FAS new directive

      The Federal Acquisition Service is preparing to issue a new directive on how and when contracting officers must report contacts from interested parties regarding a procurement, according to Commissioner Thomas Sharpe Jr..

      Under current rules, acquisition personnel are urged to report any “inappropriate pressure” or “undue influence,” Sharpe wrote in a Feb. 20 memo obtained by Set-Aside Alert. The memo was first reported by Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Partners.

      To clarify further, Sharpe said the upcoming directive “will provide guidance on what stakeholder interests should be documented, where it should be filed in the contract, where to submit documents that are required to be referred to other offices, and who to contact in situations of interference,” he wrote.

      The memo notes an audit last year found improper management interference in acquisitions.

“Urgent” noncompetes

      The Defense Department reported $12.5 billion in “urgent” noncompetitive contracts from fiscal 2010 to 2012, according to a new audit by the Government Accountability Office.

      Other agencies using such contracts were the State Department, $582 million, and U.S. Agency for International Development, $20 million, over the period.

      GAO said 28 of the 62 such contracts audited were incorrectly coded, and it recommended better coding.

      Ten of the 34 urgent noncompetitive contracts sampled had a period of performance of more than one year, which is prohibited unless the head of the agency determines there are exceptional circumstances. That did not happen with the 10 contracts.

      The GAO advised better oversight to avoid such problems.

More information: GAO report http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-304

HUBZone goals

      Which eight federal agencies likely have exceeded the government’s 3% HUBZone goal for fiscal 2013?

      The HUBZone Contractors National Council developed an unofficial list based on the latest fiscal 2013 data from the Small Business Dashboard (smallbusiness.data.gov).

      Here are the eight agencies and their HUBZone percentages:

• SBA 8.98%
• Transportation 8.03%
• Interior 6.52%
• Treasury 5.54%
• SEC 4.29%
• Agriculture 3.99%
• Homeland Security 3.34%
• Labor 3.16%

OASIS protest loses

      Aljucar, Anvil-Incus & Co. lost their OASIS protest and lost a request for reconsideration. See the decision here: http://www.gao.gov/products/D06998