Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

GSA reopens Schedule 75, and introduces ‘enhanced’ office supplies SIN

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The General Services Administration (GSA) has reopened the new and improved Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) 75 to new offerors and also added what GSA is calling “a new enhanced” special item number (SIN).  The new SIN is known as Office Supplies Fourth Generation (OS4) for Office Products and Services to the Schedule.

“The new MAS 75 and enhanced SIN were designed to leverage the advantages of utilizing the increased competition from OS2 and ensuring the transparency set forth in OS3, to help GSA accomplish its goals and create value,” says GSA Administrator Emily Murphy. “Increased competition and transparency will help customers and GSA’s industry partners by improving task order-level competition for the federal acquisition community and removing barriers to entry to industry. Ultimately, this means better value and more favorable terms and conditions for customers and more opportunities for small businesses in the government marketplace.”

Run by GSA’s Northeast Caribbean Region, the new office supplies acquisition solution incorporates the Best-In-Class (BIC) features of the OS3 solutions to increase market share, reduce program redundancies, improve customer satisfaction, and increase federal acquisition opportunities for small businesses. Additionally, the combined legacy and enhanced SINs offer customers significant savings, while also meeting sustainable acquisition and socioeconomic goals.

The reopening of MAS 75 and establishment of the enhanced SIN OS4 will also help GSA meet GSA’s goals of refreshing and expanding a competitive pool of qualified vendors, improving customer value on MAS 75 by offering more favorable terms and conditions, savings, and increasing OCONUS (overseas) utilization.

For more information about the reopening of MAS 75 and the new enhanced SIN, visit www.gsa.gov/schedule75.

GSA creates Schedule SIN for health IT services

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Health Information Technology (IT) is one of the fastest-growing fields in the IT industry, in part due to a spurt of government technology modernization initiatives. After seeing skyrocketing demand across federal government agencies for the past several years, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) decided to prioritize Health IT as its own separate category within GSA Schedule 70 by establishing Health IT Special Item Number (SIN) 132-56.

The new SIN was officially established on August 1, 2016. It is the first SIN of its kind directly correlated to Health IT in compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR).

This new SIN category will give Health IT companies access to business with federal government agencies including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Defense Health Agency (a joint integrated Combat Support Agency that enables the U.S Army, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force medical services to provide a medically ready force and ready medical force to Combatant Commands in both peacetime and wartime). As military and civilian healthcare reforms take effect, GSA expects these agencies’ demand to continue to grow.

Part of the justification for establishing a separate category is that Health IT is truly different — in that companies involved in the Health IT industry require very specific skillsets and have to comply with various healthcare security standards, including the Privacy Act of 1974, Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA).

Keep reading this article at: http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/gsa-has-created-a-separate-category-for-55952/

Russia concerns negatively impact GSA Schedule contractors

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There is no shortage of news these days involving Russia.

You would think that U.S. government contracting would be immune from these considerations. You’d be wrong.

That’s because on July 11 2017, the Government removed Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab products from the General Services Administration’s Schedule Program. Kaspersky provided products through resellers which held GSA Schedule 67 and 70 contracts for photographic equipment and related services, and IT services. As a company based in Moscow, Kaspersky came under scrutiny from the Government and was removed from the schedules “to ensure the integrity and security of U.S. government systems and networks” according to a GSA statement cited by Reuters.

According to the Government’s System for Award Management (SAM), Kaspersky remains an active contractor and has not been suspended or proposed for debarment. Accordingly, agencies can still purchase Kaspersky products but not from Kaspersky’s previously held schedule contracts.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/russia-concerns-negatively-impact-gsa-70004/

Vendors could save millions with new GSA reporting requirement

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GSA logoThe General Services Administration (GSA) published a final rule on June 23, 2016 for what it’s calling the “most transformational changes to GSA’s Federal Supply Schedules Program in more than two decades.”

The Transactional Data Reporting (TDR) rule requires federal contractors to report data on individual task orders and purchases made on GSA schedules, including part numbers, quantities and prices paid. While this seems like an additional requirement for vendors, the new process will eliminate some older reporting requirements and is intended to streamline the process.

GSA procurement officials expect the new process will save millions a year in processing overhead, namely by eliminating commercial sales practices disclosures and the Price Reductions Clause.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/gsa-gwac/2016/06/22/transactional-data-rule/86247440/

See the new rule published in the Federal Register at: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2016/06/23/2016-14728/general-services-administration-acquisition-regulation-gsar-transactional-data-reporting

SBA to interpret Supreme Court contractor ruling for small business

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SBA logo smallThe June 16 Supreme Court decision requiring the Veterans Affairs Department to expand set-asides for veteran-owned small businesses could affect broader procurement regulations across government, says the Small Business Administration’s John Shoraka, associate administrator of SBA’s Office of Government Contracting and Business Development.  He recently told Government Executive at a contractors networking event that “the path forward is that we have to interpret how the decision impacts the Small Business Act.”

The court’s decision in Kingdomware Technologies Inc. v. the United States determined that the so-called “rule of two” requirement that the VA consider at least two bidding contractor firms (and apply a set-aside to the one that qualifies) must apply to supply orders as well as contracts.

“There was a perception that a [pre-existing GSA Schedule] order was not a contract, so the rule didn’t apply,” Shoraka told the audience. “But the Supreme Court says it is a contract, so now we know,” and the department must pick the veteran-owned small business assuming it offers a reasonable price.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/contracting/2016/06/sba-interpret-supreme-court-contractor-ruling-small-business/129477

GSA’s contracts revamp could help small IT companies

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GSA Schedule ContractThe General Services Administration (GSA) is currently transforming its Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) contracts, which should make it easier for smaller, more innovative companies to do business with the government, the official leading the effort said recently.

The transformation of GSA schedules — long-term governmentwide contracts that provide more than 25 million products and services to agencies with shorter procurements and lower administrative costs — will streamline the process for vendors of all types and sizes in doing business on one of GSA’s schedules. But specifically, said Judith Zawatsky, GSA’s program manager for the MAS transformation, it will make it easier for “new suppliers and potential suppliers to do business with the federal government.”

“We need to find a way to bring innovation from industry into the government,” Zawatsky said at a GSA industry day. “This is really, really important … And we need as a schedules program not just to sort of be the charter, stalwart program of the federal government, but we also need take part and to facilitate bringing innovation into government.”

Keep reading this article at: http://fedscoop.com/how-gsas-contracts-revamp-could-help-small-it-companies

Understanding the scope of GSA Schedule labor category descriptions

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GSA Schedule ContractIn a Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) procurement conducted under FAR Subpart 8.4, all items quoted and ordered by the agency are required to be available on the vendor’s schedule contract as a precondition to its receiving the order. This means, in the case of a task order for services, that all of the solicited labor categories must be on the successful vendor’s FSS contract.

GAO-GovernmentAccountabilityOffice-SealGAO has issued several opinions addressing what it means for GSA schedule services to be “on” a vendor’s FSS contract. In US Investigation Services, Professional Services Division, B-410454.2, Jan. 15, 2015, 2016 CPD ¶ 44, a bid protest successfully litigated by Sheppard Mullin, GAO articulated the test as whether the duties, responsibilities, and qualifications for the types of employees solicited by the agency are encompassed within the FSS labor category description. In that case, GAO sustained a protest alleging that the services offered by the awardee were not available on its GSA schedule contract where “none of the responsibilities or activities described in [the awardee’s FSS] labor category description [was] germane to the work required under the RFQ.”

More recently, in AllWorld Language Consultants, Inc., B-411481.3, Jan. 6, 2016, 2016 CPD ¶ 12, GAO articulated what could be interpreted as a more restrictive standard for determining whether services are available on a vendor’s FSS contract.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=471766

GSA continues efforts to consolidate Professional Services contracts

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The General Services Administration (GSA) recently announced its intention to further promote the consolidation of professional services contracts by encouraging agencies to transition from expiring, one-off contracts to multiple-award contracting vehicles.

GSA Schedule ContractThe announcement comes on the heels of GSA’s October 1, 2015 announcement that it would be consolidating eight separate schedules into a new Professional Services Schedule (PSS) that will allow federal government agencies to use one contracting vehicle to fulfill a host of professional services requirements.

With many professional services contracts set to expire in Fiscal Year 2016, GSA is actively encouraging agencies to re-compete the contracts using existing agency indefinite delivery indefinite quantity contracts (IDIQ), GSA schedule contracts, such as the PSS, or GSA’s OASIS contracting vehicle, an IDIQ contract meant for professional services.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=441736

For more information on the PSS, read the blog post at: http://govcon.mofo.com/schedule-contracting/gsa-launches-new-professional-services-schedule/.

As GSA’s FAS struggles to reinvent itself, contractors suffer

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The last year has been a tough one for the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) program.  The Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) – the GSA agency charged with administering the MAS program – has struggled to re-invent itself and its contracting vehicles in order to ensure they both stay relevant in an increasingly competitive federal marketplace.  The byproduct of this struggle has been mostly negative for Schedule vendors.

GSA Schedule ContractIn an effort to demonstrate the value its contracts bring to federal customers, FAS has pursued an unrelenting crusade aimed at reducing prices at all costs.  It is no longer enough for a vendor to give the Government a great deal vis-à-vis its commercial customers (a determination historically made through a “vertical pricing” analysis).  Now vendors also must charge less than their competitors – a determination made through a “horizontal pricing” analysis.  While FAS contracting officers are supposed to consider factors that may explain a price differential as part of their price evaluation, in practice, COs pay little heed to such “trifles.”  The concept of value rarely enters into the equation any more.

Time and again, vendors are told to lower prices or remove products from their Schedule because another vendor offers the same product at a lower price.  So what that the other vendor offers no customer service, no phone support, no warranty, and is run by two guys out of a garage in Glenwood.  Price is king, and that’s all FAS seems to care about nowadays.  (We mean no disrespect to the good people of Glenwood by the way.  We just couldn’t resist the alliteration.)

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=417332

Schedule 70 adding sections for health IT, cybersecurity

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After the release of a special item number (SIN) for cloud products and services on IT Schedule 70, the General Services Administration is now looking to create two more SINs for targeted technologies, namely health IT and cybersecurity.

GSA logoThe Office of Integrated Technology Services (ITS) plans to issue a request for information in the next two weeks asking agencies and industry to comment on what needs to be included in a health IT SIN, according to Soundjata Carty, contracting officer at the ITS Office of IT Schedule Programs.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federaltimes.com/story/government/acquisition/gsa-gwac/2015/06/03/schedule-70-health-it-cyber/28411893/

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