General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman will evenly split an $8.7 billion contract to build six attack submarines for the Navy during the next five years.

They will be built at General Dynamics’ shipyard in Groton, CT, and Northrop’s facility in Newport News, VA. Each of the Virginia-class subs will cost about $2.2 billion, including equipment such as the nuclear-power reactors that is provided by the government.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded EDS Corp. a 10-year, $860 million contract to take over most of HUD’s IT systems.

EDS’ information service group will provide IT services to 18,000 HUD users in more than 80 locations.

The General Services Administration has awarded the government’s E-travel contract to Northrop Grumman Mission Systems of Fairfax, VA, and CW Government Travel Inc. of San Antonio, a subsidiary of Carlson Wagonlit Travel.

The 10-year, $450 million, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract covers end-to-end management of all federal travel systems. The two companies will compete for each agency’s business.

E-travel will be available for all government employees in December. All civilian agencies are to be using the system exclusively by Sept. 30, 2006. GSA expects to cut the government’s travel management costs by up to one-half.

Northrop Grumman is developing a separate system for the Defense Department. It is scheduled to be finished in 2006.

The Homeland Security Department’s research arm is likely to issue procurement announcements that are partially classified, Federal Computer Week reported.

The Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency will pattern its broad agency announcements after those issue by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The agency would announce its interest in certain technologies, then invite qualified contractors to request a classified solicitation, Jane Alexander, HSARPA’s deputy director, told the newspaper.

She said the purpose is to avoid revealing vulnerabilities. The first announcement may come by the end of this month.

The Homeland Security Department plans A-76 competitions for more than 1,100 customer service jobs in the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, GovExec.com reported.

The positions are information officers and contact representatives who answer questions from immigration applicants and process applications.

The American Federation of Government Employees tried unsuccessfully to have the jobs declared “inherently governmental,” and thus immune from outsourcing.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) is among members of Congress pledging to fight the department’s decision. . “Remember, it was just one year ago that an INS contractor processed the visas of two dead Sept. 11 hijackers,” he said in a statement.

A regional office of GSA’s Federal Technology Service improperly spent more than $37 million, GSA’s inspector general found.

The IG reported that the Bremerton, WA, office took money that was earmarked for IT contracts and used it on construction projects for the Army. GSA said it has shut down the office.

The report said the office used small business contract set-asides to procure construction and architectural services, even though the contracts were supposed to be for IT services; and used small business contracts to place sole-source orders with a large business.

The IG report was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Government Executive magazine.

A retired deputy commissioner of FTS, Charles Self, told the magazine the Bremerton office “paid no attention at all” to directives from headquarters.

Most federal agencies are becoming more small-business friendly, according to the annual report of SBA’s national ombudsman.

The ombudsman rated 30 agencies on their responsiveness to complaints about excessive regulations. Eight recent “A-” grades, the highest awarded. Those included the Internal Revenue Service. Housing and Urban Development received the lowest grade, a C-. The Defense Department was graded “C.”