The South Atlantic Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to conduct their 2012 Annual Regional Small Business & Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses Conference, in Atlanta on March 20-21, 2012.
The primary purpose of the Conference is to discuss contracting opportunities with the Corps of Engineers, specifically within the South Atlantic Division (SAD). The region encompasses all or part of the states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South and North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
This outreach event will provide a venue for SAD to discuss its mission, goals, and contracting opportunities with the small and large business communities. As part of this event, SAD will host a roundtable discussion with the SDVOSB community on the 21st. The roundtable is designed to further discuss the importance of doing business with SDVOSBs community, and to providing a better understand of the acquisition process in today’s environment. Discussions will also clarify procedures needed to increase contracting opportunities within SAD.
As this is a free event, space is limited and all applicants must register in order to gain access to the conference center. For complete details on the conference, please click here.
To register for the conference, please click on the link below and follow the instructions to successfully complete the online registration form:
http://sadsbsdvosbconference.eventbrite.com
Advance registration is required.
A former Army Corps of Engineers employee has pleaded guilty to charges of bribery and conspiracy in one of the most brazen corruption schemes in federal contracting, according to court documents.
As part of the plea agreement, Michael Alexander, a former program manager at the Army Corps, has agreed to plead guilty to bribery and conspiracy to launder money from the government, according to records filed Jan. 24.
The three others indicted in the case, Kerry Khan, another former Army Corps program manager, Lee Khan, his son, and Harold Babb, formerly the director of contracts at Eyak Technology, have pleaded not guilty in the case. They were arrested and arraigned Oct. 4.
Two officials with an EyakTek subcontractor—Nova Datacom—have already pleaded guilty, according to the Associated Press.
The indictment alleges bribery, conspiracy and unlawful kickbacks valued at $20 million dollars. The two Army Corps employees allegedly steered a $780
million contract to a government contractor. They are accused of conspiring to hide the money through a series of financial transactions on the Army Corps’
Technology for Infrastructure, Geospatial, and Environmental Requirements (TIGER) contract.
When announcing the indictment in October, U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. described the alleged activity as “one of the most brazen corruption schemes in the history of federal contracting.”
About the Author:
Matthew Weigelt is a senior writer covering acquisition and procurement for Federal Computer Week. This article appeared Jan. 26,
2012 at http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/01/26/army–corps-engineers-employee-guilty.aspx?s=wtdaily_270112.
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A federal grand jury indicted a Luthersville man this week on charges of getting $2.85 million in government contracts by fraudulently claiming his business was controlled by a veteran.
Arthur Wayne Singleton, a 62-year old construction contractor, defrauded programs that set aside certain government contracts for businesses owned and controlled by disabled veterans, according to a federal indictment.
“This defendant allegedly took advantage of a service-disabled veteran of the Vietnam War, using the veteran’s name and disabled status to gain millions of dollars in federal contracts,” U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said. “Fraud like this deprives legitimate disabled veteran-owned small businesses of the opportunity to enter into construction contracts with the government.”
Attempts to reach Singleton or his lawyer Brian Steel for comment were unsuccessful.
The contract program is an important resource for disabled vets because they are often discriminated against in employment and business opportunities, said David Autry, spokesman for the Disabled American Veterans in Washington DC.
“For whatever reason,” he said, “people prefer not to do business with them.”
Singleton approached a bed-ridden Vietnam vet, identified in the indictment only as “GT”, in 2007 and proposed they form a joint venture called GMT Mechanical that could take advantage of set-aside construction contracts from the federal government, according to the indictment. GT suffers from severe knee injuries and other health issues as a result of his service. Singleton, who had more than 30 years of construction and federal contract experience, completely controlled the enterprise, the indictment said, and federal rules required the disabled veteran to control the business and own 51 percent.
Singleton secured contracts from the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for construction projects around the country. According to the indictment, Singleton paid GT $17,964 because he said he had “to make it look as though GT was part of the business.”
The U.S. Attorney’s office has not indicted GT but declined to say whether he was a cooperating witness.
The payment to GT followed an inquiry by the VA, which sent a letter in February 2008 stating GMT Mechanical wasn’t eligible for “service-disabled veteran-owned contracts” because GT didn’t control the business or own 51 percent of it. But Singleton went ahead and submitted bids for a $290,000 contract in Iowa with the Agriculture Department, a $96,000 contract in Wyoming with the Homeland Security Department and a $1.375 million contract in North Dakota with the Defense Department and forged GT’s signature on the bids, according to the indictment.
– by Steve Visser, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5:41 p.m. Thursday, November 10, 2011. Find this article at: http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/man-accused-of-defrauding-1222311.html
Rain nor snow nor flooded e-mail servers will stop the delivery of a contract proposal.
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers should not have disqualified a bid because it arrived via e-mail four minutes after the noon deadline.
The proposal from Watterson Construction Co. was held up because the Corps e-mail servers were in the midst of a “mail storm,” causing unusual delays in distributing e-mails.
Judge Susan Braden ruled that the company’s bid was not late because it “was both reached and received by the government’s e-mail servers before the due date.”
According to the decision, a mail storm is an “e-mail sent to a large number of users, a sufficient number of whom reply to all, flooding an e-mail system and disabling it.”
“Watterson’s proposal was improperly eliminated from the competition, as the disturbance in the Army Corps’ servers entitled Watterson to a one-day time extension,” Braden wrote in her ruling.
Braden wrote that today’s e-mails are sent instantaneously in the ordinary course of business, and a problem such as a mail storm is abnormal. The judge concluded then that the mail storm was an “emergency or unanticipated event.” As a result of the emergency, the Federal Acquisition Regulation extends the deadline to bidders for 24 hours.
“It is true that at the time proposals were due, the Army Corps Office was open for business and proposals could have been delivered by hand,” Braden wrote. “The court, however, does not construe the phrase ‘proposals cannot be received’ to mean that it must be impossible for the government to receive proposals, before the ‘emergency’ or ‘unanticipated event’ exception applies.”
Army officials today said their efforts to rebuild the service’s acquisition workforce fall in line with new plans to cut spending and make the Defense Department run more efficiently.
“The efficiency initiatives, from our perspective, are only beneficial to us because they reinforce what we do as a profession,” said Edward Harrington, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for procurement. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ new tactics to cut overhead costs and reform defense acquisition strategies demand better business arrangements and contracts, as well as a skilled workforce.
Many of Gates’ plans, introduced Sept. 14, centered on DOD becoming a smarter buyer because a significant portion of DOD’s budget goes for contracts. From a $700 billion budget, DOD spends $400 billion on contracts and half of that is spent on services, not weapons, Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, said during a briefing with Gates on the new programs.
“I think it’s a recognition that we need additional personnel to handle these contracting matters and that we need a much improved and skilled workforce to do that,” said Jeff Parsons, executive director of the Army Contracting Command.
In a memo that described the details of the 23-point reform, Carter said “a capable, qualified and appropriately sized acquisition workforce” will be very important to saving money. While many defense office staffs are being cut, the acquisition workforce’s increases will continue.
During the discussion today, several Army contracting officials said the decision to downsize DOD in the 1990s wiped out a large portion of skilled and seasoned acquisition experts. Now the Army is rebuilding that workforce through internships and those wanting to make a mid-career move.
“We are attempting to reconstitute our technical skills that were lost,” said Kim Denver, director of the National Contracting Organization for the Army Corps of Engineers.
Harrington said the majority of those who left the acquisition workforce in the 1990s were mid- and senior-level contracting specialists.
“Our biggest challenge is to restore that real savvy, seasoned buyer,” Harrington said.
Despite the decrease, the acquisition workload has grown dramatically. Acquisition workers now handle five times more transactions than they did eight years ago, Harrington said.
“We have a tremendous challenge of balancing the workforce with the workload,” he said.
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– by Matthew Weigelt – Sept. 15, 2010 – About the Author: Matthew Weigelt is acquisition editor for Federal Computer Week.
Filed under Contracting News · Tagged with Air Force, Alaskan Native, Army, Army Corps of Engineers, competition, DoD, FDA, federal contracting, GAO, Homeland Security, Native American, SBA, set-aside, TSA
Government officials and the media have produced a drumbeat of reports about possible abuses of the large-scale contracts given to Alaska native corporations without competition.
August 2004: A Los Angeles Times story questioned the Army’s award without competition of contracts worth nearly $1 billion for base security guards to two Alaska native subsidiaries, Alutiiq Security and Technology and Chenega Integrated Systems.
November 2004: A senior aide to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the chief counsel to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and others press to have the Transportation Security Administration award a $500 million technology maintenance contract for screening equipment directly to Chenega Technology Services Corp. The TSA rescinds the deal after a story about it appears in The Washington Post.
April 2006: A Government Accountability Office review concludes that spending on ANCs had soared because federal officials found them “a quick, easy and legal method of awarding contracts for any value.” But the review found that government officials did not know the rules for overseeing the firms and cited “an increased risk that an inappropriate degree of the work is being done by large businesses rather than by the ANC firms.”
April 2006: In another report, the GAO also found that the Army paid 25 percent more than necessary on many of the base security guard contracts with Alutiiq and Chenega, even though they knew they could get the lower price through competition. Close to half of the work was passed on to two established security giants, Wackenhut Services and Vance International. Auditors also found that the Army failed to check whether the subsidiaries were doing the required 51 percent of the work.
May 2006: After Hurricane Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $39.5 million contract for temporary classrooms in Mississippi to an Alaska native corporation subsidiary called Akima Site Operations, even though the Corps “had information that the cost for the classrooms was significantly less than what Akima was charging,” according to a GAO report.
June 2006: At a hearing, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said ANCs were used to circumvent open competition at great expense to taxpayers: The “Administration has used ANC contracts to manage commercial property in Virginia, renovate buildings in Brazil, and train security guards in Iraq. And much of the work has been done by non-Native companies working as subcontractors.” He added: “Good intentions have been replaced by avarice and indifference to the interests of the taxpayer.”
January 2007: An audit by the Defense Department’s inspector general’s office concludes that a new intelligence agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity agreed to pay up to $27 million more over 10 years than it would have through proper competition on a $100 million lease-and-construction deal let in 2003. The $100 million contract was awarded without competition to an Alaska native corporation subsidiary called TKC Communications. The audit concluded that the Defense intelligence operation “circumvented numerous laws” in making the expedited arrangements for the lease.
June 2007: The Department of Homeland Security issues an “acquisition alert” about the use of Alaska native corporations, warning contracting officials to be sure that they were getting a fair price and that the native corporations were doing their appropriate share of the work.
October 2007: The Department of Homeland Security inspector general issues a report criticizing a $475 million contract awarded without competition by the then-U.S. Customs Service in February 2003 to the Chenega Technology Services Corp. The work is to maintain thousands of gamma-ray, X-ray and other scanning machines at the nation’s ports and borders. The DHS inspector general says the contract should not have been awarded because the corporation was too large to qualify, a circumstance that prevented qualified small businesses from competing for the work. Some evidence collected by the inspector general suggested Chenega “subcontracted more than the 50 percent allowed by federal regulations and the contract.” But auditors said there was not enough information to come to a definitive conclusion.
April 2008: The Air Force’s Air Combat Command warns all contracting officials about the use of contracts awarded without competition to ANCs and others. Contracting officers had to require written justification for using ANCs and specify the amount of work they were expected to do. “Effective immediately ALL sole source actions over $550K must be approved,” the Air Force memo said.
May 2008: The Defense Department inspector general’s office reported that senior Air Force officers at the Air Combat Command used an Alaska native subsidiary, Chugach McKinley, to direct a $128,000 contract awarded without competition to a favored vendor.
August 2008: Auditors in the Small Business Administration’s inspector general’s office find that two Alaska native corporation subsidiaries had allowed nonnative executives to receive millions in work and fees in violation of SBA rules. APM, a subsidiary of Cape Fox Corp., and Goldbelt Raven, a subsidiary of Goldbelt Corp., received contracts worth more than $833 million between 2003 and 2006. Executives in each agreed to pay more than $23 million over three years to nonnative executives at other companies, with whom they had personal ties, the auditors said.
October 2008: A Washington Post story reveals that officials at the FDA used a subsidiary of the Calista Corp. to direct work to a Washington public relations powerhouse called Qorvis Communications. An FDA official with ties to Qorvis later says that she and others skirted the rules simply as a “a matter of efficiency.” FDA officials immediately suspended the contract and ordered an independent investigation.
July 2009: A study by the Senate subcommittee on contracting oversight finds that few ANC employees are Alaska natives but that the companies have joined the ranks of the government’s largest contractors. The subcommittee’s investigation shows that ANCs have taken advantage of their contracting preferences, “receiving large no-bid contracts and passing through much of the work to other contractors.” The report, prepared for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), said: “The analysis finds that Alaska Native Corporations are multi-million or billion dollar corporations that are now among the largest federal contractors. Although ANCs provide some benefits to their shareholders, those benefits may not be in proportion to the potential for waste, fraud and abuse created by the ANCs’ contracting preferences.”
– By Robert O’Harrow Jr. – Washington Post – September 29, 2010
Ignoring calls to scrutinize troubled contractors, the U.S. military has awarded a portion of a $490 million contract to an American corporation that’s under investigation for possible fraud.
The Army Corps of Engineers awarded the contract to Louis Berger Group, a New Jersey-based company that federal prosecutors have acknowledged is being investigated for allegedly overbilling the U.S. government.
The contract will be shared with Cummins Power Generation and is for providing generators, building power plants and installing high-voltage transmission systems in “conflict and disaster response locations worldwide,” according to a news release posted last week on Louis Berger’s website.
The decision to continue doing business with Louis Berger has fueled criticism that the Obama administration is willing to overlook criminal allegations in its zeal to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq. Louis Berger is handling some of the most important U.S. projects in Afghanistan, and it and Cummins also have a seven-year contract with the Army to provide emergency power operations and maintenance in Iraq.
Cummins isn’t under scrutiny in the investigation of Louis Berger.
The overbilling allegations arise from a 2006 whistleblower lawsuit that accused Louis Berger of manipulating overhead cost data and overhead rate proposals submitted to the U.S. government and several states, including Massachusetts, Nevada and Virginia, McClatchy reported Sunday.
Two months after the government learned of the employee’s allegations, the U.S. Agency for International Development tapped Louis Berger to oversee another $1.4 billion in reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan.
Court documents reveal that the Justice Department is negotiating a deal that could “aid in preserving the company’s continuing eligibility to participate” in federal contracting in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Louis Berger officials have declined to respond to questions about the investigation, but they say it shouldn’t taint their work for the government.
A power plant project in Kabul overseen by Louis Berger and another U.S. firm, Black & Veatch, is $40 million over budget and a year behind schedule because of missteps by the American contractors and the U.S. government, according to an audit by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
The special inspector general’s office questioned the wisdom of building a diesel and heavy fuel plant that the Afghan government may not have the capacity to sustain.
Officials with the Army confirmed the award of the latest contract but didn’t immediately respond to questions about the investigation or the rationale for granting the contract to Louis Berger.
– McClatchy Newspapers – Sept. 20, 2010
Last Thursday (Aug. 5, 2010) the Savannah District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reinstated the contract with Turner Construction Company Inc., of Huntsville, Ala., for the construction of the replacement for Martin Army Community Hospital at Fort Benning, Ga.
The reinstatement follows an order issued on July 8 from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Turner Construction Co., Inc. v. United States, No. 10-195C, in which the court overturned the contract termination. In the ruling, the judge ordered the Corps to reinstate the contract.
The Corps of Engineers terminated the hospital contract on March 23, 2010, after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sustained two protests against the award of the contract to Turner Construction, finding two organizational conflicts of interest.
The Corps implemented the GAO recommendation to make a new award determination. Today’s reinstatement will allow Turner to proceed with the construction of the facility.
The contract, originally awarded on Sept. 28, 2009, for $333,359,000, proposes a new facility with 745,000 square feet of space designed to replace the existing 393,000 square feet hospital.
With 70 in-patient beds, the hospital will serve Soldiers, military retirees, and families of the Fort Benning community, providing a range of specialties. The design is split into two wings—a clinic and a hospital section, equipped with two parking decks for patients and staff members.
Source: Savannah District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
The federal government awarded more than two-thirds of the $26 billion in Recovery Act contract obligations through acquisition vehicles in place before the stimulus bill became law, according to a new report.
Pressure to act quickly on high-priority projects drove officials toward existing contracts, the Government Accountability Office reported on July 21. Officials were not concerned that a contract had been awarded before the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was enacted in February 2009. When the contract was originally awarded, officials said the government had met its competition requirements, GAO reported.
RELATED STORY: Administration alters reporting rules for stimulus money
As of May, the government has awarded 68 percent of the $26 billion through pre-existing contracts, and 32 percent through new contracts. Of the newly awarded contracts, 89 percent of the funds were awarded competitively. The other 11 percent of the money, awarded without competition, went to companies in small-business programs, GAO reported.
Directed by the Obama administration to spend the stimulus money quickly, program and contracting officials found programs, projects and contracts that would allow them to award the money in a short time. In talking to contracting officers at five federal agencies, GAO said the officials considered both the risks of using non-competitive contracts and the benefits of spending the money faster than going through the process of awarding a new contract.
For example, a sole-source, small-business contract took the Army Corps of Engineers roughly four months to award, while a new competitive contract would have taken more than a year, GAO reported.
The administration objects to sole-source contracts, but GAO found agencies justified their reasons for awarding a contract without competition.
In addition, GAO found that early on inspectors general dedicated more time focusing on work that they believed was of higher risk, rather than looking at contract spending, including contracts awarded without competition.
GAO said it was okay to attend to the riskier projects when agencies were under pressure to spend the money. However, GAO officials are concerned that a lot of contracts have been awarded without competition — and without audits — through the Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development program without audits, according to the report.
It’s significant, GAO said, because, while the 8(a) program has safeguards, they aren’t always set up properly.
In response, Joseph Jordan, SBA’s associate administrator for government contracting, objected to GAO’s implication that the 8(a) program is more susceptible to fraud than other programs.
“Suggestions of wrong-doing without supporting evidence are detrimental to the 8(a) program and its thousands of eligible program participants,” Jordan wrote. Even so, SBA officials have worked to prevent fraud, he added.
Inspectors general from the Defense Department and NASA said they were beginning audits on Recovery Act money. NASA’s IG told GAO it intends to launch audits of the funds, which includes seven contracts that were awarded through the 8(a) program.
In addition, the Energy Department IG didn’t consider its Recovery Act contracting as a high-risk area because a significant portion of the department’s funds went out through grants, according to its response to the GAO report.
– About the Author - Matthew Weigelt is acquisition editor for Federal Computer Week. Published in Washington Technology – July 22, 2010
Over 300 business people attended the Emergency Response Contracting Conference on June 21st, co-hosted by the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Whether or not you were able to attend, the good news is this: Complete proceedings from this conference are now posted on GTPAC’s website!
By visiting http://gtpac.org/training/training-video, you now can view:
• a photo slide show,
• a video of all presentations,
• a set of all PowerPoint presentations,
• points-of-contact with participating agencies, and
• a list of all conference participants.
The conference focused on the products and services purchased by federal and state agencies in response to emergency situations in the southeast region. The agencies include FEMA, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) though the Georgia Dept. of Administrative Services (GA DOAS), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the General Services Administration (GSA). Information about doing business with several federal contractors also was included.
For those businesses interested in participating in this category of government contracting, the new resources posted on GTPAC’s website should prove to be informative and helpful.
Georgia businesses needing follow-up assistance should contact the nearest GTPAC Counselor. All contact information may be found at http://gtpac.org/team-directory.