President Bush's lower-than-expected request for technology spending in 2005 has put contractors on notice that the government market will become even more competitive in the months ahead. The president's $59.8 billion budget request for information technology is up just $671 million from his request of $59.1 billion for 2004, a 1 percent increase. The White House released the fiscal 2005 request Feb. 2.
Federal procurement officials are poised to issue new guidelines that could give share-in-savings contracting the boost it needs for wider use in the federal government.
When the administration proposed consolidating numerous agencies into a Department of Homeland Security, proponents of procurement deregulation took advantage of the opportunity to advance their agenda in the name of speedy protection of lives and property from terrorist attack.
Some companies get how to sell to the federal government. Some don't. "They don't help me understand how they can solve the business problems the department has," said <b>Mike Sade</b>, senior procurement executive at the Commerce Department. Those that get it, Sade said, have embraced the procurement reforms now guiding federal agencies. Washington Technology talked to companies at the top of their game in connecting with government and found out how they do it.
The federal government's reluctance to fully fund programs that it foists onto the states is stirring unrest among state officials, according to budget and legislative experts.
The Prime Integration Services contract to modernize IRS systems has had its budget for 2005 cut more than 26 percent, from $387.7 million in fiscal 2004 to $285 million next year, a drop of almost $103 million.
The Energy Department's fiscal 2005 budget request includes $204 million for its Advanced Scientific Computing Research program, a slight increase over 2004 funding.
The National Science Foundation is seeking $305 million to fund research into nanotechnology, which is the research and development of technologies at the atomic, molecular and macromolecular level.
The General Services Administration is proposing to bolster President Bush's $5 million e-government fund request in the fiscal 2005 budget with $40 million in fees collected from agencies that buy products and services off of GSA's purchasing vehicles.
The proposed fiscal 2005 budget for the Homeland Security Department, released Monday, includes substantial new funding for aviation security, biodefense and state and local first response.
Of the $32.3 billion in IT funds the Bush administration is seeking for civilian agencies for fiscal 2005, a large chunk would go to projects to fight bioterrorism.
Government bookkeeping used to involve people in green eyeshades who painstakingly wrote transactions in heavy, lined ledgers. The eyeshades are gone, but not all the ledgers are, even in shops that long ago built mainframe accounting programs.
Massachusetts issued an open-standards policy this month that directs agencies to consider using open-source software when purchasing new information technology systems.
State and local governments will continue their full-scale retreat from offshore outsourcing this year to avoid the political backlash that often accompanies the loss of government jobs to overseas sites, industry and government officials said.
The chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee has asked the Education Department to compile a master list of accredited colleges and universities, and make it available on the Web for prospective students and employers.
Get it right or get out -- that's the message to vendors from GSA's Federal Technology Service on the upcoming $150 billion Alliant governmentwide acquisition contract.
