Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

White House issues new guidance on category management

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Eight years after the Obama administration began importing the private-sector procurement tool known as “category management,” the Trump administration on Thursday rescinded old directives and delivered new agency guidance.

In a March 21 memo to all agency heads, Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director Margaret Weichert—who is doing double duty running the Office of Personnel Management — tasked agencies with a new reporting regime for shared services that “supersedes and rescinds” OMB directives from 2011 and 2012.

Category management involves agency teams coordinating bulk purchasing in areas such as information technology, security and protection, and transportation. Weichert’s memo reported that as much as 56 percent of the government’s $325 billion in purchases of software, mobile services, technology services and travel remained “unaligned” or decentralized, as of December 2018.

“This statistic confirms that substantial cost-avoidances and performance benefits are going unrealized and underscores the need for greater management attention on collaborative buying at both the federal and agency levels by increasing the portion of an agency’s spend” using category management, the memo said.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2019/03/white-house-issues-new-guidance-category-management/155759/

OMB asks agencies to prepare for ‘orderly reopening’

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The Trump administration’s management chief on Friday directed the federal agencies that have been closed during the 35-day partial shutdown to prepare for “an orderly reopening.” 

Though Congress had not yet officially passed legislation to end the shutdown as of mid-Friday afternoon, Office of Management and Budget Deputy Director for Management Margaret Weichert in a memo to agency heads directed them to take steps in anticipation of reopening. Priorities include recalling furloughed employees, “restoring pay and benefits for employees” and ensuring access to equipment and information technology systems, she said.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/01/omb-asks-agencies-prepare-orderly-reopening/154439/?oref=govexec_breaking_alert

White House wants to reduce the shutdown pain for contractors

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During this week’s continuing shutdown drama, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has reportedly instructed agencies to identify the hardest hit programs, presumably to add to the growing lists of tasks the Trump administration believes it can legally perform to mitigate the pain.

One move in the works would benefit contractors, according to a draft revision of shutdown guidance from the Office of Management and Budget obtained by Government Executive. It would alter past guidance of both the Trump and Obama administrations to allow non-furloughed agency employees to pay contractor invoices for work on contracts awarded before the Dec. 22 appropriations lapse.

The prospective move (OMB did not respond to inquiries on Thursday) also comes as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce organized a letter to President Trump and members of Congress signed by 645 businesses, including small business contractors in 50 states demanding an end to shutdown.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/management/2019/01/white-house-wants-reduce-shutdown-pain-contractors/154412/

See text of the full OMB Jan. 19, 2019 memorandum here: Planning for Agency Operations during a Potential Lapse in Appropriations OMB – Planning for Agency Operations during a Potential Lapse in Appropriations -M-18-05-01.19.2019

Reforms deliver wins for small businesses

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By some metrics, 2017 was a banner year for small business federal contractors. In May 2018, the Small Business Administration announced that, for the first time, the federal government exceeded $100 billion in prime contract awards to small businesses in fiscal year 2017.

Despite reaching this milestone, small business federal contracting still has room for improvement. For example, the SBA’s data also show that the percentage of total federal contracting dollars earned by small businesses declined for the second year in a row, falling to 23.8 percent from a historic high of 25.7 percent for fiscal year 2015.

Given these mixed results, is there a case for near-term optimism for the small business contracting community? Recent changes to federal caps on the use of micro-purchasing and simplified acquisition methods hold the promise of more agile acquisition, benefitting small businesses.

Indicative of the big changes forthcoming is a June 2018 White House Office of Management and Budget memo streamlining small business contractors’ access to federal contracting opportunities.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2018/7/27/reforms-deliver-wins-for-small-businesses

Official says vendors will have to abide by new IT spending schema too

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As the whole of government moves to adopt an analysis and accounting structure that can map technology investments to business outcomes, federal officials expect the contracting community to come along for the ride.

Included in the President’s Management Agenda is a mandate for agencies by 2022 to implement the Technology Business Management schema — an industry standard for categorizing and tracking IT costs across an enterprise. The aim is to tie IT decisions on spending and operations directly to the value to the government and taxpayer.

Agencies are currently under mandates to report IT spending to the Office of Management and Budget. However, “The TBM piece is different [than other taxonomies] in that the measured outcomes are not in shrinking the number of spinning drives and blinking lights in your infrastructure. It’s more about business outcomes,” David Shrive, CIO at the General Services Administration and an early federal adopter of TBM, said during the TBM Summit on July 11.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2018/07/official-says-vendors-will-have-abide-new-it-spending-schema-too/149756/

Learn more about Technology Business Management at: https://www.cio.gov/fed-it-topics/sustainability-transparency/tbm/

‘Data + Use = Value’ is the motto for new USASpending.gov

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If there is one thing the USASpending.gov portal always had was data. But what it did not have ever since the Office of Management and Budget launched the site in 2007 was the ability to analyze said data.

That is, until now.

The Treasury Department’s Bureau of Fiscal Service is launching a series of new data analysis tools to let citizens, businesses, the media and maybe most importantly, so-called “data geeks” have access to a treasure trove of contracts, grants and other spending information like never before.

“We have a new initiative called data lab where we are posting analytics and visualization to help inspire researchers, data scientists and members of the public to understand what this data is and to think of own use cases for it,” said Justin Marsico, a senior policy analyst with the Bureau of Fiscal Service in an exclusive interview with Federal News Radio. “We also have redesigned the USASpending.gov site to be more accessible, friendly and easy to understand and use for members of the public and for federal agencies.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/big-data/2018/04/data-usevalue-is-the-motto-for-new-usaspending-gov/

What should contractors know about GSA’s new e-commerce portal implementation plan?

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One of the most closely monitored provisions of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Section 846, directed the General Services Administration (GSA) to create a new e-commerce portal for the sale of commercial goods.  Section 846 established delayed implementation of the new e-commerce portal, which is set to occur in phases that each require distinct action items and submissions.

  • Phase 1 requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in consultation with the GSA, to create an implementation plan and schedule for carrying out the e-commerce portal program.
  • Phase 2 requires OMB and GSA to prepare recommendations for any changes to – or exemptions from – laws necessary for effective implementation of the program within one year of submitting the implementation plan and schedule contemplated under Phase 1.
  • Phase 3 requires OMB and GSA to create guidance for the e-commerce portal program within two years of submitting the implementation plan and schedule contemplated under Phase 1.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=687578

Holland & Knight’s analysis of Section 846 is available here, and the original Thornberry acquisition reform bill that started this is available here.

Employers required to file EEO-1 reports by Mar. 31st — Does this apply to you?

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Private employers with 100 employees or more and federal contractors with 50 employees or more and $50,000 in contract(s) are required to submit and certify an EEO-1 Report with the Joint Reporting Committee, comprised of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), not later than March 31, 2018.

The EEO-1 Report collects data on the race, ethnicity, and sex of workers, by job category.  The employment data used for the 2017 EEO-1 report should be collected using a payroll period in October, November, or December 2017, the fourth quarter of calendar year 2017.  This payroll period is what the EEOC refers to as the 2017 “workforce snapshot period.”

Employers submit EEO-1 reports via the EEO-1 Online Filing System on the EEOC’s website or will utilize this portal to electronically transmit a data file containing the EEO-1 data.  This website is accessible at: https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/eeo1survey/index.cfm.

Questions about this requirement and the process may be submitted via email to: eeo1.suggestionbox@eeoc.gov.

The EEOC had planned to collect additional information this year, including aggregate W-2 pay and hours-worked data.  However, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) stayed the additional requirements pending OMB’s review.

 

 

 

The next gov’t shutdown: How contractors can prepare

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Congress’ short-term spending bill signed on Jan. 22, 2018 ended the nearly three-day government shutdown. As this spending bill only appropriated funding for government operations for three weeks, however, and does not resolve the underlying political disputes, it is unlikely to put an end to shutdown politics for good, or even for long.

Participants in the federal market would be wise to review the issues and challenges presented by shutdowns in order to remain prepared for what may come.

What Activities Can Continue During a Shutdown?

During a shutdown, federal contractors must determine whether they may continue performing. A government shutdown is not a self-executing stop-work order; a shutdown itself does not suspend a company’s obligations to perform or the government’s obligation to pay for performance. What matters is whether a contractor’s work requires any new appropriation or authorization of spending, and whether critical government personnel, facilities, and resources are available.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=666774

Also see DoD’s Jan. 18, 2018 Shutdown Guidance (Jan. 18 2018) at: https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/GUIDANCE-FOR-CONTINUATION-OF-OPERATIONS-DURING-A-LAPSE-OF-APPROPRIATIONS.pdf,

What federal contractors should do during the government shutdown

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Government employees aren’t the only ones who are wondering what they’ll be doing on Monday if Congress can’t reach a budget agreement; federal contractors are also facing a lot of uncertainty.

Depending on when their contract was funded, what agency they’re with, what they’re doing, and where they work out of, some contractors may continue working as if nothing has changed.

If the federal personnel the contractor works alongside is locked out, the contractor may be too.

There are a lot of variables at play and most of them look to be less than ideal for contractors, who in most cases will lose money during this ordeal. But while everyone hopes this will remain a short-term dispute, there are a couple of ways contractors can use the time away from federal job sites more productively.

Keep reading this article at: https://wtop.com/government/2018/01/federal-contractors-government-shutdown/

 

 

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