The General Services Administration has chosen 59 of the 62 bidders for its $50 billion Alliant information technology contract, the agency announced today. This could be the start of another round of protests for the already protest-plagued procurement. This time last year, a federal court upheld the protest of eight bidders that claimed GSA didn’t properly evaluate their bids. All eight of those protesters were awarded contracts this time around, but it’s not clear if the losing bidders will seek to protest this latest decision. The awardees are: 1. Abacus Technology Corporation 2. Accenture National Security Services, LLC 3. Advanced…
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More lawmakers are calling on the Defense Department and the Office of Management and Budget to stop public-private competitions for federal work, which are conducted under OMB Circular A-76. House Armed Services Committee chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo. and Readiness Subcommittee chairman Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, sent a pair of letters to OMB Director Peter Orszag and Defense Secretary Robert Gates on March 26. The letters urge them to stop using the circular and to conduct a review of competitive sourcing to ensure it’s the right thing for the government. The two House Democrats believe that competitive sourcing has become “a mandate…
The General Services Administration will finally re-award it’s multibillion dollar Alliant information technology contract tomorrow, the agency said. The announcement comes about one year after a federal court upheld a protest against a previous set of awards GSA made, forcing the agency to re-evaluate the procurement meant to become the government’s premier IT contract. Following the protest decision, Federal Times uncovered an apparent conflict of interest regarding the contractor GSA hired to collect performance information from the bidders. The GSA IG found other irregularities with GSA’s evaluation process. One has to wonder whether this round of awards will spark new rounds…
Jon Cannon, President Barack Obama’s nominee for deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, withdrew his name from consideration Wednesday afternoon. And in case you’re wondering, it’s not over unpaid taxes, an issue which has befallen a handful of Obama’s other nominees. Cannon, an environmental law professor at the University of Virginia, said he withdrew because he once served on the board of a nonprofit group currently under investigation. It has come to my attention that America’s Clean Water Foundation, where I once served on the board of directors, has become the subject of scrutiny. While my service on the…
The Government Accountability Office issued a blunt assessment of the Defense Department’s grip on its acquisition workforce needs today. Its opening line: DoD lacks critical departmentwide information to ensure its acquisition workforce is sufficient to meet its national security mission. And its second line: In its acquisition workforce assessments, DoD does not collect or track information on contractor personnel, despite their being a key segment of the total acquisition workforce. Followed closely by: DoD also lacks information on why contractor personnel are used, which limits its ability to determine whether decisions to use contractors to augment the in-house acquisition workforce…
The United States Military Academy will outsource more than 300 public works jobs to the private sector, the university announced today. Ginn Group, a Peachtree City, Ga. company, was selected to provide public works and maintenance services to the Army’s West Point, N.Y. campus. The decision is tentative and will be subject to a 20-day review period during which losing bidders can protest to the Government Accountability Office. The estimated cost savings will be released following that 20-day period, a USMA spokesman said.
Federal Times wants to hear from employees and managers under the National Security Personnel System about how the program should be improved. Do you think it’s working or not? Where are its weaknesses? What can be done to fix those problems, now that the Pentagon and Office of Personnel Management are putting NSPS under the microscope? Or do you think the system is too flawed to repair, and that it’s time to return to the General Schedule? E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com if you’d like to talk. If you’d prefer that your name not be published, that would be fine.
The Washington Post says President Barack Obama is planning to deploy hundreds of diplomats and other federal employees to Afghanistan as part of a major effort to bolster reconstruction efforts in the war-torn country. The Post reports that aside from senior State Department diplomats, “other civilian officials are to be drawn from government departments such as Agriculture and Justice, and hundreds of new ‘full-time, temporary’ positions are planned” under a new strategy expected to be approved next week. During last year’s presidential campaign, Obama promised to refocus U.S. attention on Afghanistan, where the Taliban is regaining strength and Afghan president…
Congress and the White House have declared their desire to see an end to public-private competitions for federal jobs through the omnibus bill and other proclamations. But that doesn’t mean the competitions have been stopped completely. Approximately 570 public works and custodial employees at the U.S. Military Academy will learn the fate of their jobs next week when a two-year long public-private competition for their jobs is expected to conclude. Two members of congress are urging the Defense Department to cancel the competition before a decision is announced. In a March 18 letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Reps. John Hall,…
Update, 5:05 p.m.: A quick (and supportive) reaction from John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees: “We have said consistently that this system is inherently flawed. It lacks transparency and fairness. It is a system that is completely untenable and should never have been pursued… I am pleased that [Lynn] has decided to take immediate action.” Original post: The Defense Department announced a major review of the National Security Personnel System today. The announcement came from William Lynn, the deputy secretary of defense. The pay-for-performance system has been controversial for years; President Barack Obama said during the…