On March 20, the President issued Executive Order (EO) 14240, Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement. The EO consolidates the procurement of common goods and services under the General Services Administration (GSA) with the goal of eliminating waste, reducing contract duplication, and allowing agencies to focus on their core missions in support of the American people. The EO also directs the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to designate the Administrator of GSA as the executive agent for all government-wide acquisition contracts (GWACs) for information technology (IT). Section 3(c) of the EO addresses the GSA Administrator’s role as the executive agent for GWACs providing that:
The Administrator, in consultation with the Director of OMB, shall defer or decline the executive agent designation for Government-wide acquisition contracts for information technology when necessary to ensure continuity of service or as otherwise appropriate. The Administrator shall further, on an ongoing basis and consistent with applicable law, rationalize Government-wide indefinite delivery contract vehicles for information technology for agencies across the Government, including as part of identifying and eliminating contract duplication, redundancy, and other inefficiencies.
On March 28, GSA held a webinar to discuss the EO along with EO 14275, Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement. During the webinar GSA’s Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian and FAS Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum outlined the agency’s role and goals under the EO. GSA will be coordinating with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to assess the future management of their flagship IT GWACs, including NASA’s SEWP and NIH’s CIO-SP3, CIO-CS, and CIO-SP4 vehicles. Jeff Koses, GSA’s Senior Procurement Executive, confirmed that “[a]ny potential transitions will be carefully coordinated with our partner agencies and will prioritize continuity for industry partners and federal customers alike.” He also stated that “[o]ur shared goal is to reduce duplication and enhance efficiency. GSA is in a position to help save tens of billions of tax dollars for Americans.”
As noted during GSA’s webinar, the agency will align the NASA and NIH GWACs with the rest of GSA’s offerings. Further, GSA will work with OMB, NASA, and NIH to assess the current state of the GWACs and map a sound business strategy to meet agency mission needs.
Contract consolidation provides GSA a unique opportunity to reduce unnecessary duplication, enhance efficiency, increase competition, and leverage contracting resources to support agency mission needs. More specifically, it is an opportunity to identify and leverage best practices from across the contract vehicles to deliver efficiency and value for the American people. It is an opportunity to strategically address the growing overlap between the IT schedules, NASA SEWP VI, and NIH CIO SP4. Simply put, NASA SEWP VI and NIH CIO SP4 are looking more and more like the Multiple Award Schedules program in terms of contract scope and the anticipated number of contractors. Many of our members have bid on, monitored and managed these vehicles to provide the exact same goods and services. At the same time, there is room to learn and adopt best practices from these contract vehicles, providing a menu of products, services and solutions to meet agency mission needs.
This effort is not a zero-sum game, where one agency wins and others lose. Rather it provides GSA and the procurement community an opportunity to reduce contract duplication, save government and industry resources, and efficiently provide best value for the American taxpayer.