A House Appropriations Subcommittee adopted new restrictions on competitive sourcing in its 2005 Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill.

The amendment would give federal employees a 10% cost advantage in job competitions involving more than 10 positions and would allow employees in those small units to reorganize their operations before competing with contractors. The Bush administration’s revised rules for competitions eliminated the 10% cost advantage and the organization of in-house teams in competitions involving fewer than 65 jobs.

The amendment is one of several restrictions on competitive sourcing that have been attached to pending legislation. The same thing happened last year, but congressional conference committees dropped most of the restrictions under threat of a presidential veto.

All military services and defense agencies will be allowed to participate in the Air Force’s bulk purchase of personal computers and laptops, Federal Computer Week reported.

The Defense Department’s Enterprise Software Initiative Working Group says the volume purchase will save money, though an official acknowledged, “Vendors can’t be happy about feeling squeezed on their margins.”

The Defense Information Systems Agency and the Army are likely to participate in the Air Force’s fourth quarter purchase, the newspaper reported.

Houston Associates Inc., a small disadvantaged business in Arlington, VA, won a contract worth up to $70 million to support the Defense Information Systems Agency, Advanced Information Technology Services-Joint Program Office.

The cost-plus-fixed fee, performance-based contract has a one-year base period with four one-year options, along with an additional two award term periods if the company’s work is determined to be superior.

Houston Associates will maintain and support the services network, demonstrate, evaluate and test advanced IT, and sustain the infrastructure necessary for technology insertion and transition.

Houston was one of five companies submitting offers on the small business set-aside contract. The Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization-National Capital Region is the contracting activity.

Federal agencies posted substantial gains in satisfying the president’s management agenda, according to the third-quarter report card issued by the Office of Management and Budget.

The report card grades on a traffic-light scale. In the third quarter, there were 27 green lights and 49 reds, signifying unsatisfactory performance. In the first report card, in February 2002, there was only one green light and 110 red ones.

The worst scores in the latest report were in financial management. The other elements of the management agenda are human capital management, budget and performance integration, electronic government and competitive sourcing.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued two publications to help government agencies and businesses protect information systems.

NIST Special Publication 800-27 Revision A is titled “Engineering Principles for Information Technology Security.” It covers basic information security principles. NIST SP 800-63, “Electronic Authentication Guideline,” gives technical information for complying with OMB guidelines on electronic authentication. The publications are available for download at www.nist.gov.