GSA Plans New 8(a) STARS GSA plans a follow-on to its 8(a) STARS governmentwide acquisition contract when the current contract expires in 2011. “STARS has been very, very successful and has been well used by our customers,” GSA’s director of GWACs, Mary Powers-King, told Federal Computer week. The agency said sales through STARS grew to $550 million in fiscal 2008, for a total of $1.6 billion since the GWAC was established in 2004. Powers-King said planning has begun for the follow-on. She said the new contract will probably have on-ramps and off-ramps to allow companies to join or leave the contract during its lifetime, something that was missing from the current STARS. In 2007 GSA dropped nearly half of the 416 STARS contractors because they failed to meet the minimum requirement of $100,000 in sales during the contract’s first three years. As of mid-2007, the agency said the top 20 STARS contractors accounted for more than half the sales dollars. In 2006 GSA’s inspector general found that many STARS companies had subcontracted more than half of their work under the contract, in violation of 8(a) program rules. In some cases as much as 90% of work was performed by large subcontractors. GSA said the violators were ordered to submit “get-well plans,” but no company was kicked off the contract.