A Conflict of Interest

Trump International Hotel in the historic
Post Office Pavilion -Washington D.C

The historic Post Office Pavilion in Washington, DC is at the center of a hot procurement debate. Since 2012, the building is under lease by the Trump Organization to operate a luxury hotel. With Jan. 20^th looming over the United States as we wait for President-Elect Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Trump’s business ties with the General Services Administration are coming to the forefront of the debate.

The Post Office lease between the GSA and the Trump Organization is a 60-year, $180 million-dollar deal that is now at the center of constitutional scrutiny. Contract language is clear: “No ... elected official of the Government of the United States ... shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom....”(top of page 103 Ground Lease) . As things stand right now, not only would Mr. Trump profit and be in clear violation of this contractual clause, there are other delineating factors to consider; Mr. Trump will now be the individual in charge of appointing a new GSA administrator, a person who would be directly involved in negotiations and changes to the contract he holds, including but not limited to rent increase.

The contractual question is whether a blind trust run by Mr. Trump’s children is truly blind enough to be considered separate from the President Elect. Especially considering his children having active roles in Mr. Trump’s transition team and interacting with foreign officials, the lines between business government are being blurred. Although Trump’s team is sighting a Dec 15^th conference, where Mr. Trump’s involvement in his own business will be cleared up, the mixing of his family in both business and government does raise concerns for many in Washington.

Government procurement experts are urging the GSA to terminate the lease before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, however this is the first time that the GSA has acknowledged this as a potential problem. Whether the conflict of interest that this situation produces is valid, the contract clauses the govern the situation seem clear and lays out a way for the GSA.

Conference Planning for 2017

With the end of the new year you are probably working on what conferences your team is doing to attend for the new year. Have you looked at what conferences would be good for your government sales?

The Federal agencies host a wide variety of free vendor outreach events throughout the year. There are also a few paid conferences that could be beneficial for your company, although we recommend to stick to as many of the outreach events as possible.

So, what are vendor outreach events? These are events hosted by each individual agency for contractors to meet with the buyers for that agency. This is a great opportunity for contractors to ask questions of the buyer and vice versa.

There are a few different places to find Federal events:

• FBO.gov
• Gov Events
• Individual agency websites

I suggest taking a look at these sites on a monthly basis, a few allow you to subscribe for monthly updates. 

As always if you have any questions give us a call! 234-212-3400

Transactional Data Reporting (TDR)- What is it and why do you care?

The new transactional data reporting rule is now requiring vendors to electronically report the price the federal government actually paid for an item of service through the GSA acquisition vehicle. The rules on pricing with GSA have always said that the negotiated price is a ceiling price- meaning that vendors are free to provide GSA customers with additional discounts as they see fit. This means that tracking the actual cost paid for products/services vs. the “GSA price” has been a consistent problem for contractors and the GSA alike.

TDR reporting will be more time intensive for contractors who chose to be a part of the pilot program. Tracking the price per product instead of dollars per SIN will require additional work. However, the benefits for contractors are great as well. With TDR, Commercial Sales Practices and the Price Reduction Clause track will be eliminated for those who chose to part of the pilot program! Once the mod is accepted, contractors participating in TDR will no longer have to provide a CSP when submitting contract modification and will not have to track their BOA customer.

For contractors that accept the modification between now and December 31^st, the new reporting rules will go into effect on January 1^st.

If you are unsure how TDR will affect your contract administration efforts, drop us a line at info@govconsvcs.com and we’ll see if you can help you unravel the new rules and how to best move forward. 

Fiscal Year 2016, A Year in Review

Fiscal year 2016 was a great success for small business contractors working with the GSA. The newest numbers from the Office of Small Business Utilization (OSBU) shows that there are currently 12,367 small business within the MAS program!

Here’s the further breakdown:

Small Disadvantaged	3051
Women-owned	3434
8A	1514
HUBZone	540
Service-disabled, Veteran-owned	1296
Veteran-owned	2284

Overall FY16 seemed to fare well for small businesses with more than $13 Billion dollars’ worth of contracts going directly to them.

The Federal Government is proving to be more frugal than ever before and is utilizing cost savings programs and cross agency spending initiatives to cut costs but not quality.

Looking at government spending in FY 2016, over $390 Billion were direct contract dollars throughout government spending (across vehicles and open bids). Spending was also slightly down from FY 2015 with the government spending $48,681,338,439 less in FY16.  Average dollars spent per year between 2008 and 2016 was $491,423,430,510 showing that FY 16 was almost a billion dollars below average over the last 8 years.

GCS is looking forward to the next fiscal year and the opportunity that it will bring to government contracts. Don’t forget that now is the best time to forecast opportunities and to start reaching out to your government contacts to make sure no stone goes unturned. We’re always here if you have any questions! 

October is Woman Owned Small Business Month!

On the heels of the Federal Acquisition Regulations being amended to incorporate Sole Sourcing for Woman Owned Small Business, the SBA has announced the October is Woman Owned Small Business Month!

Effective September 30, 2016, DoD, GSA, and NASA have adopted regulatory changes that provide authority to award sole course contracts to economically disadvantaged women owned small business and woman owned small business. Overall, this puts Woman Owned Small Businesses on equal footing with Service-Disabled Veteran Owned small business in receiving preferential treatment for contracts.

Working from this success, the SBA is targeting additional segments of woman owned business to help them succeed. The Encore Entrepreneurship for Woman webinar looks to assist women over the age of 50 who are launching their own businesses and pursing a second career. And for the other Women Owned Small Businesses, the What You Need to Know section on the SBA website is a treasure trove of incredibly useful information! 

Looking back over Fiscal Year 2016, government-wide overall spending with Women Owned Small Businesses almost reached the goal of 5% by allocating 4.45% or $15.2 Billion of $334.1B. That number is down .62% from the FY 15. Looking forward, the Sole Source provision should increase the number exponentially. Take a look at the full breakdown of set-aside spending!

GSA requires more when adding a new Special Item Number (SIN)

The General Services Administration is always making changes to solicitation, I am sure you receive those emails asking you to accept the changes in a mass modification. The newest change requires additional documentation for modifications that include adding a new Special Item Number (SIN).

The GSA is now requiring contractors to submit their original project experience, corporate experience, Open Ratings Report and quality control narrative in order to add a Special Item Number. For those contractors who have kept all of their initial GSA offer documents this new requirement is a breeze. However, for those that did not this change is going to be very tedious.

We do recommend that if you do not have these documents on file to reach out to your contracting officer. Although, the GSA does not have to provide the documents since it is the responsibility of the contractor to keep them on file. If your contracting officer is unwilling to provide you with the documents you will have to recreate them.

For new contractors this requirement will keep things a bit more tidy and organized since the emod system will automatically populate the documents. But for contractors that have been on Schedule for years this could be a bit of a mess.

As always you can always call the team at GCS for questions!

New SINs under Schedule 70

Recently the President announced his new Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP), the GSA is supporting this plan by adding four new Highly Adaptive Cybersecurity Services SINs. The following services will be included: penetration testing, incident response, cyber hunt and risk and vulnerability assessment.

Each SIN added to GSA has it’s own specific purpose and is designed to work together with other new cybersecurity and preexisting schedule 70 SINs to propose a full solution.

Here’s a quick description of the proposed SIN:

Penetration Testing (132-45A) is security testing in which assessors mimic real-world attacks to identify methods for circumventing the security features of an application, system, or network.

Incident Response(132-45B)  services help organizations impacted by a Cybersecurity compromise determine the extent of the incident, remove the adversary from their systems, and restore their networks to a more secure state.

Cyber Hunt (132-45C) activities are responses to crisis or urgent situations within the pertinent domain to mitigate immediate and potential threats

Risk and Vulnerability Assessments (132-45D) conduct assessments of threats and vulnerabilities, determines deviations from acceptable configurations, enterprise or local policy, assesses the level of risk, and develops and/or recommends appropriate mitigation countermeasures in operational and non-operational situations

One major GSA related change for adding cybersecurity your GSA schedule is SCP-FSS-004 within the solicitation document which required an Oral Technical Evaluation for offers submitting under those SINs. The Technical Evaluation Board will be an unclassified level discussion where your company will need to show their expertise in the subject matter.

Based on CNAP, over $19 billion dollars will be invested into cybersecurity as part of the President’s FY17 budget increasing more that 35%. With cybersecurity threats constantly looming and the world moving more and more into cyberspace, the government is recognizing the importance of security. 

GSA City Pair Program

GSA has a sordid recent history when it comes to travel budgets and overspending, with words like Hawaii still being an open wound among Contracting Officers and Contractors alike. But steps taken since the affair have been sorting out this mess.
The GSA has implemented virtual contractor assistance visits, requiring less travel from its Contracting Officers and ensuring money savings for taxpayers. Another recent step has been the award of 2017 City Pair Program for Air Travel. Sometimes, the inevitability of traveling does occur for COs and the GSA must ensure that they are getting the best deal when spending tax payer money.
Awards were made to United, American, Delta, Southwest, JetBlue, Hawaiian, Alaska, and new Silver Airways cover 93% of trips flown (6,949 Domestic and 2,154 international destinations). The benefits of this service include:

• Fares priced on one-way routes, permitting agencies to plan multiple destinations
• No advance purchase required
• No minimum or maximum length stay required
• Fully refundable tickets
• Last seat availability
• No blackout periods
• Stable prices enabling travel budgeting

These benefits will ensure taxpayer money is never wasted when spending on air travel and the stable pricing will create an easier way to budget travel costs. The GSA has been taking many steps to regain the trust of taxpayers since 2012 and the new 2017 City Pair Program (after the success of the 2016) is another step in the right direction.

Sustainability is discussed in Executive Order 13514

The new Executive Order sets new goals for the coming decade. The order requires that 95% of all new products and services be sustainable. The Office of Small Business Utilization compiled a video to assist with determining what exactly that means, click here to view.

The General Services Administration (GSA), has their own big push towards sustainability. Their initiative which includes sustainable buildings, green products and services and putting policies in place for a greener tomorrow. Their push is to make it more accessible for other agencies to purchase sustainable products and services. Take a look at their initiative here: http://www.gsa.gov/sustainability/ 

If you company offers green certified products or services now is a perfect time to make the move into Federal Contracting. Give us a call today.

FY 2016 GSA Supplier Relationship Management Survey!

The 2016 Supplier survey is out and all contractors on schedules should have received emails in the last couple days explaining the importance of giving the GSA feedback and completing the survey. The survey takes measure of whether the program is beneficial to you, whether you are looking to renew your contract, and if you consider the GSA to be your first choice among government acquisition vehicles.

We all get surveys in our emails always asking for our opinions. The GSA is no different than any other company, looking to improve its customer service, customer relations, and most importantly its’ effectiveness. Plagued by pricing issues and TAA compliance issues over the last year, the GSA is in a transformative moment, attempting to put its vendors first.

Responding to the survey should be top priority to contractors. If we don’t tell the GSA what problems exist or what about the program is great, the GSA cannot adapt to make the marketplace better. It’s vital the contractors are honest about their experiences, grievances, and successes. Past surveys have sparked changes in the GSA like more industry days, updated welcome packages from new contracts, and the plain language roadmap that was released for schedule 70 with more schedules to come.

Each company gets a personalized link, so unfortunately, we cannot share ours to lead you to the survey, but check your email for anything coming from survey@notify.gsa.gov. It’s waiting for you to share your thoughts! 

Economic Price Adjustment: 552.216-70

In June of this year, Clause 552.216-70 was changed, which may cause some headaches for GSA contractors. All economic price adjustments (EPAs) in Schedule contracts are made in accordance with clause I-FSS-969 or clause 552.216-70, depending on which clause you chose when you applied for your contract. In the past, the percentage of Economic Price Adjustment was set at a 10% increase every 12 months. As of June, this ceiling has been lowered to 4%. But what does that mean for contractors that need to increase pricing?

First, the maximum increase per 12 months has now been severely limited from what was allowed in the past. Contracting officers like to say that Contractors may ask for 4% but based on competitive research that does not mean that 4% will be granted. When increasing pricing, the most important thing is to do your research. If you are a service-based Labor Category company, take a look at the Contract-Awarded Labor Category (CALC) tool to help you determine whether your pricing falls within competitive range. CALC will allow you to narrow down your LCATs by schedule and experience levels to see at what prices other Contractors are actually winning work with similar LCATs. If you are a product based company, your best bet will eventually be the roll out of the Formatted Product Tool to your schedule. To learn more about the Formatted Product Tool, Click HERE.

The change to a 4% EPA increase under clause 552.216-70 puts pricing increase more in line with clause I-FSS-969 for escalation rates. Although the clause does not contain language specifying what the maximum allowed escalation rate is, standard practice has uncovered that more than 2.5% escalation per year isn’t being awarded at this time.

Overall, Contractors should be aware that they won’t be able to increase pricing as much year to year anymore and those of you applying for new schedules with LCATS should consider going with clause I-FSS-969 over clause 552.216-70 simply because the numbers are now so close and the escalation clause requires less work to increase (since its automatic). 

Data Center Optimization Initiative

GSA has recently announced that they will serve as a managing partner for The Office of Management and Budget’s Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI). This particular initiative requires federal agencies to “develop and report on data center strategies to consolidate infrastructure, improve existing facilities, achieve cost savings, and transition to more efficient infrastructure, such as cloud and shared services”.

After the approval of the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act in 2014, DCOI became the pillar of promoting Green IT and reducing energy consumption in data centers. Data Center consolidation and optimization is the overarching goal.

As a leader and early adopter of IT products, GSA’s inclusion and management of DCOI makes perfect sense. To achieve cost savings on the procurement side of things, GSA’s initiative to “make it easier” for newer IT companies to become GSA contractors plays directly in, increasing cost savings and early adoption for other agencies.

Boiling it down to the simplest terms combining GSA’s “Making it Easier” initiative with DCOI creates costs savings for the government on both sides, procurement and then usage. As budgets are cut and the government becomes more and more frugal with spending, costs savings are being searched for everywhere and sacrifices in quality of product are not accepted by government workers. The partnership between GSA and DCOI should ensure that quality standards are kept high and organized buying power brings prices down. 

Mentor-Protege Program will be open for all small business

Prior to the Small Business Administration's ruling on July 25th, the Mentor-Protege Program was only open to those businesses that were certified as an 8(a) company. While the Program will remain separate for 8(a) companies, the program itself will be almost identical.

The Program is designed to assist the Protege with developing their business. Protege's must submit a business plan which is approved by the SBA. This business plan then becomes the goals that the Mentor will assist in achieving. Not every relationship is the same, they are built on the needs and the strengths of the companies involved.

So as a Protege what type of mentors can you expect? A Mentor can be a company of any size but must be a for-profit entity. The only other requirement is that the Mentor must be able to demonstrate that it can fulfill all obligations needed by the Protege.

On the flip side, how do you become a Protege? You must qualify as a small business, which is determined by the size standard of the primary NAICS code. The SBA is also allowing for companies to submit an application to the program under their secondary NAICS if that is the business that the company is attempting to develop.

The new ruling will officially take effect August 24th and is rumored that the SBA will begin accepting applications to the program October 1st.

As always you can subscribe to our blog to stay up to date on the latest in government contracting!

“Making it easier” – rebranding GSA

The “Making it Easier” initiative was launched by GSA in April of this year but we’ve been wondering how effective it’s been so far. Do all the changes and new tools help contractors or just create more confusion because of all the changes?  Although the program is very new, breaking down what its accomplished so far should give us a clear view.

The IT Schedule 70 Plain Language Roadmap clearly breaks down all the requirements that vendors need to complete to submit for a GSA schedule. Overall though, it’s nothing more than a breakdown of what’s already in the solicitation written out on the GSA website. Breaking down the process into 3 large steps with every requirement listed underneath should make the process clearer for vendors but it’s already broken into three volumes with the solicitation document too. If someone isn’t used to reading large solicitations, the clarity with which IT 70 is broken down is great and for a new contractor who has never dealt with GSA procedures, it’s a great tool.

*GCS rates this tool 3/5.

The IT Schedule 70 Startup Springboard is without doubt one of the best new initiatives. Previously, the requirement for all schedules was at least two years in business for companies looking to get a GSA schedule. This has put the government far behind the IT curve of adopting technology and having the ability to be flexible with innovations. Who can forget all the bad publicity about the Navy still using Windows XP? With Springboard, companies can use other methods to show experience like Professional Experience of their Executives, Documentation showing company’s financial responsibility, and project information. This puts the government on par with commercial entities in innovating IT practices!

*GCS rates this tool 4/5.

The GSA Forecast of Contracting Opportunities will be one of the more important tools for contractors looking for ways to get ahead of the buying curve. While many companies wait for solicitations to be posted and respond the best they can, the most successful contractors forecast and target opportunities a year (or sometimes even more!) in advance! Searching allows you to narrow opportunities by agencies, set-asides, and NAICS and gives you all the data you need to forecast for you company!

*GCS rates this tool 5/5.

Looks like so far, “Making it Easier” is successful with what it has done and stays true to its name, simplifying the process for new potential contractors, innovative technologies, and current contractor holders. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the initiative to see what other tools and rules are being released.

Less paperwork from the GSA?!

When the government implements a new regulation it takes some time for contractors to adapt and to "buy in" to the new regulation. However, the latest change to the GSA's Federal Supply Schedule Program should be quite the opposite because it means less work for contractors. 

The GSA's latest change, implemented on June 23rd of this year, to the Transnational Data Reporting (TDR) Rule changes how the GSA requires contractors to track and disclose Commercial Sales Practices (CSP) and Price Reduction Clause (PRC) information. All information will now be electronically submitted and tracked in the GSA's system. 

For those that regularly submit modification to their contract they understand how cumbersome it was to submit the information via the eMod system and then again upload the required CSP information. This new regulation will increase the transparency and ease of purchase for those buyers utilizing GSA Contracts and therefore not only save contractors time but will also increase the sales for them as well.

This new regulation is highly linked with the GSA's new Formatted Product tool check out our blog for more information: What is this Formatted Product Tool and what does it mean for your company?

Also, take a look at GSA Interact for more information on the changes. 

Consulting Firm Debarred by GSA

If you have done business with the Government long enough you have heard about companies getting debarred, or black listed, from doing business with the government. A Florida-based consulting firm, Federal Verification Co,, Inc., was the latest to get this exclusion from the General Services Administration (GSA).

In the past they have done business under at least 60 different names including GSA Applications, GSA Processors, and GSA Specialists, to name a few. Many complaints have been filed with the Florida Attorney General, more than one coming from some of our current clients who were unfortunately taken by the Florida Company.

The GSA cited the following as their reasoning for the indefinite exclusion:
"Preliminary ineligible based upon adequate evidence of conduct indicating a lack of business honesty or integrity, or a lack of business integrity, or regulation, statute, executive order or other legal authority, pending completion of an investigation and/or legal proceedings; or based upon initiation of proceedings to determine final ineligibility based upon regulation, statute, executive order or other legal authority or a lack of business integrity or a preponderance of the evidence of any other cause of a serious and compelling nature that it affects present responsibility."You can view the exclusion in it's entirety via SAM.

If you have been notified or believe you will be notified to remove their names from your GSA Contract give us a call and we will complete the modification on your behalf with no cost to you. Give us a call at 234-212-3400 and schedule a free consultation.

Also, we recommend taking a look at the training that the GSA offers: GSA Training

Schedule 70 is growing, growing, growing!

Since the introduction of the Cloud IT SIN (132 40) has proven to be a successful experiment in subdividing IT purchasing, the next step in that progression is to continue that particular mission. Health IT, which is just about anything IT related, especially related to Electronic Health Records, used in hospitals, by doctors, nurses and other professionals is going to get its own SIN on GSA.

Under the existing SINs, any health IT software or service would be categorized under 132 32 (term software), 132 33 (perpetual software), 132 40 (cloud services) or even 132 51 (IT Professional Services) but the expertise behind the selling of health IT software and services just isn’t enough to truly support GSA and its customers. By grouping all health IT together, GSA is providing agency customers with a pool of highly skilled, experts to help them best understand what they really need.

Schedule 70, as a whole, has been more successful than ever. With $14 billion dollars in annual sales channeling through the acquisition vehicle, buyers are urging the GSA to make its use as easy as possible for them! The new health IT services SIN, 132 56, will allow buyers to access the expertise that they need to make the best decisions all in one place.

The final solicitation, which will include the new SIN, is expected to be rolled out this month. Current IT 70 schedule holders should be on the lookout for Mass Mod notifications to incorporate the new SIN into their contracts.

If you’re looking for more information about the health IT SIN, check out the GSA Interact posting from earlier this year all about it! And if you want to learn more about the government’s use of health IT, browse through HealthIT.gov.  

What is this Formatted Product Tool and what does it mean for your company?

First of all, this new tool only apply's to product companies so if you are a service only company look away. If you sell strictly products or products and services then this will eventually apply to how you manage your GSA Contract. The Formatted Product Tool was built to make managing your contract easier and to streamline the modification process.

First of all, we can all celebrate the impending death of the Schedule Input Program (SIP)! This new tool will be replacing it eventually. Also, the new tool will removing a step from the process. Now, you submit a modification and once that modification is submitted you update your SIP files. The new process will include updating your GSA Advantage files when you upload the modification itself.

FPT will also automatically run comparisons. For example, if you are submitting a product addition modification or a pricing modification the system will tell you where you stand compared to other vendors with the same product on Contract. This increased transparency will hopefully speed up the modification process and make small businesses more competitive because there is more information at their fingertips.

So, sounds like the government is making improvements to make vendor's lives a bit easier. In the long run, yes. However, for all current vendors you will need to go into the system and complete what GSA is calling "base-lining". Essentially this means taking what you already have approved on GSA Advantage and uploading this through FPT.

The GSA is rolling out this tool through a mass modification beginning in Mid-July. The mass mod will begin with Schedules 58 I and 72 and will be rolled out with Scheduled 51V, 73, 75 and 70 int he coming weeks. Base-lining is not mandatory within the mass modification but is highly recommended because it will become mandatory as the GSA begins adoption of the process.

If you want to keep on the latest the GSA has an Interact page dedicated to FPT. You can take a look at it here: https://interact.gsa.gov/document/important-update-gsa-begin-rollout-formatted-product-tool-fpt-starting-solicitation.

As always, if you have any questions you can reach out to the team here at GCS. We are also offering free base-lining to the first 10 vendors that sign up here: https://government-contract-services.reservio.com/

And of course...Happy Independence Day!