with the Office of Management and Budget. I’ve had conversations with the Office of Governmentwide Policy. I’ve had conversations with the Office of General Counsel and the Federal Acquisition Service. They are looking at all of it and are supposed to coming back to me with options on we can try and be more transparent,” Murphy said in an exclusive interview with Federal News Radio. “I think this needs to be addressed not just in the microcosm of the GSA schedules. If we are looking at task orders, we need to be looking across government and making sure we are not disadvantaging the schedules program versus other programs, and we are not putting our vendors or our customers at a competitive disadvantage. At the end of the day, it’s their data.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/acquisition-policy/2018/02/new-gsa-administrator-seeks-to-shine-light-where-the-shadows-of-federal-procurement-live/

October 25, 2017 By AMK

GSA nominee wants competition at the task order level

Emily Murphy, the nominee to be the next administrator of the General Services Administration, sailed through her hearing last week, facing few tough questions about her plans to improve federal acquisition, and promising to address long-standing issues in the Public Building Service.

However, Murphy, a former staff member for the House Small Business and Armed Services committees, did offer some further insight into where she believes federal procurement needs to go in the short term.

“Competition and reducing waste, and increasing transparency were two of the four things I’m really hoping to work on at GSA,” Murphy told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “Within the Federal Acquisition Service, which does over $50 billion in contracts on behalf of other agencies each year, I’d like to work to make sure the ceiling prices that are being set for agencies are just the beginning. When we set a price on our GSA schedule contract it’s more or less like the rack rate on the back of a hotel room door, the most you will ever pay. We are trying to make sure GSA’s contracting officers and our policies support really vigorous competition at the task order level because that is the amount we actually are going to spend so we want to get the best deal there, the most competition we can there.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/hearings-oversight/2017/10/gsa-nominee-wants-competition-at-the-task-order-level/

September 28, 2017 By AMK

Crunch time for acquisition portal in defense bill

As Congress moves to reconcile two versions of the National Defense Authorization Act in the coming weeks, one of the provisions legislators will be considering could significantly alter how federal agencies might buy commercial off the shelf items — eventually including IT products.

If approved, the measure would task the General Services Administration to develop online e-commerce portals that the Defense Department and federal agencies could use to buy basic commercial products.

Existing companies that specialize in office supplies as well as larger e-commerce platforms could create special government-focused marketplaces that buyers could use to obtain basic items.

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, first proposed the measure as the Defense Acquisition Streamlining and Transparency Act in May. It passed with some modifications in the House NDAA.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2017/09/21/ndaa-cots-ecommerce-rockwell.aspx

The Department of Veterans Affairs has not updated some of its purchasing regulations since 2008, and the resulting problems created for contracting officers at the agency have caused the Government Accountability Office to designate the problem a high-risk area for 2019.

In the wake of Oracle’s successful protest of a $950 million “other transaction authority” award by the Army to REAN Cloud, House appropriators are putting the Defense Department on notice that they’ll be keeping a close eye on future OTA awards.

The General Services Administration is exploring how it can add more transparency to the procurement process, particularly with its $35 billion schedules program.

Emily Murphy, the nominee to be the next administrator of the General Services Administration, sailed through her hearing last week, facing few tough questions about her plans to improve federal acquisition, and promising to address long-standing issues in the Public Building Service.

As Congress moves to reconcile two versions of the National Defense Authorization Act in the coming weeks, one of the provisions legislators will be considering could significantly alter how federal agencies might buy commercial off the shelf items — eventually including IT products.

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