|
Wednesday Weekly |
|
Would you like to receive our weekly newsletter?
|
|
May 18, 2010 - Vol. 3, Issue 21
Show All | Hide All
|
Last week the civilian and defense acquisition councils sought public comment on how best to amend the FAR to enable public posting of contract actions, should such posting become a requirement in the future, without compromising contractors' proprietary and confidential commercial or financial information. The councils anticipate that, in the future, a requirement to post online the text of contracts and task and delivery orders will be instituted, the proposed rule stated. The councils are looking into methods for identifying the types of information that should not be posted or released to the public, as well as means for electronic processing and posting, and development of provision or clause requirements for successful offerors to provide a redacted copy of the contract," the notice said. The councils are also requesting suggestions for how best to protect the types of information through redacting, locating all such information in a standard place in the contract, or other possible methods to be considered. Comments on the advance notice are due by July 12.
>> Link to Original Source
GSA has appropriated more than $5.5 billion under the Recovery Act to convert federal facilities into high-performance green buildings and construct energy-efficient federal buildings, courthouses, and land ports of entry. In addition to creating jobs, these projects will deliver lasting progress toward building a more sustainable national infrastructure while reducing the federal government’s consumption of energy and water, and increasing the use of clean and renewable sources of energy. Since the passage of the Recovery Act, GSA infused funding into 391 projects. GSA made its Recovery Act funds go further through lower-than-anticipated competitive bids; funding $173 million of additional work to equip U.S. federal buildings with cost-saving, energy-conserving, sustainable features at no additional cost to the taxpayer.
>> Link to Original Source
Senator Feingold introduced the Federal Contracting Oversight and Reform Act of 2010 last week which would expand the time period for past performance from 5 to 10 years and an increase in the scope of records and expand access to the Federal Awardee Performance and Integrity Information System (FAPIIS) to all members of Congress. Currently, the database is only open to federal contracting officials and members of the relevant congressional committees. Finally, the legislation tasks OMB with integrating all the government’s contracting information databases, which is an effort that is already being undertaken by GSA.
>> Link to Original Source
GSA Administrator Martha Johnson requested $24.9 million for the Federal Acquisition Workforce Initiatives Fund, a new program designed to improve federal contracting by increasing spending on the civilian acquisition workforce before the House Appropriations Subcommittee. Overall, Johnson requested $675 million for GSA for Fiscal Year 2011, an $80 million increase from last year. OMB recently announced its Acquisition and Contracting Improvement Plans and Pilots, which mandates that contractors not be used as a substitute for the strong internal capacity required for an agency to provide sufficient management and oversight of its contractors. In response, seven agencies, including GSA, are currently implementing pilot programs designed to decrease reliance on contractors for acquisitions.
>> Link to Original Source
The Defense Intelligence Agency finally awarded its multi-billion dollar IT services contract after protested delayed it by more than six months. DIA announced on May 14 that 11 companies, six large and five small, received a spot on the $6.6 billion Solutions for the Information Technology Enterprise (SITE) contract. Under the deal, these companies will provide a variety of across 52 categories. These include application development, software engineering and integration, system architecture and next generation architecture planning, database management and enterprise storage services. DIA plans to issue the first task orders this summer, the officials said. The winning large companies are BAE Systems, General Dynamics IT, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, SAIC and SRA. The winning small firms are BC Fed Group, CenTauri Solutions, Enterprise Information Services, Red Arch Solutions and Worldwide Information Network Systems.
>> Link to Original Source
The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is trying to figure out why the proliferation of multiple award contracts across the government is out of control. The administration's efforts come as several agencies, including the Homeland Security Department, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Justice Department plan to recompete or issue new procurements for MACs in the coming year.
What is the cost to industry to continually bid on these contracts? How do these costs get passed to agencies? Why do agencies believe they need their own MACs instead of using contracts provided by the General Services Administration, or other governmentwide acquisition contracts? What, if anything, can OFPP do to reel in the explosion in redundant contracts?
When OFPP and Congress decided to implement the idea of multiple award contracts and schedules in the mid-1990s, the goal was to speed up the acquisition process, but not at the expense of competition. What has happened in the 15 years since is a surge of these contracts from agencies.
The reasons for the surge are many: agencies don't like paying fees to GSA and others for using their contracts; agencies say they have unique needs that existing contracts don't meet; agency contracting offices want to manage these large contracts because they are high profile and provide a lot of attention; and agencies don't like the customer service provided by GSA.
>> Link to Original Source
MSC Industry Day
May 25-26, 2010
C4, First Floor, 2200 Crystal Drive, Arlington, VA.
For more information or to register go to:
http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/eventView.do?viewType=DETAIL&eventId=5792&occurId=2744
FedSources Executive Breakfast - Get To Know Your CIO
Featuring Lieutenant General William T. Lord, Chief of Warfighting Integration and Chief Information Officer, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force Pentagon
Wednesday, May 25, 2010
The Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner, McLean, VA.
For more information or to register go to:
http://www.fedsources.com/Services/Events/Executive_Breakfast_featuring_General_Lord.aspx
GSA Network Services Conference 2010
June 21 – 24, 2010
Rosen Shingle Creek, Orlando, FL.
For more information go to:
http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/eventView.do?viewType=DETAIL&eventId=5594&occurId=2481
|
