A study sponsored by IBM Corp. and written by former Defense Department Acquisition Chief Jacques Gansler found that of the 65,000 positions competed under the A-76 process, only 5 percent of employees lost jobs involuntarily. The competitions saved 44 percent of baseline costs.
In October, Darleen Druyun, a former Air Force procurement officer and former Boeing Co. executive, was sentenced to nine months in federal prison for helping Boeing win Air Force business at the same time she was negotiating a job with the company.
The Air Force wants off-the-shelf products for infrared technology for troubleshooting aircraft malfunctions and discrepancies. The Air Warfare Battlelab at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho is investigating using the technology in both back shop and flight maintenance environments to help find and repair electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, environmental and other malfunctions.
A voter advocacy group monitoring the use of electronic voting machines in Maryland reports a number of software glitches occurred during yesterday's presidential election, but state election officials said the allegations were baseless.
Homeland Security Department CIO Steve Cooper gained clout and the funding to go with it President George W. Bush signed the Homeland Security Department's appropriations bill into law last week.
The General Services Administration is looking for a contractor to provide and maintain always-on, high-speed, digital Internet access service and hardware for remote Federal Occupational Health offices.
The Defense Department isn't only worried about the General Services Administration's contracting practices; it wants to make sure all the other agencies its contracting officers do business with are getting it right.
Federal agencies talk "best value," but go with lowest price when they actually buy -- so say the many technology vendors voicing this complaint to me recently. Companies that pride themselves on delivering innovative products, services and solutions are frustrated by contracting officers who don't differentiate between one offering and another, except by price.
A tax bill awaiting President George Bush's signature no longer includes a provision that would have prevented agencies from contracting work to companies performing the jobs overseas.
The Education Department's Office of Migrant Education has tapped PEC Solutions Inc. of Fairfax, Va., to help create a system for states to share information about children of migrant workers.
Last summer, the federal court of appeals ruled that vendor line item prices and a contractor's option-year pricing were confidential information and that they could be withheld under the Freedom of Information Act, because their release was likely to cause substantial harm to a contractor's competitive position.
The Air Force seeks information for a treasury management system solution. The in-house banking solution will provide user-defined business rules and features for account reporting and reconciliation. Some of these functions include balance and detail reporting, cash concentration, check issue and pay reconciliation, bank and virtual account reconciliation, worksheet modeling and Automated Clearing House fund and wire transfers. The system must run on the Windows 2000 server operating system.
The good news for industry is that 83 percent of the fiscal 2005 federal budget for information technology, or $50.5 billion, will go to government contractors.
By Nov. 12, agencies must send annual reports on their competitive sourcing efforts to the Office of Management and Budget. OMB will then report the results to Congress.
