The long-awaited and much-anticipated update to the basic management standards for the federal grants community is out. The Office of Management and Budget’s 2024 Revisions of the Uniform Grants Guidance aim to streamline, simplify and expand the overall reach of the $1.2 trillion in grants and cooperative assistance agencies pay out each year.

“Terms like federal financial assistance and Uniform Grant Guidance may sound mundane or, perhaps, a little bit bureaucratic. But it’s really the plumbing of our federal programs, and plumbing matters,” said Jason Miller, OMB’s deputy director for management, at an event in the White House yesterday celebrating the roll out of the guidance. “I’m particularly proud of one area of this guidance, something our team has been really focused on from the get go, ensuring that an overhaul to this guidance lowers burden on recipients. Of course, we need strong and clear rules for how federal funds are spent. But those rules should add value not create check the box burdens and red tape, even when well-intended. [Red tape] increases costs and reduces the amount of federal funding recipients can spend on delivering outcomes. Lowering burden, which is exactly what this new guidance will do, means that we get more value from every dollar, shifting minutes and shifting dollars from administrative work and overhead to mission work.”

The guidance, which hasn’t been updated since 2020 and hasn’t seen a significant update since OMB issued the initial standards in 2014, aims to revamp the grants oversight and delivery process in several ways. First, OMB says it instructs agencies to make grant announcements as clear and concise as possible. It also provides a template for agencies when developing notice of funding opportunity (NOFO).

Miller said through this streamline template, agencies are directed to use plain language and write in a manner and a level that is accessible for any potential applicant.

“We’re broadening the pool of potential recipients, for example, by ensuring federal agencies can now use languages other than English and conducting their work. The guidance has been fully rewritten from top to bottom in plain English. So it’s clear, consistent and more accessible and understandable to everyone will say the guidance, we believe strengthens accountability and integrity, accountability and burden reduction should be symbiotic not in conflict with one another,” he said. “In fact, if the language is simple. It makes compliance easier. It makes oversight more consistent, because the updated guidance fixes language that led some federal agencies to interpret the guidance differently than other federal agencies.”

HHS grants pilot shows promise

The Department of Health and Human Services recently piloted the new approach to NOFOs.

Andrea Palm, the deputy secretary of HHS, said the pilot showed that reducing the number of pages that make up NOFOs can be done and the grant still meets all the compliance and outcome goals.

“It’s been my experience at HHS, that over time, you just keep adding pieces of paper, but nobody ever looks to see which of those could be peeled back. Are they still necessary? Or is there duplication? Does it add value? Is it really helping us deliver? So really taking a look at all of those things, and only including necessary information is a way in which we can simplify this process, make it more accessible to communities all across the country and be really clear about the eligibility requirements,” Palm said. “These updates, we believe, allow for greater flexibility and a design of a NOFO that’s much more intuitive, that allows us to get really where we need to be in a more efficient way.”

OMB also believes its update will make it easier for eligible recipients, including in underserved communities, to access funding. The updates also make it easier for recipients to use federal funds to invest in the continuous improvement of their programs by using the money to support evaluation, data gathering and analysis and community engagement.

Miller said the Council of Federal Financial Assistance (COFFA), which OMB established in October, will lead the implementation of the updated guidance over the next year or more.

This update to the uniform guidance comes as the Grants modernization effort is picking up steam.

RFI to seeking feedback from providers

Andrea Sampanis, the acting director of the Grants Quality Service Management Office (QSMO) in the Department of Health and Human Services, said the guidance, a new request for information and several other initiatives are part of the long-term grants modernization effort.

The Grants QSMO released the RFI on Tuesday and it will remain open through April 30.

The QSMO will use results from the RFI as part of its evaluation of commercial options for grants management systems and services to expand and improve the current marketplace tools for federal awarding agencies to take advantage of in the coming years.

“We’ve always used Medallia software to ourselves to bring that feedback in. As we are pushing out our RFI for commercial vendor research, we’re actually updating some of the questions based on feedback we get in those Medallia surveys, either from vendors that give us feedback, but mostly from our buying agencies to make sure I’m asking the questions that they have so that they don’t have to go ask vendors all separately,” Sampanis said in an interview with Federal News Network. “This is very similar to the other one and we do this on an annual basis. Unlike the financial management QSMO which has a special item number (SIN) on the GSA schedules, our process is different. We, instead, are working with GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service on what we call the catalogue of market research. But in order to do that approach, we have to keep it up to date. So we’re going to start doing the survey every other year because in the beginning, the marketplace was changing a lot. Now I think we’re feeling good, we have a really good grasp on it. Obviously, we’ll always engage with vendors.”

Along with the RFI, Sampanis said more agencies are taking advantage of the shared services provided through the QSMO marketplace.

Migrations to shared services happening

Over the last year, the National Institutes of Health’s eRA and HHS’s GrantSolutions have brought on or started the process to bring on the departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Labor and parts of Veterans Affairs into its shared service systems.

“That said they can’t really handle all that capacity. So we’re really excited that we have partners in the commercial space to create our catalog of market research, and really help agencies save a lot of time when their needs can’t be met by the federal space. We help them save some time in acquiring those federal or those commercial solutions,” Sampanis said. “We have one quote it says working with the Grants QSMO market research puts us 1,000 steps ahead in our procurement. That’s really our goal to speed up the acquisition and give them a lot more buying confidence that they know when they go to the vendors on our catalog, they’re going to meet their standards. They’re going to be compliant with 2 CFR 200 [OMB’s new guidance]. Other people have used them. It just lets them really focus their attention on a fewer amount of providers.”

Sampanis added that the Grants QSMO team meets with the grant experts in agencies as well as agency chief information officers more and more to answer questions about the security and technology behind these shared services. And then, they help the agencies reviewing potential options when they decide its time to move off their legacy grant systems.

At Commerce, for instance, they are moving off of three custom applications that eventually will be decommissioned when they fully implement the NIH eRA system.

Labor is getting away from a 30-year-old custom built system.

Sampanis said the marketplace current includes seven grant shared services options, mainly around awards management with integrations with SAM.gov, Login.gov and Grants.gov.

The post OMB’s new guidance, RFI boost grant modernization efforts first appeared on Federal News Network.

Does the “theory” jibe with reality or has the FAR gone too FAR?

The current FAR is over 2,000 pages long, and a new Part 40 on cybersecurity and supply chain risk management is coming. There are also over 30 agency FAR supplements accounting for thousands of additional pages of regulations. In addition, various procuring agencies have issued thousands of pages of internal acquisition guidance, most, if not all, of which have not gone through public notice and comment. The sheer number of contract clauses, certifications, prescriptions, representations, reporting requirements, and compliance mandates is staggering. This highly complex regulatory framework increases administrative burdens, performance costs, and compliance risks for small, medium, and large businesses. As a result, the federal customer has reduced access to innovation and best value solutions from the commercial market.

The data is clear. The industrial base supporting the federal government is shrinking. Small business participation in the federal market has fallen approximately 50% between 2010 and 2022, during a decade where the overall economy grew, and the number of small businesses increased. From fiscal 2011 to 2020, the number of small businesses receiving Department of Defense (DoD) contract awards decreased by 43% despite obligations increasing by 15%. The number of large businesses receiving contract awards fell, on average, by more than seven percent annually over the same period. A telling indicator is the decrease in the number of small businesses participating in the federal market, while at the same time, overall obligations to small businesses have increased. This dynamic reflects a market where the regulatory barriers to entry have stymied the growth of the industrial base, leaving an ever shrinking “incumbent class” of contractors available to the federal customer.

The federal customer deserves streamlined, efficient access to competition and innovation driven by the commercial market. Acquisition teams across government are looking for the path of least resistance in acquiring innovative solutions from the commercial market. Significantly, spending by the DOD and other agencies under Other Transaction Authority (OTA) has increased by 1,600% since 2015, at least in part, to avoid the FAR processes and associated requirements. Other popular streamlined procurement channels outside the FAR include the Department of Homeland Security’s and the General Services Administration’s commercial solutions opening (CSO) authority. These streamlined channels are evolving into strategically important procurements tools at a time of growing competition with near-peer adversaries.

The increasing interest in procurement frameworks outside the FAR-based system is likely based on a view that the system cannot reform itself. In this regard, the commercial item regulatory framework is instructive. Ten years after the FAR was issued, Congress streamlined the Federal procurement system by promulgating the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 (FASA). FASA created a streamlined commercial item contracting regime and institutionalized a preference for exempting commercial items and services from new laws unless the law provided otherwise. The impact was immediate. In 1995, there were 28 FAR clauses that could be included in a commercial item contract, with only six clauses required.  Today, some 90 FAR clauses can be included in commercial item contracts and more than 30 clauses are mandatory. Regarding clauses that flow down in subcontracts for commercial items, in 1995 there were four, today there are at least 22 clauses that must be flowed down.

Individual agency FAR supplements include additional clauses that apply to commercial item contracts. For example, there are 110 Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) clauses applicable to commercial item contracts. As the Section 809 panel report noted:

“Since FASA was implemented, the number of DoD‐related commercial buying provisions and clauses has increased by 188 percent, and the number of commercial clauses that may be flowed down has increased five‐fold. In 1995, the FAR and DFARS contained a combined total of 57 government clauses applicable to commercial items. Today there are 165 clauses, with 122 originating in statute, 20 originating in executive orders, and 23 originating in agency‐level policies.”

Since the 809 Panel report was published in 2018, things have not gotten better. This re-regulation of commercial item contracts has contributed to customer agencies and contractors looking to mechanisms outside the traditional FAR framework to get work done.

Significantly, FASA provided the FAR Council with the tools to maintain the streamlined commercial item contracting framework. The FAR Council has the statutory authority to essentially exempt commercial item contracting from new laws and executive orders. However, the default position over the last 30 years has been for the FAR Council to determine that it would not be in the best interests of the Government to exempt commercial items and services from most new laws and executive orders. In 2018, the Section 809 Acquisition Advisory Panel recommended eliminating the 55 DFARS provisions applicable to commercial item contracts and, despite a recent Congressionally mandated review of the DFARS clauses, the resulting review left approximately 50 DFARS clauses still applicable.

So as the FAR enters its 41^st year, it is time to identify and empower a governmentwide champion to streamline procurement. This champion would be responsible for a section-by-section review of the FAR to identify and address/eliminate requirements where the cost/burdens outweigh the benefits.  Additionally, this champion would conduct a review of the various procurement processes and establish criteria as to when the default acquisition methodology should be an OTA or CSO depending on the nature of the requirement.

The Coalition stands ready to work with all stakeholders to streamline the procurement process to ensure sound business opportunities for commercial firms that deliver best value mission support for customer agencies. Let us know your thoughts on streamlining the FAR!  Ideally, we would love to have them before our spring training conference, on May 8^th and 9^th. Good ideas come from all stakeholders across government and industry.

The post Happy 40th birthday to the FAR, but has it gone too far? first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Air Force is out with a new multiple award solicitation to modernize all of its base network infrastructure.

The request for proposals uses the phrase, “enterprise IT-as-a-service” only a handful of times, but for all intent and purposes, this potentially 10-year contract with a $12.5 billion ceiling is considered Wave 2.

The new RFP calls for a group of large and small businesses to “modernize, operate and maintain the network infrastructure on all Department of the Air Force locations, to include Guard and Reserve bases.”

The Air Force is planning to award at least five contracts to 8(a) firms as well as a minimum of three awards to HUBZone companies, women-owned small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small business firms and other small businesses not in a socioeconomic program.

“This effort takes lessons learned from the EITaaS risk reduction effort network-as-a-service effort as well as lessons learned from existing base IT infrastructure modernization efforts to modernize the future base area network (BAN) offering at Air Force bases worldwide,” the RFP states. “This effort intends to modernize the Non-Secure Internet Protocol Router (NIPR) and Secure Internet Protocol Router (SIPR) BAN through an as-a-service model utilizing contractor provided networking services.”

The Air Force says its goal through the BIM vehicle is to obtain standardized, innovative and agile IT services, increase integration through a modern streamlined network and to be an investment for future mission sets.

Air Force to reduce data centers

Winston Beauchamp, the deputy chief information officer at the Air Force, said the goal is to award the multiple award contract later this spring with the first set of task orders going out before the end of the fiscal year.

Beauchamp said the Wave 2 EITaaS RFP comes as the Wave 1 effort is picking up steam.

“They started by essentially absorbing the bases that were part of our risk reduction experiment originally, that preceded the acquisition, and they are right now delivering common central services that will be applicable to all bases,” Beauchamp said in an interview with Federal News Network after speaking at the AFCEA NOVA Space IT day. “We’re talking about things like a centralized helpdesk automation so that folks can do certain things on their own, like resetting passwords, and answering tier zero help desk type questions. Then also to come there’s field services. The option for folks to use our contract to put people in the field to support them at the bases of all that for centralized security and help desk services.”

The Air Force is using the base infrastructure modernization contract as a key piece to its centralization strategy. Beauchamp said not every IT service needs to be an enterprise service, but there are a wide variety of opportunities for the Air Force to improve how it delivers technology to its users.

For example, across the 185 Air Force and Space Force bases there are about 1,000 data centers running.

Beauchamp said the CIO’s office is making a big push to move applications to the cloud, where it makes sense.

“We fully expect that more and more applications will be moving into our cloud architecture. That’s called CloudOne today, and that contract is up for renewal. It will be re competed, and it will be calling it CloudOne Next, but the intent is that it will be just the next evolution of the CloudOne program,” he said. “The interface between that and the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) our intent to leverage that contract to the maximum extent possible by buying cloud services capacity through JWCC, and then managing it under the CloudOne contract. The expectation is that we would continue to acquire cloud through JWCC, where it’s cost effective to do so in bulk and then we would provision it with security services that DevSecOps and the other layers of services that we’ve built up over the years on the under the CloudOne contract.”

Three cloud contracts in the works

The Air Force released its request for information for CloudOne Next in September and just in March, it offered more details on its acquisition strategy.

The Air Force expects to release three solicitations for CloudOne Next in the third quarter of 2024 and make the award in the fourth quarter of this year. It will be three single-award blanket purchase agreements on top of the schedules program run by the General Services Administration.

The three BPAs will focus on:

• Cloud service provider (CSP) reseller and software management
• Architecture and common shared services
• Enterprise application modernization and migration

Beauchamp said the Air Force is evolving from siloes of excellence where every system built its own technology stack to a series of enterprise capabilities where the burden to sustain, modernize and secure is shared.

“We really have is an opportunity to look at the degree to which there may be commonality between those approaches, either in factor or in potential, and where we can either use collective buying strategies to reduce the overall cost collective across the Air Force and collectively across DOD, to get the best possible deal through economies of scale,” he said. “If there’s an architectural approach that perhaps could leverage an existing enterprise service, we want to make sure that we have the ability to see them and to make those recommendations to really free up the time and resources so that those dollars can be applied towards more effective mission capability.”

This approach to IT portfolio management is one of the six lines of effort Air Force CIO Venice Goodwine outlined in her strategy.

Other lines of effort include the acceleration of cloud adoption, the future of cybersecurity, including zero trust, workforce development and training, software management and data and artificial intelligence.

Beauchamp said IT portfolio management, or line of effort 4, is one of the most exciting opportunities for the Air Force. He said IT portfolio management can create leverage across the entire department that can result in both savings and money redirected toward mission needs.

“Overall, I think that each of the sub objectives within line of effort four are going to contribute in some way in that direction. Everything from implementing a capital planning and investment control (CPIC) approach within the Department of Air Force, which we are piloting this year, to improving our monitoring of the user’s experience, which really enables us to target our modernization efforts on those areas where folks are suffering the most will allow us to make better use of the resources that we have for free enterprise IT,” he said. “One of the things we’re going to have to do is really reexamine how we’re implementing CPIC. When I say the pilot, what we’ve done is we’ve selected a major command and a couple of functional areas, where we’re going to put a more rigorous capability in place to really meet not just the letter of the law, but the spirit as well, and apply the data to actually make business decisions. That’s the key. If you if you’re going to go to the trouble of collecting all this data about your programs, you might as well use that data for informing your decision making.”

The post Air Force begins phase 2 of enterprise IT service delivery first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Women-owned small businesses won more federal contracting dollars in fiscal 2023 than ever before. New data from FedMine, a government business intelligence platform, shows women-owned small firms won more than $25.5 billion in federal contracts last year, up from $22.6 billion in 2022. FedMine said that 13% year-over-year increase represents about 3.3% of all federal contract dollars going to women-owned small businesses. That is still below the governmentwide goal of 5%. FedMine also found that out of the more than 13,000 companies that won contracts in 2023, more than 1,500 of them were first-time awardees.
  (Women-owned small firms won more federal contracting dollars in 2023 - Fedmine.us)
• Letter carriers are getting recognition from their union for saving lives and other heroics. The National Association of Letter Carriers track about 150 cases a year where its members act as first responders in an emergency. Now the union is rewarding these letter carriers for going above and beyond. Phillip Moon is a letter carrier who has been delivering mail on the same route in Amarillo, Texas for 27 years. He won this year’s Heroes of the Year award for saving a woman and her two dogs from an attacking pitbull. Moon said he is honored to receive the award, but does not think he is a hero — just someone who did the right thing. "I don’t consider myself a hero. I’m just very grateful and honored and thankful that I was in a place where I could be of some assistance to somebody in need," Moon said.
  (‘We are on the front line:’ USPS letter carriers recognized for heroic acts - Federal News Network)
• The Navy is updating its basic training phone call policy by allowing boot-camp recruits to use their personal cell phones to call family and friends. Most recruits who don't make it through boot camp tend to drop out during their first few weeks. The service hopes that allowing personal cell phones, instead of using a pay phone, will reduce the dropout rate. Recruits are allowed five phone calls during their 10-week training period. The updated policy is one of the latest changes the Navy has introduced to its basic-training experience, as the service struggles to meet its recruitment goals.
  (Navy updates basic training phone call policy - dvidshub.net)
• The Department of Health and Human Services is trying to centralize its cybersecurity resources. HHS’s Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) will be the department’s one-stop-shop for cybersecurity, according to Brian Mazanec, the deputy director of the Office of Preparedness at ASPR. "There are too many doors into cybersecurity when engaging with the federal government generally, let alone HHS,” Mazanec said. “Within HHS, there are a lot of different players. So we're in the process now of really establishing this front door through ASPR to all of those resources.” HHS is also working to set new cybersecurity standards, as well as potential requirements, for the health sector.
  (HHS looks to create ‘one-stop shop’ for healthcare cybersecurity - Federal News Network)
• Here is your chance to help ensure your agency buys artificial intelligence tools and capabilities in a responsible and trustworthy way. The Office of Management and Budget is seeking help to inform the development of guidance to ensure the responsible procurement of AI by agencies. In a new request for information, OMB is asking for feedback around 10 questions as part of its initiative to develop a set of requirements to ensure that agencies buy AI systems and services in a way that aligns with the recent guidance required by the November executive order for secure and trustworthy AI. This RFI is the first step for OMB in meeting the deadline to issue this new AI acquisition guidance by late September. Responses to the RFI are due by April 29.
  (OMB issues RFI for responsible acquisition of AI tools - Federal Register)
• The Defense Department awarded $17.6 million to 27 universities to strengthen basic research in defense-related areas. The research collaboration competition winners from West Virginia University, Arizona State University and the University of South Carolina, among others, will receive up to $600,000 over three years to pursue DoD-related science and engineering research. Louisiana Tech University and the University of Tulsa will receive up to $1.5 million over two years as winners of the capacity-building competition, to pursue activities that will help them achieve basic research excellence in areas relevant to DoD.
  (DoD finances 27 academic teams under its competitive research program - DoD)
• The Department of Homeland Security used some limited exceptions to the Buy American Act last year. In fiscal 2023, DHS said it executed 1,050 contract actions valued at $67 million, by using the domestic non-availability exception under the Buy American Act. That represents less than 2% of applicable procurement dollars obligated by DHS last year. Most of those contract actions were awarded by the Coast Guard for various aircraft components that are only made in foreign countries.
  (DHS fiscal 2023 annual posting of Buy American Act domestic nonavailability waiver actions - SAM.gov)
• The Census Bureau is looking to roll out a remote work policy it drafted at the end of last year, but is rethinking how many employees can opt in after Congress recently set minimum utilization rates for federal buildings. The bureau recommends employees should not move outside the commuting area of their official duty station until they are approved for remote work. The Census Bureau is also consolidating office space while its headquarters is being renovated by bringing in employees from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Census HQ renovation is expected to be complete this summer.
  (Census Bureau rethinks scope of remote work policy, consolidates office space - Federal News Network)

The post Women-owned small businesses win record $25.5B in federal contracts first appeared on Federal News Network.

GSA is expanding the number of providers from three to eight, including six new ones.

Along with current platform providers Amazon Business and Fisher Scientific, GSA awarded spots on the next generation Commercial Platform Initiative (CPI) contract to:

• e-Procurement Services
• Grainger
• Noble Supply & Logistics
• Pacific Ink
• Social Glass
• Staples

Four of the awardees, ePS, Noble Supply, Pacific Ink and Social Glass, are small businesses, opening the door for agencies to obtain small business credit for these small dollar buys.

“This is about meeting our customers where they are with a modernized user experience and streamlined process for government purchase cardholders,” said Tom Howder, the acting Federal Acquisition Service commissioner, in a release.

GSA created the CPI program under a proof-of-concept moniker with awards to Amazon, Fischer and Overstock Government in 2020 under direction from Congress with a goal of capturing data on and managing products under the micro purchase threshold of $10,000. Initially, GSA thought the market was about $6 billion, but came down in the last few years to the potential market being about $500 million.

Overstock Government decided not to bid on the next generation platform, sources say.

Lawmakers detailed its desire for GSA to pilot online commercial platforms in Section 846 of the 2018 Defense Authorization bill. The House Armed Services Committee’s initial goal was to make federal procurement less complex and more competitive through the use of commercial platforms.

“GSA’s announcement of eight contracts awards for the commercial platform initiative represents the passing of a significant milepost on its journey to bring enhanced electronic commerce to agencies,” said Roger Waldron, president of the Coalition for Government Procurement, in an email to Federal News Network. “Collectively, these contracts represent a streamlined channel through which agencies can acquire commercial off the shelf products quickly. They also put competitive pressure on the Schedules program to improve its administrative efficiency, which is a positive result that will help buyers and sellers in the market.”

The awards come at more and more agencies are using the initial three platforms, though data shows Amazon Business received the vast majority of the orders, accounting for 96% of all orders in fiscal 2022, according to an August 2023 report from the Government Accountability Office.

GSA says for 2023, 34 agencies spent $80 million, which is double the amount of money spent in 2022.

GSA also says total orders also increased to 305,000 from 105,000 in 2022, and 52% of all users were repeat buyers and agencies spent on average between $250-$350.

“This is a pivotal turning point in the Commercial Platforms Program as we expand the number of platforms available, including a number of small business awardees,” said Keil Todd, the Commercial Platforms program manager, in the release. “We’re excited to move out on the next-generation of this program to further our commitment to agencies in helping them get the products they need to support their missions.”

With the additional companies GSA is adding, agencies have access to buy from well-known diverse companies like Amazon Business, Fischer Scientific, Staples and Grainger that provide a large variety of products, but from the four small companies.

Noble Supply, for instance, provides the Defense Department with access to products from 13,000 companies.  Pacific Ink offers office supplies and Social Glass provides access to small purchases across 50,000 products. And ePS  filed a protest of the solicitation in December only to gain corrective action and win an award.  ePS is a platform providing access to small business suppliers.

“We are looking forward to assisting GSA in meeting the goals of the Commercial Platform program. This award allows us to bring other federal agencies the benefits that federal buyers are currently experiencing within the e-Procurement Services (ePS)  Army and Air Force eMarketplace programs,” said David Saroli, CEO of e-Procurement Services (ePS), in an email to Federal News Network. “Being part of the Commercial Platform program will also help increase the growth our small business suppliers are currently experiencing through the Army and Air Force ePS e-marketplaces.”

The journey to this award, and it’s unclear if GSA has crossed the finish line given several unknown factors like how many bidders there were and if any that were unsuccessful would file a protest, was not an easy one. GSA took heat for initially overlooking, or ignoring, the requirement to comply with the Javits-Wagner-O’Day (JWOD) Act. The 1938 law mandates the AbilityOne Commission publish a procurement list that identifies commodities and services that the commission has determined are suitable to be furnished to the government by companies who employ people with disabilities. Agencies must buy these specific products and services unless there are specific circumstances that require exceptions.

GSA ended up fixing the solicitation to satisfy the protestors’ concerns.

The post GSA’s commercial platforms program to grow by five providers first appeared on Federal News Network.

An employee at the Federal Acquisition Service in the General Services Administration suggested using modern technology like 3D scanners to improve the maps of federal buildings to benefit emergency responders and others.

And two federal employees at the departments of Veterans Affairs and Commerce’s Census Bureau submitted an idea to translate ethical artificial intelligence principles into technical steps by developing processes to assess AI at every level, from inception to development, production and continuous performance evaluation.

These are just three of the 16 ideas from 10 agencies that GSA’s 10x program is considering for possible funding in 2024.

“Our fiscal 2024 investment priorities centered on ideas for reimagining public engagement and promoting equity in delivery. We also emphasized ‘Moonshot’ ideas: the biggest, boldest and most ambitious ideas to transform digital public services,” GSA wrote about 10x in a new blog post. “This round, ideas for artificial intelligence projects emerged as a standout category. Nearly one fifth of all the submissions we received were related to AI.”

GSA launched the 10x program in 2015, and it is now part of the Technology Transformation Service, as a venture studio where they ask federal employees to send ideas and then makes small investments with the goal of improving federal digital experiences.

GSA 10x to begin analysis

For the 2024 funding opportunity, 10x received almost 200 ideas from more than a dozen agencies. Along with AI, other topics included accessibility technology, public-to-agency communications and improving data sharing.

10x now will move these 16 projects into phase one of the program where cross-functional teams of technologists will try to answer the simple question, “Is there a there there?”

“They investigate the problem, get a sense of how and if this idea could impact the public, and explore whether a technology solution is possible,” GSA wrote. “We use the phase one findings to guide our investment decisions as we decide whether or not to move a project into subsequent phases.”

In a phase two, the 10x team analyzes the idea to decide if it’s ultimately a technology problem or not. If it’s more of a people, policy or funding challenge, 10x will not invest more resources in developing a product or service.

In phase three, the 10x team makes sure the solution integrates with the agency partner’s existing priorities and technology capabilities. The team is reviewing workflow processes and how the agency can continue to sustain and support the technology. Most 10x projects end after Phase 3, when the product is handed off to its agency product owner.

Then in phase four, 10x and the agency sponsor look to scale the technology to support different use cases across agencies and programs that drive the biggest impact with an ultimate goal of transforming digital services for the public.

10x says most ideas never make it to phase 2. For instance in 2022, of the 25 ideas that made it to phase one, only seven received funding for phase two. Additionally, 10x says fewer ideas actually make it to phase three and four where the team scales the solution to the public.

The notify.gov project is an example of a 10x funded program that made it to phase four.

Another example is the site scanning platform that offers real-time intelligence to help agencies improve website performance and compliance with government mandates by providing web managers with a customizable, automated scanning service.

The post GSA’s 10x to take deeper look at 16 ideas submitted by feds first appeared on Federal News Network.

When it comes to blue collar wages, a different standard seems to apply to federal agencies and to contractors. Two standards appear to apply when it comes to Trade Agreement Act Compliance. What’s going on? For on view, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with federal sales and marketing consultant Larry Allen.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin You are pointing to a Gao report and some other activities of the government which show that sometimes they don’t follow the rules agencies when paying things directly, that they expect contractors to follow. Tell us more.

Larry Allen A time that’s right. I think the bottom line is contractors need to always remember exactly where it is they stand when they’re doing government business, and that places at the bottom of the ladder. Even if you’ve got people working side by side in a government agency. The only real difference being the type of bad contractors need to understand that a different set of rules apply to them. That’s come out quite clearly recently. As you alluded to, the Government Accountability Office came out with a report recently saying 75% of federal agencies pay their hourly wage workers incorrectly, while some agencies pay more than the prevailing wage, a number of the pay less. And that was kind of the end of the GAO report. By contrast, if a contractor had been found to not be paying prevailing wage rates either under the Services Contract Act or in construction via Davis-bacon, they would have been really taken to the compliance woodshed. And that’s just a very much a double standard. Contractors need to be aware of that issue, and contractors can spend a lot of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars for larger companies every year, ensuring that they stay in compliance with labor and wage rate requirements. It’s a whole thriving legal practice in and around the Beltway, too. Then the second part of it was the trade agreements that we read recently about the General Services Administration CIO getting taken to the congressional woodshed for his agency’s failure to do all the due diligence it should have done around the Trade Agreements Act. By and while getting taken to the congressional woodshed is never pleasant. It pales in comparison to the sometimes years long, 7 or 8 figure defenses that contractors have to put up when they are accused of Trade agreements act wrongdoing. That’s the second issue, and I’m just using these two issues to highlight the fact that contractors, again, they need to understand where they are. They can be scapegoated. They can have fingers pointed at them, even when things may not entirely be their fault, it’s easier to blame the contractor. So, you just have to be smart about how you’re approaching government business. Understand that there’s sometimes can be two standards. As I often told my teenage children, life isn’t fair.

Tom Temin That’s right.

Larry Allen I think you just have to remember that you.

Tom Temin Can’t win by saying to the government, well, you only paid those people less than the federal minimum wage or less than the Missouri or Michigan or whatever. It is minimum wage. But that’s not going to help you in federal government.

Larry Allen So a little bit like the parents of the teenagers in this case, Tom, it’s definitely do as I say, not as I do.

Tom Temin Right. In the Trade Agreement Act. By the way, the GSA incident that you mentioned concerns the acquisition of Chinese made conference room cameras, where presumably China has the potential to listen in on what’s going on in federal conference rooms because of that little cute camera sitting in the middle of the table.

Larry Allen If the Chinese are having trouble staying up at night, I recommend that they listen in on a lot of GSA conference calls.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Larry Allen. He’s president of Allen Federal Business Partners. And let’s talk about the appropriations bills that are now law. And we are into the second half, almost of the of the federal fiscal year. And there’s actually appropriations for 2024. The numbers are good for contractors.

Larry Allen Tom. They are good for contractors, particularly if you’re selling to the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security. Both of those agencies received funding increases over what the president had originally requested in his FY 24 budget request, particularly in the Department of Defense. You’re going to see things for all kinds of weapons programs, for research to maintain the U.S. technological edge across the board. In DHS, a lot of that funding is going to go to the southern border. And while a lot of it’s going to go to higher personnel, it’s also going to go to technology that the personnel can use in the conduct of their mission. So those are two good opportunities. And really what we’re talking about here is, you know, essentially by the time each individual office gets its numbers, spending number, we’re talking about five months left in the procurement. Cycle for this year. So just to modify a phrase, it’s very much, ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Tom Temin Yeah that’s right, because it takes a few weeks for the moneys to get deposited in the accounts.

Larry Allen What happens now is the Office of Management and Budget takes all the appropriated money. They pass it out to a certain degree for each agency. Give that back to the finance people in each agency, and then the agency further subdivides it to get into individual spending accounts. It’s a process that usually takes 4 to 6 weeks, depending on the agency.

Tom Temin Yeah. So that puts us into or puts federal contractors and buyers into what, May before they can actually.

Larry Allen That’s right. So, if you were planning on taking that spring vacation, think again. Bloomberg government recently reported that the sustained delay in implementing appropriations resulted in a 40% decline in government business. That’s a lot of business that’s going to have to be made up between now and September 30th.

Tom Temin What’s your best advice for contractors? I mean, they’ve got to somehow get the government to focus on spending and focus on letting these contracts, because the money is not multi-year money. So, it’s either spend it or lose it for a lot of these dollars in the in the 5 or 4 and a half months, it’ll remain when the government can actually do something.

Larry Allen Indeed. So, Tom, and I think one of the main things that contractors can do now is make sure you’re ready with a fast and reliable acquisition method that you can recommend to your government buyer. While some government agencies do have preferred acquisition methods, others are going to be looking for ways to get money obligated. That’s the key word. Get that money obligated by midnight, September 30th. And if you’re a contractor and you’ve got a couple of good fast options, whether it’s one of the many government wide acquisition contracts like GSA is a line three, or whether it’s, socioeconomic status like AA sole source, whatever it is that you’ve got that you can recommend as a fast and efficient way to get that agency to commit the money, you’re going to be that much of a better partner.

Tom Temin It also points to the fact of the need for being on the right contract vehicles for task orders because that’s the most efficient route from the government standpoint. And so, it really underscores the importance that you got to be able to have vehicles.

Larry Allen Well, right. And Bloomberg government recently came out with a report on that as well, talking about the use of best-in-class contracts. And while a lot of these are in the information technology world, Tom, there are also plenty of big spending that happens in the professional service, logistics, transportation worlds as well. So, agencies, more and more particularly civilian agencies are looking to these best in class, short name big contracts to do acquisitions. And what you find is that successful government contractors have 2 or 3, sometimes more, of these vehicles that make it easier for agencies to do business with them. And while there could be some grumbling among contractors about which type of contract gets a best-in-class designation, the fact is that agencies often view that as a symbol, that it’s a gold star type of program, that you can use, that nobody’s going to second guess you about.

Tom Temin All right. So, some work to do, basically.

Larry Allen Lots of work to do in a very short period of time to do it in.

The post Contractors wonder which of two procurement systems applies to them first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Reagan Foundation and Institute graded the health and resilience of what it calls the U.S. national security innovation base. This concept includes a wide range of stakeholders, such as national security agencies, research centers, laboratories, universities, traditional defense contractors, startups, venture capital, and allies and partners. 

The report card gave the country a generous A- in innovation leadership; a strong B when it comes to funds available to national security innovation initiatives; and a B when it comes to the willingness of the private sector to work with the federal government.

But the U.S. got a tough grade in customer clarity, or the ability of the government to signal demand not just through communicating innovation priorities and issuing strategies, but also through providing stable funding and utilizing acquisition pathways available to the Defense Department to buy at speed.

While the government communicates its innovation priorities to the industry somewhat well, budget instabilities and limited application of novel acquisition pathways that the Pentagon continues to use as an exception rather than the rule is what lowered the grade.

“For the first 80 yards in the last 10 or 15 years, the clarity from the Pentagon has been 20/20. Whether it be the strategy documents they put out, the national security documents, the war games we are invited to. The red zone — I can understand some of the grades that were given,” Eric DeMarco, the president and CEO of Kratos Defense, said during the National Security Innovation summit Wednesday. “The companies that actually bring a product forward, it might not be 100% of the requirement, but it’ll be 90-95% of the requirements. They get to that red zone and then the traditional process takes over.”

While the Pentagon has signaled through various reforms that it wants to do business with small and non-traditional companies, the majority of contracts still go to the top defense contractors. 

And the top 25 Small Business Innovation Research awardees, some of whom received less than $100 million in funding through the DoD SBIR program, got less than $500 thousand in the subsequent round of awards, indicating that DoD awards companies that don’t transition their technology into production.

“If we do not have more production contracts, if we do not see startups winning programs of record, because you can only require Silicon Valley to be as patient as it can be for a little bit of time before people start saying, ‘Okay, it’s impossible to work with the DoD.’ So we do think there has been an extraordinary change in the way we communicate, extraordinary education on both sides within the DoD on how venture works, within venture capital on how the DoD works and the expectations there, but we have to see some more wins in the next few years or I do think we are going to see capital dry up,” Katherine Boyle, the general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said. 

Last year, the Pentagon announced Replicator, the department’s program to field thousands of small, cheap drones. Congressional appropriations allocated more than $200 million in 2024 to push the effort forward, which could provide a boost in sales for smaller companies. Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush said the service is the biggest participant in the first round of the initiative so far. One system the service was working on made the cut for the initial round of the Replicator program, and the Army is already proposing several systems for the second round of the program. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife said the service has plans to participate in the second round as well.

And the Defense Innovation Unit, designed to connect technology companies with the Pentagon, just got a major funding boost. Congressional appropriators proposed an additional $800 million in the DIU accounts. That’s up from the $191 million enacted last year. 

Additionally, Bush said major reforms, such as Mid-Tier Acquisition and the Software Pathway are making a difference as defense officials are pushing Congress for more contracting flexibilities.  

“It does take time to filter through the system, but it’s becoming more normal to do, for example, a properly structured [Other Transaction Authority acquisitions] versus a FAR-based contract for certain activities. We’re moving away from fixed-price development, except in very exceptional cases; we’re able to go much faster with Middle-Tier Acquisition and Software Pathway, to get programs started, respond to urgent needs, and actually get something up in the field. So I think the loosening of the reins, so to speak, is having an effect, but we’re far from where we want to be,” Bush said.

How can DoD and industry traverse that last 20 yards?

“We are doing all of the things, we’re investing in the innovation base, we’re putting together DIU, we’re increasing SBIR spending, we’re communicating more openly about programs where companies are going to have a real shot, whether it’s Replicator or whatever. But actually transitioning that into real production is virtually impossible,” Trae Stephens, the co-founder and executive chairman at Anduril Industries, said. 

Stephens said that, in the end, it comes down to decision-making. 

“We can certainly offer hundreds, if not thousands of policy suggestions, authorities that need to be changed, ways that oversight can play into the process in more effective ways. But at the end of the day, I think it’s primarily just decision-making. If you assume you have all the policies, you need to make the right decisions; can we make the right decisions or not?” he said.

The post Limited application of novel acquisition pathways hinders defense innovation first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Defense Department uses the metric known as procurement administrative lead time, or PALT, to measure the time between the date an initial solicitation for a contract goes out and the date a contract is awarded.

A government watchdog agency said that while there have been improvements in contracting processes since DoD began collecting data to measure PALT in 2018, the award lead times vary depending on total contract value, contracting approach, contract type, extent of competition and the type of product or service procured.

For example, the award time on orders valued over $50 million increased by 70 days in the last four years.

The Government Accountability Office found that the median DoD-wide award lead times decreased by more than 20%, from 41 days in 2019 to 32 days in 2022.

DoD-wide median lead time by contracting approach:

• Definitive contracts: 97 days
• Indefinite delivery contracts: 179 days
• Orders: 21 days 

Median order award times are generally shorter across the service branches, while definitive and indefinite delivery contracts take significantly longer to award. For example, the Navy takes 132 days to award a definitive contract and 185 days to award indefinite delivery contracts.

In some instances, it takes under a day to place an order since those can be fulfilled through an indefinite delivery contract awarded to one vendor where all terms and conditions are already established.

For example, the Defense Logistics agency awards many orders for commercial goods, services and  supply items on existing indefinite delivery contracts, often with the help of automation, which allows the agency to process the awards in under one day.

“Over 85% of all definitive contracts awarded and over 90% of all orders issued by DoD from fiscal years 2019 through 2022 were below $10 million in value and had shorter median PALT timeframes. PALT values, both DoD-wide and within selected components, were generally longer for the award of definitive contracts and orders with larger total contract values,” the report stated.

The Army and Navy contracting processes decreased by 13% and 12%, respectively, while the median award times remained the same for the Air Force and the Defense Logistics Agency.

Additionally, the award times decreased for competed contracts but remained the same for sole-source contracts or those awarded through other non-competitive methods.

For example, the Army takes 247 days to award a contract within the research and development category, but it takes 102 days for the Navy and 131 days for the Air Force to award a contract within the research and development category.

For comparison, the Army takes 69 days to award a contract within the electronic and communication equipment category, while it takes 55 days for the Navy and 42 days for the Air Force to award a contract within the same category.

Generally, the service branches have adopted strategies to monitor award times. 

The Naval Sea Systems Command categorizes its contract awards by competed and non-competed contracts and then sets its goals. 

For example, the command’s goal for sole source procurements is not to exceed 210 days, while competitive procurements cannot to exceed 240 days.

The Army categorizes contract awards into four groups and assigns award-time estimate to each group by dollar value and contracting approach.

For example, for $100 million to $250 million contracts, the award times range from 80 days for orders placed on an existing indefinite delivery contract awarded to one vendor to 270 days for awards of new contracts.

But DoD doesn’t have department-wide visibility and understanding of the award times. And the DoD’s PALT tracker has shown to be of  limited use because of its incomplete data.

Additionally, the military services don’t find the PALT tracker useful and “reported that it is burdensome and duplicative of other systems they use.”

“Given these different perspectives, DoD would benefit from engaging with the components to determine if the PALT Tracker is needed to enhance DoD’s visibility into PALT changes for higher-dollar value contracts,” the report stated.

The post DoD award lead times increased for higher value contracts first appeared on Federal News Network.

The General Services Administration issued its second acquisition letter in just over two years, giving its contracting officers permission to move closer to buying cloud services “by the drink,” or through a consumption based model.

Jeff Koses, GSA’s senior procurement executive, wrote that contracting officers, under certain conditions, can use upfront payments to buy software-as-a-service and it doesn’t violate federal procurement law that prohibits advanced payments.

“In the context of software licenses delivered or accessed via SaaS, payment is often made ‘upfront,’ meaning that payment is made contemporaneously with receipt of the software license and the beginning of the license service term. GSA contracting officers have been asked whether such upfront payment is considered an advance payment. It is not,” Koses wrote. “The central distinction is the contemporaneous access.”

Koses wrote advance payment is a specific type of contract financing method where payments are made prior to delivery or completion of the product or a service. It is not allowed under the Anti-Deficiency.

Technical workaround needed

Rich Beutel, founder of Cyrrus Analytics and a federal procurement expert, said GSA is leaning on a technical workaround given the lack of attention this topic has received from Congress.

“The acquisition letter skirts the Anti-Deficiency Act prohibition by highlighting the requirement for contemporaneous delivery of the software, thus there is no advance procurement delivered without an applicable preexisting appropriation,” he said.

Koses said there are six criteria for the acquisition to meet for contracting officers not to have to worry about the advanced payment rule:

• Access to the software is granted contemporaneously with payment (i.e., delivery of the license is made contemporaneously with payment);
• The license is acquired on a fixed-price or fixed-price with economic price adjustment basis even if other portions of the task order or contract are not fixed price;
• The license is priced at a single seat, multi-seat, unit or subscription price covering a fixed term, defined as “a limited period of time;”
• The license’s pricing/billing model allows for no utilization or consumption metric other than quantity to affect the costs incurred over the negotiated term;
• The license does not require any upfront payment other than the fixed seat, unit, or subscription cost as a prerequisite for access or a pricing discount;
• Within end user or other license agreements, the license service is continuous and uninterrupted for the negotiated term of access to the license.

Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners and a procurement expert, praised GSA’s changes.

“I think that this is a win for enhanced competition, especially for small businesses that may have had to previously finance software acquisitions and have to offer higher prices as a result,” he said. “This move should increase competition and drive better pricing. This is a win for common sense in government acquisition.”

GSA recognized the problem

Beutel, who praised GSA’s 2021 acquisition letter that created new ordering procedures to allow the procurement of cloud offerings using a consumption-based pricing formula, said Congress still must amend the Anti-Deficiency Act to allow for industry to bill in arrears for cloud services on a consumption basis.

“Politically, the appropriations committees would likely be very skeptical of such a proposal, despite its clear economic value,” he said. “Over the last several years, we have addressed the need for government to have the legal authority to adopt true consumption based pricing, so as to be able to buy IT capacity instantly as the need arises. This could be achieved through the use of working capital funds and other technical workarounds, as GSA has adopted in the context of certain schedule based cloud procurements.”

This specific issue is causing agencies to have to pay as much as 25% more for cloud services and caused the limited use of the Defense Enterprise Office Solutions (DEOS) contract from the Defense Information Systems Agency.

GSA recognized this problem and asked for industry feedback last July. It issued a request for information asking for industry feedback on SaaS pricing best practices and what are its options better align the schedules with industry practices for pricing and invoicing term-based software.

The post GSA aims to make buying SaaS easier through new policy first appeared on Federal News Network.

The defense industrial base roster of companies keeps shrinking, and supply chain snags have become constant. Now at least some members of Congress have asked whether the Defense Department should step in more often when DIB companies merger or acquire one other. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin gets more now from Democratic Congressman, John Garamendi, ranking member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin Your letter to Secretary Austin was widely reported. What do you feel DoD should do with respect to mergers and acquisitions, which occur, I think, more often than people may realize.

John Garamendi Well, let’s start with competition is absolutely critical in every part of the American economy. Unfortunately, what we’re finding in the defense industry is that competition is all but disappeared. The companies do not compete with each other. The five majors don’t. They basically wind up with no bid, no competitive contracts for multibillion dollar programs. For example, the Sentinel program. I was a no bid, no competition, $130 billion contract. This is absolutely unacceptable. And that’s not the only one. We can go to numerous programs. The acquisition enough munitions to replace those that have been used in Ukraine. Every one of those contracts are no bid contracts. Those are simple. One company or another picking up that particular item and manufacturing it for the military without a bid. This is unacceptable. The good news is that the Biden administration, in other sectors of the economy is saying, wait a minute. The American economic system is based on competition, so we’re not going to support continued consolidation where there is a lessening of competition. They’ve not yet done so in the military industrial complex, although they certainly should. And as near as I can tell, the Department of Defense is part of the administration. And the Department of Defense ought to get on board and take significant steps to stop the continued consolidation of the defense industry.

Tom Temin Is the Defense Department, its acquisition patterns and planning processes, could that be part of the problem? Because if there was a discernible and steady demand signal coming from DoD, then maybe more companies would be prompted to get in on it. But it’s the stop and start nature of many of the programs. Says to companies, well, this is not a business for me anymore.

John Garamendi That’s just not the case. These programs go forever and for decades. The funding may move a little bit one way or the other, but the programs continue. Shipbuilding continues. We have 35 continues. On and on, the major programs are cemented in, and that in itself is a problem. But you’ve also hit on the edge of a very significant problem. It’s virtually impossible for new companies to get into the game. The Beltway Bandits control it. They have a relationship with the Department of Defense, and the Department of Defense does what is the easiest. They go and work with people that they already know, often know that have gone through the revolving door. And so we wind up with this cabal between the Department of Defense and the military companies industrial complex. It’s a cozy relationship, and the billions of billions continue to flow. Small companies can’t get in the door.

Tom Temin Yes, because there has been a series of so-called innovation programs, increased use of other transaction authorities and all of these measures to try to get what they say they want, which is innovative small businesses in drones and autonomy and all of these new initiatives. And yet a tiny fraction of the spending actually goes to those companies. That’s one of the factors you’re looking at.

John Garamendi Oh, absolutely. And there’s a major effort within the Department of Defense now to push this entire effort to bring new companies into the contracting for the military. Hopefully will be more successful than the past. And by my most recent count, there are five different organizations within the Department of Defense to do this, but it is frankly not working, in part because it’s easier to do what you did yesterday. And there is a risk to step outside the norm, and there’s a risk to bring in a new company. For example, the manufacturing of certain armaments is now being done by the major defense contractors who have did it before, and the government is spending millions upon millions to expand the capacity of those companies. Could those millions of millions be used to expand the capacity of new contractors? Of course they could. But that’s a risk. That’s a risk to the people that are within the Department of Defense, the acquisition teams. That they may wind up unsuccessful. The power of the big companies is such that, yeah, they’re going to screw up and they certainly have done that multiple times. But they’re big. And in that bigness there’s protection not only for the company, but also for those who do the contracting within the Department of Defense.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with California Democrat John Garamendi. He’s ranking member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness. And your recent letter to get back to that, called on the DoD to do more scrutiny or oversight of mergers and acquisitions. Does it have any authority to do anything about it if they don’t like one, that’s happening anyway?

John Garamendi Of course they do. They don’t. The problem is they don’t act. The most recent mergers, they could have spoken up about the effect that is the lack of competition, the consolidation of some critical parts of the supply chain for the materials that the department or the military needs are now in the hands of one company. The way they should have done it is to work with the other federal agencies, Federal Trade Commission, specifically with the White House. The White House and the Federal Trade Commission have a very clear policy of scrutinizing and often opposing mergers. This is done in the commercial sector, not in the military sector. The Department of Defense knows or should know that the consult obligation is eliminating competition, and in some cases, even eliminating the ability to produce or manufacture certain goods, leaving it to just one company. And that company may decide that the profit on that particular line of work is insufficient and will simply ignore it. Now, that’s not just my dreaming that’s actually happening.

Tom Temin Let me ask you about another related gambit that the DoD has been talking about, and that is building up what it calls the organic industrial base. There are certain things munitions, for example, they have plants that do make the howitzer shells and so on. Is that a way to foster competition or is that a way to, do you think, is it removing the impetus for competition?

John Garamendi Actually it’s both. Clearly, over the last two decades, we’ve allowed the organic base from ship repair to munitions and the like to simply atrophy. And that’s is now creating a major problem for the military. We’ve seen the drawdown of our materials, our depots and supplies as we’ve provide the weapons that Ukraine needs. The result of all of this is that the ability of the system to produce the necessary munitions and other items is insufficient. Now, what’s happening here is the federal government is pumping a vast amount of money into that organic base. All parts of from the repair depots to the manufacturing of munitions, as well as shipyards and the like. We have to do that. Now, the bottom line is the military doesn’t run those places. In almost every case, those facilities are contracted out to, once again, the military industrial complex to do the work at that particular facility. That’s not universal, but that is the general way in which this has worked. So once again, we’re back to a handful of companies that contend for those contracts. There’s another piece of this related but not so direct. And that is the Army Corps of Engineers, who is responsible, has the programs to build everything from dams and levees to facilities, depots, airbases and the like. Once again, Army Corps of Engineers finds it more convenient to go to the good old boys that they’ve dealt with for decades and do a contract, a prime contract with that organization. Now, there are excellent contractors around the country and around the world, American contractors that could easily do that work. They do it on the civilian side, but the Corps of Engineers finds it more convenient, easier and less risky to hire, again, the Beltway bandits. And the Beltway bandits bring into various parts of the country, not local contractors, but their crews from wherever it may be around the world, leaving the local contractors out and leaving the opportunity for those communities to enjoy the benefits of these multimillion dollar construction projects.

Tom Temin And you have raised this issue at this particular time. And here it is, March. And, golly, in a few months, you’re going to have to have a National Defense Authorization Act, once again,  before the end of the year, in theory. Will you put something in the NDAA for 2025 that addresses this particular issue, especially in light of this new report that just came out? Defense resourcing for the future, the PPBE McNamara era process, which is still extant in DoD. Kind of relates to all of this also.

John Garamendi Absolutely. Senator Warren and I are determined to make this an issue. We believe in competition, the American system of economic competition. And we want to see that competition in full bloom in the Department of Defense and in the billions, well, it’s $1 trillion of taxpayer money that flows through the Department of Defense and all of its iterations. So, yes, we’re going to stay with that. Also, it needs to be understood that the major contractors, Boeing, specifically refuse to provide the necessary cost information on their program. So simply tell the Department of Defense, go away. We’re not going to give you the information that is required by law to be given to the Department of Defense about the cost factors, in the major contracts that they have. That is absolutely unacceptable. And just as a matter of course, we need auditors, in the Department of Defense that have the guts to have the capability and the resources, to order these multibillion dollar contracts to make sure that the American government and taxpayers are not being taken down the road.

Tom Temin And just a final question on the DIB issue. You mentioned shipbuilding, of which there is virtually no competition. In fact, for some, I think Coast Guard cutters, they had to go to a European company because there was no capability in the United States. But if you look at something like destroyers, carriers, submarines. What evidence is there at this point in time that there is the capacity in the United States for a competitor to these types of platform manufacturers to even exist, given the capital requirements and the talent requirements? Could we even have a second shipbuilder?

John Garamendi It’s entirely possible, if it was the Department of Defense’s strategy to do so. Right now, the Department of the taxpayers are pumping billions of dollars into improving the shipyards, both the public and the private shipyards. There is a strategy. I’ve been working on this now for nearly a decade. The strategy is to rebuild our maritime industry. The Jones Act, for example, and it’s possible for the military to create a program like the Craft Program, which makes domestic commercial airliners available to the military when needed. And every year, taxpayers who Department of Defense are subsidizing the commercial airlines so that we could have those airplanes available when needed. And we do call upon from time to time. We could do the exact same thing with the maritime industry. Multiple ways we can rebuild our domestic shipbuilding. For example, the United States is a huge exporter of natural gas and a petroleum. If 10 to 15% of that was on American built ships, we would build 30 to 40 commercial ships in the next ten years, thereby building the capacity for the military to have multiple shipbuilders available. Is it possible to do that? Yeah, there ought to be a law. I’ve been proposing that now for seven years that we call it energizing the American shipbuilding industry by simply requiring, as we once did, that those exports of petroleum products beyond American ships used to be 100%. Now it’s zero. And Chinese ships are being built to carry American, natural gas, LNG and petroleum products. No, wrong. We should do it ourselves. I know the petroleum industry is going to whine. Oh, it’s going to cost an extra $0.05 a barrel to do it. Well screw them. This is about the United States having a capacity to build the ships that we need to protect ourselves. Right now, we cannot do it.

The post Should the Defense Department get more mixed up with mergers and acquisitions? first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The Defense Department will receive $18.7 billion for military construction and family housing initiatives for fiscal 2024. The six-bill spending package passed by the House yesterday, includes funding for 300 military construction and housing projects. The 2024 Military Construction-VA bill provides $662 million to build over a dozen barracks, with roughly $320 million going toward revitalizing five privatized housing projects. The legislation also includes $2.5 billion for shipyard infrastructure optimization plan projects.
  (Defense Department will receive $18.7 billion for military construction projects - Senate Appropriations Committee)
• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the FBI and the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) are among the agencies that will likely have to deal with less money for the rest of the fiscal year. In the House version of the minibus package of appropriations bills passed yesterday, the EPA is getting 10% less funding than last year, while the ATF will be down 7%. The FBI is facing a 6% reduction. The Senate is expected to take up the package of bills before the continuing resolution expires on Friday night.
  (House passes $460 billion package of spending bills. Senate expected to act before shutdown deadline - Federal News Network)
• Two agencies will be looking for new technology leaders in the coming months. The Education Department is in need of a new chief information officer. The Homeland Security Department will have to fill its chief information security officer role this spring. Federal News Network has confirmed Luis Lopez, the Education Department CIO since December 2022, is leaving on March 22. He will take a job in the private sector. Meanwhile, DHS CISO Ken Bible is retiring after 39 years of federal service. His last day is March 29. Bible has been with DHS since January 2021, coming over from the Marine Corps.
  (Education, DHS among agencies seeking new technology leaders - Federal News Network)
• Pretty soon, there may be lots more apprenticeship opportunities in government. An executive order President Biden signed Wednesday tells federal agencies to take better advantage of the Labor Department's registered apprenticeship program. Agencies have spent years trying to shift away from college degree requirements for federal jobs. Now the Biden administration said offering more federal apprenticeships should get those skills-based hiring efforts further off the ground. The order encourages agencies to eventually turn apprentices into full-time federal employees. As another new requirement from the order, agencies will now create labor-management forums, if they do not already have them. The forums are meant to help federal unions and agency managers address employee concerns more easily and before they escalate.
  (White House presses agencies to use apprenticeships for skills-based hiring - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs said it plans to hire-and-market jobs to military spouses. VA is leading a public-private partnership to adopt employment policies, such as telework and job transferability, that benefit military families. The VA said it is a leading employer of military spouses and offers jobs that travel with them, whenever their spouse has a change of station. The VA also allows military spouses to telework overseas and to hold federal jobs stationed in the US. The department is rolling out these efforts as part of an executive order President Joe Biden signed last summer to address a more than 20% unemployment rate among military spouses.
  (VA makes historic commitments to hire and support military spouses - Veterans Affairs)
• Do agencies need new hiring tools to address steep increases in Freedom of Information Act requests? Agencies are struggling to retain FOIA staff and hire new employees to deal with their increasing FOIA backlogs, according to a draft report from the FOIA Advisory Committee. The report found more than half of all FOIA professionals across government consider staffing to be their greatest need. The draft report would recommend that the Office of Personnel Management give agencies direct hire authority for FOIA positions. The committee is expected to vote on the final report in April.
  (With FOIA backlogs on the rise, do agencies need direct-hire authority? - Federal News Network)
• The expert panel Congress chartered to give DoD's Cold War-era budgeting system a tune-up has a lot of ideas. The Commission on Planning, Programming Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) delivered its final report yesterday, after two years of study and hundreds of interviews. All told, there are 28 recommendations that DoD and Congress will need to implement over the next three-to-five years, but the key idea is to replace the slow PPBE process with a more modern one called the "Defense Resourcing System." Read more about the recommendations at Federalnewsnetwork.com.
  (Long-awaited report would replace DoD’s PPBE process with ‘Defense Resourcing System’ - Federal News Network)
• The Government Publishing Office (GPO) has a new senior leader to manage the agency's workforce and human resources office. The agency announced on Wednesday that Beth Shearer will step in as GPO's chief human capital officer (CHCO). Shearer has held various human capital roles over the last two decades, many of which were at GPO. As CHCO, Shearer will be in charge of agency employee policies and human capital initiatives.
  (GPO director names chief human capital officer - Government Publishing Office)
• A new report from the Congressional Budget Office finds that the basic allowance for housing (BAH) for military personnel is higher than what civilians pay for rent and utilities. On average, the BAH rate for E-5 personnel with dependents is about 47% higher than the median rents paid by civilians with similar age and education profiles. The difference narrows to about 20% for civilians with income similar to E-5 personnel. Those service members are usually between the ages of 23 and 28 and hold the rank of sergeant in the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force, and second-class petty officer in the Navy and Coast Guard.
  (BAH rate for military personnel is higher than 'civilians' rent - CBO)
• Federal employees would have to disclose any royalty payments they receive in carrying out their official duties under a new bill advancing in the Senate. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 12 to 0 to approve the Royalty Transparency Act on Wednesday. The legislation would also require members of federal advisory committees to disclose potential financial conflicts of interest. And it also requires that public financial disclosure forms for federal employees are made available online.
  (Transparency bill on royalties paid to government officials advances in committee - HSGAC)

The post DoD slated to receive over $18B for military construction initiatives first appeared on Federal News Network.

The General Services Administration’s top IT official says GSA did not violate the law when it bought more than 100 China-made video conferencing cameras in 2022 as part of a pilot project.

GSA Chief Information Officer David Shive also says nobody at the agency intentionally misled the contracting officer into approving the purchases.

GSA’s deputy inspector general, however, says officials in the agency’s Office of Digital Infrastructure Technologies (IDT) supplied the contracting officer with “egregiously flawed information” to approve the purchase. Deputy IG Robert Erickson Jr. also maintains that the purchase violated the Trade Agreements Act of 1979.

The issue, simmering since the IG issued its report on the purchases in January, came to a head during a hearing on Thursday before the House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee on cybersecurity, information technology and government innovation committee.

“As stewards of federal IT procurement government wide, GSA especially must show preeminent expertise and diligence in buying the right it to ensure government works and is secured,” Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said. “While GSA has made the case they’ve not violated any laws, the American people deserve to know why they piloted products that would not have complied with the Trade Agreements Act if they were bought at the amount necessary to serve the full organization.”

The IG’s report centers on two separate transactions occurring in March and October of 2022, respectively. GSA purchased a total of 150 video conference cameras from Owl Labs, which manufactured their video conferencing cameras in China until mid-2023.

Shive said GSA’s decision to pilot the Owl Labs cameras was based on their “unique capability of a 360-degree view and portability.”

“It also required no installation, was compact and easy to relocate and store and was one of the least expensive among the options,” Shive said.

The IG report found that “at least” one alternative existed that was manufactured in a TAA-compliant country. But “the market research provided to the contracting officer did not include information on this alternative,” the report states.

Shive maintained that the Owl Labs cameras were the only devices that met GSA’s requirements. He conceded that GSA could have done a better job documenting its requirements.

“We did a fulsome analysis of the market research, interviewed the people involved, and determined that nobody intentionally misled the contracting officer,” Shive said. “We said, ‘Okay, this is a training opportunity.’ So we’ve trained not only this person, but corresponding staff in two ways. One, we’ve given them training on [Buy American Act] and TAA compliance. And the other is we’ve trained them on what proper market research would look like, specifically documentation.”

He also said GSA has taken steps to ensure that the cameras operated securely.

“In line with our security protocols, GSA voluntarily removed older Owls from use that the vendor indicated would no longer be supported,” Shive said. “For the remaining devices, our security assessment determined that the cyber security risks were low. GSA chose to intentionally configure them for use in a more limited manner in order to further reduce any potential vulnerabilities.”

A spokesperson for Owl Labs said the company’s “core products” are now made in Vietnam.

“Prior to mid-2023, Owl Labs worked with a leading, multinational contract manufacturer in China, as many large U.S. companies do,” the spokesperson said. “No security breaches have ever occurred or been reported among customers using Owl Labs products. Owl Labs devices never record, collect, transmit or store any video or audio data from any meetings. We regularly conduct penetration testing of our software and hardware to ensure they meet industry security standards.”

GSA, IG disagree over TAA compliance

Shive further argued the purchases did not violate the TAA since even taken together the procurement didn’t meet the threshold of $183,000 required to invoke TAA compliance. He also said GSA has no intention to purchase any more Owl Labs cameras.

But Erickson Jr. pushed back on that response, arguing the pilot program was meant to lead to a larger procurement.

“This was going to be a bigger purchase,” he said. “It was going to be scaled up to purchase a lot of Chinese video cameras.”

Connolly also took a dim view of Shive’s statement.

“You’ve already got GSA employees saying there was no other product,” Connolly said. “So that would argue no, once we have the pilot, we’re going to scale up with this product. There seemed to be no sensitivity or care that it was Chinese and that there was security concerns inherent in a Chinese camera, because we have experienced that with other Chinese technologies. Red lights had to go on. And it was in violation, frankly, of U.S. government policy. And that’s strange, given the fact that you’re the General Service Administration charged with this very mission for on behalf of the federal government.”

“It’s a very troubling episode,” Connolly added.

Subcommittee Chairwoman Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) illustrated broader concerns about buying technology manufactured in China.

“To think that buying Chinese equipment that could be used to spy on us and our government is a good idea, is a terrible idea, and I hope that you never do it again,” Mace said to Shive during her closing remarks. “And I hope you get rid of what you have and give it to somebody else. Maybe give it to Russia, because I don’t want that stuff in our federal government or in our agencies.”

The post GSA CIO, IG spar over purchase of China-made video conferencing cameras first appeared on Federal News Network.

CORRECTION: FNN incorrectly reported the contract that the court ruling forced GSA to rethink. GSA had to change the Polaris solicitation. This story has been updated to reflect that change on March 1. 

The fix is in for federal small business contracting. And this fix is actually a good one.

Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), chairman of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, are trying to correct a misunderstanding of congressional intent when it comes to how and when agencies should consider price when reviewing proposals for contracts.

Ernst said she believes her bill, the Conforming Procedures for Federal Task and Delivery Order Contracts Act, will let agencies push reviews of cost back to the task order level where it belongs.

“This bill would allow small business owners to bid on valuable contract opportunities based on their actual skill and expertise, rather than forcing those small businesses to compete, using more of an arbitrary price competition model that could otherwise exclude qualified and capable small contractors,” Ernst said in an exclusive interview with Federal News Network. “There is a real hunger with our small businesses to see this opportunity. We are going to keep working on this. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get some hearings scheduled on it and bring small business owners in that can talk to this.”

Ernst said she’s confident the bill will get traction this session of Congress both because it’s bipartisan and because it’s beneficial for large and small businesses alike. There isn’t a version of this bill in the House.

The bill is a technical fix to what’s commonly known as the Section 876 authority. In the 2019 Defense authorization act, Congress passed the provision “Increasing Competition at the Task Order Level,” which aimed to enhance and increase competition and access to the commercial market by authorizing multiple award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts for services to consider pricing at the task order level when evaluating bids and not at the main contract level when awarding the contract.

Small business hurt by court decision

The General Services Administration used the 876 authority for its ASTRO contract for services to support the operations, maintenance, readiness, research, development, systems integration and support for manned, unmanned and optionally manned platforms and robotics. But when GSA tried to apply the authority to its Polaris small business vehicle for IT services, a vendor protested and the Court of Federal Claims rules GSA’s interpretation of 876 went too far. The court’s ruling forced GSA to rethink the solicitation for both Polaris and its OASIS+ vehicles, and bring price back as an evaluation factor at the main contract level.

This led both Ernst and Peters to seek a permanent technical fix for the 876 authority.

Emily Murphy, the former GSA administrator, wrote in July that a congressional fix is necessary to achieve the goals of 876. She wrote the “goal was to make sure that contractors with the best technical ability win spots on these multiple award contracts, and to push for vigorous price competition at the task order level. This approach allows contracting officers to focus on getting the best solution for the government, but it also delivered savings — contractors wouldn’t have to prepare, nor contracting officers evaluate, thousands of lines of data that isn’t meaningful to the work performed or the prices actually paid.”

Along with this technical fix, Ernst said she’s focused on several other priorities to improve small business contracting in 2024.

Ernst to reauthorize SBIR

One big area is legislation to make the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Programs (SBIR/STTR) programs more effective through reauthorization. Congress reauthorized SBIR/STTR in 2022 for only three years.

“I have seen the trend where there is a consolidation of contracts given to known or existing small businesses. What we have seen then is the movement of all of those contracts to those known providers. Many of these businesses are typically on our coasts. So they continue to get award after award after award. They are the ones that are on the east coast or the west coast,” Ernst said. “We have a large swath of middle America, like where I live in Iowa, where small businesses have just given up on trying to compete against those that have competed for years and years, and who have the system down and they know how to fill out these packets. They know how to get the contracts and they’re squeezing others out that have not been able to secure those contracts.”

Ernst said she is concerned about the issues raised previously about SBIR mills where vendors win funding, but never commercialize their technology, as required under the programs.

But at the same time, she wants the small business industrial base to stop shrinking and SBIR/STTR is a good avenue for those new small firms.

“We just really want to make sure that through this effort, we’re supporting opportunities for small business owners to participate. One of those avenues was my small business expo at Iowa State University last year, it was a huge success. And it opened up federal contracting to so many small businesses across the state,” she said. “We’ll continue to do those types of opportunities. But then the second point, the SBIR/STTR programs is part of our innovation ecosystem here in the United States, and it’s really our greatest strategic advantage when we’re trying to counter adversaries. We’re trying to transition small business research and development from labs and garages to innovate equipment in the field. And we have to remain focused and have that as the central focus of the SBIR/STTR programs.”

Holding agencies more accountable

Increasing the small business industrial base challenge also is a central focus of her Accountability and Clarity in Contracts to Engage Small Suppliers (ACCESS) for Small Businesses Act, which Ernst introduced in September.

She said that bill does several things, including requiring agencies to increase access to government contracts by making sure agencies write small business contracts in plain language.

“It also allows them to achieve an ‘A’ on their small business scorecard or testify before Congress on why they failed to do so. Then it also makes sure that the Small Business Administration’s contracting scorecard measures the health and variety of small businesses because sometimes we get in a very narrow lane of where we’re offering contracts,” Ernst said.

The ACCESS Act also is addressing an ongoing concern about the responsiveness of SBA to the committee. Ernst said she would like to see SBA engage more with the committee and lawmakers to improve these and other areas of small business contracting.

“We have to use our leverage as members of Congress to force the discussion sometimes through letters, through meetings and phone calls with officials over at the SBA. But also getting the information from our constituents, we can never forget that we represent our own states, we have the small businesses within our own communities,” she said. “We need to know from their perspective what is the right way to move forward? What are those obstacles that the federal government has thrown into your path, that maybe we can help you navigate whether you have to go around it, over it, below it, whatever it is, we need to figure out a way for those small businesses to be able to work with the federal government? Hearings are always very important. That is something that Chairwoman Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and I have been working on, I do have to say it’s been a little tough communicating with the SBA. When [Sen.] Ben Cardin (D-Md.) was the chairman, we ran into roadblocks at every opportunity. Even when we were acting in a bipartisan manner, we would have letters that were not responded to, or even acknowledged at the SBA.”

The post Sen. Ernst hopeful about fixes to small business contracting first appeared on Federal News Network.

Between 2016 and 2022, DoD took 15,000 OTA actions worth about $70 billion. In fiscal 2022, the department took about 4,400 actions worth $10.7 billion.

While fiscal 2023 isn’t available yet, HigherGov, a government market intelligence company, estimates that DoD had over 1,200 active OTAs worth about $23.6 billion.

Despite the increasing growth, misconceptions around OTAs still linger, said Bonnie Evangelista, the DoD’s chief data and AI officer’s acting deputy for acquisition directorate, at the Advantage DoD 2024 symposium Tuesday.

Evangelista and other DoD experts tried to dispel four myths the defense acquisition community hears all the time:

1. OTs require extra work.

“I tell people that when you are going to decide to work in the OT world, you want to be omnipresent,” said Stephanie Wilson, the Army Contracting Command’s contracting officer.

Unlike some traditional contracting methods, OTAs demand constant oversight and active participation. This almost daily level of engagement opens up room for identifying areas of success and failure and making adjustments accordingly.

“If you’re not there, if you’re not omnipresent through the entirety of it, this could potentially lead you to better success or could lead you to complete failure,” Wilson said.

2. FAR-based contracts are the path of least resistance.

There is a misconception that Federal Acquisition Regulation-based contracts are more straightforward compared to alternative paths, including OTAs.

“This is usually when we are offering possible courses of action or procurement strategies that involve leveraging OTA; I hear a lot from some of the services, ‘I don’t have time for that, I’m just going to go with what my contracting officer already knows, I’m just going to do the FAR-based thing.’ That just breaks my heart,” Evangelista said.

It’s a cultural barrier, and Evangelista said they are working on ways to form new ways of thinking across the department’s workforce.

3. OTAs are the easy button.

“That can actually be true if you have a good team, a balanced team supporting you,” Evangelista said.

But what it usually means is that the current acquisition system is not adequately meeting the needs of the project.

“There’s a perception that OTs are a loophole around the existing infrastructure, institution or systematic nature of doing business. I’m just offering a different perspective. There’s usually something going on when I hear these things,” Evangelista said.

4. OTs are a loophole, to competition in particular.

“To me, when someone says OT is a loophole, it’s maybe a misunderstanding of the actual statutory authority. What I usually find is when people are saying ‘it’s illegal,’ what they really mean is it’s different. We might be creating a process that they’re not familiar with, or we might be creating a process that doesn’t conform to some of the constructs on the FAR-based side,” Evangelista said.

For example, under FAR-based contracts, all acquisitions must undergo a competitive process, with only a few exceptions. But with OTAs, the competition standard is more flexible. Under OTAs, competition requirements are determined by the agreement officer, allowing for more creativity in the procurement process.

“Sometimes, competition might not mean I post something on SAM.gov and get the world to respond to it. What if I host a competition in today’s symposium, and everybody at the symposium is part of that competition? That was one of our early prototypes of a business process,” Evangelista said.

Last year, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for acquisition and sustainment updated its OTA guidance in an effort to dispel most of the myths around OTAs.

The guide now provides a definition for what exactly constitutes a prototype, as well as defines who qualifies as a non-traditional contractor.

“That’s very important for us as practitioners,” Evangelista said.

The post DoD dispelling lingering myths about OTAs first appeared on Federal News Network.