$300M FSSI award

Sapient Government Services announced it had signed a Blanket Purchase Agreement with the General Services Administration to provide management support services to support strategic sourcing initiatives. The BPA is valued at $300 million over five years.

The large size of the BPA suggests the GSA’s strong commitment to strategic sourcing, which is likely to negatively impact small businesses, according to Samuel Bornstein, president of Bornstein & Song.

The program “will award FSSI BPAs to a few selected winners, while the non-winners lose their GSA sales,” Bornstein wrote on his website. “The non-winners will suffer the same fate as their GSA Schedule 75 Office Supplies colleagues who lost, on the average, 60% of their GSA sales in the past three years.”

More information:
http://www.bornsteinsongFSSI.com or http://goo.gl/GLE4yK

Vendor suspension bill

A House committee approved legislation that would consolidate federal agency suspension and debarment offices.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee OK’d the “SUSPEND Act,” HR 3345.

The bill would consolidate more than 40 offices overseeing contractor suspensions and debarments into a centralized board. Larger agencies could continue to operate their own offices if they can show they are effective, according to an article by GovExec.

More information:
GovExec article http://goo.gl/kQ4UeI

‘Buy American’ audits

The Defense Department’s Inspector General plans to audit “Buy American Act” compliance, according to the Project on Government Oversight watchdog group.

Previously, the IG performed audits of DOD compliance with the Berry Amendment, a law prohibiting procurement of certain items not 100% produced in the United States.

The new audit will look at Berry and at the Buy American Act, which requires that the cost of foreign components comprise less than 50% of all components.

More information:
http://goo.gl/SnEjhW

‘Prices paid’ Web portal

The White House is beta-testing a new Web portal to compare “prices paid” on federal contracts, according to FederalNewsRadio.

Lesley Field, deputy administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said at a recent conference that the portal currently offers existing datasets instead of new data from agencies.

More information:
http://goo.gl/Fwz3Yb

Single FOIA portal

The White House told the Open Government Partnership it plans to launch a single online Freedom of Information Act portal.

More information:
http://goo.gl/E4DjzC