The chairman of the House Government Reform Committee will propose a modified version of his Services Acquisition Reform Act that includes a provision to allow agencies to use time-and-materials and labor-hours contracts to buy services.
The Federal Acquisition Regulation councils issued a proposed rule Jan. 31 to help small businesses by amending the regulation in an attempt to curtail contract bundling. The proposed changes would implement Office of Management and Budget's recommendations for increasing federal contracting opportunities for small businesses by unbundling contracts where possible and mitigating the effects of bundling when it's necessary.
The General Accounting Office has chided the Office of Federal Procurement Policy for responding too slowly to its recommendations to ensure more competition on Federal Supply Service schedule buys.
The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards has formed a committee to create a framework for government agencies to share criminal records.
<FONT SIZE=2>In its recent report, the Volcker Commission suggested that personnel flexibilities granted to the Department of Homeland Security could serve as a model for reform across government. The same could be said for the department's procurement policies. </FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>The sheer bulk of the multibillion-dollar federal market for commercial services represents a significant opportunity for businesses interested in working with the government. Until now, however, the government's competitive-sourcing process for commercial activities under Office of Management and Budget Circular No. A-76 has been routinely criticized as counterproductive, discouraging many would-be participants from entering the market.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>President Bush continues to fill out the top management team at the Homeland Security Department. Bush is nominating Charles McQueary as undersecretary for science and technology and Michael Brown as undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response.</FONT>
Two potentially disruptive technologies watched closely by government systems integrators today are open-source software and nanotechnology. Each holds the promise of radically changing the landscape of information technology.</FONT><FONT SIZE=2>The concept of open-source software, for example, challenges many notions about how software should be created and sold. "If you are an entrenched proprietary software vendor, this paradigm shift can be alarming," said <b>John Weathersby</b>, chairman of the Oxford, Miss.-based Open Source Software Institute.</FONT>
President Bush will request $59.1 billion in federal information technology funding for fiscal 2004, White House official Mark Forman said Monday. The request is about $4.9 billion more than the $54.2 billion in IT spending expected in fiscal 2003.
The Bush administration's request for federal IT funding for fiscal 2004 could increase by more than 15 percent over the 2003 request, OMB's director says.
The General Services Administration wants to charge subscribers to its FedBizOpps service an annual fee for using its special e-mail notification features. The fee, which would be no more than $30, would be charged beginning Oct. 1. It would be charged only for subscribers who sign up to receive all notices from selected organizations and product service classifications, or to receive all procurement notices on the site.
Federal information technology vendors will have until Oct. 1, 2004, to ensure that government purchasers of electronic and IT products under $2,500 are able to buy goods that comply with Section 508 technical standards.
<FONT SIZE=2>Been there, done that.</FONT><FONT SIZE=2>California most likely will not re-establish a statewide technology office this year after the old one was shut down in 2002 for malfeasance.</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>Concerns continue to mount over the impact of procurement reforms on small business. On the heels of an Oct. 2 Small Business Administration report that recorded the highest bundling rates in a decade, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy released the administration's unbundling strategy. The plan focuses more on preventing bundling -- through reviews and a higher level of accountability -- than on unbundling existing contracts. The plan seeks to hold agencies accountable for eliminating unnecessary contract bundling and mitigating the effects of necessary bundling. </FONT>
<FONT SIZE=2>	The Federal Aviation Administration is not expected to outsource air traffic control jobs to the private sector, despite a move by the agency to reclassify the jobs as commercial positions.</FONT>
