Senate appropriations leaders are already expressing concern over the ability of Congress to pass FY’24 spending bills by the new early March deadline. “I’m very concerned that we don’t have the allocations for the subcommittees so that we can begin work on the conference,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) when speaking to reporters early this week.  One issue is that there is yet no agreement on spending caps for each of the 12 separate bills. The current approach used by appropriators to agree to top-line caps and then back everything into each separate measure.    Another issue is the debate over security at the southern border.  It is tied to foreign aid appropriations and is therefore linked to the overall process of reaching an agreement on final appropriations for all agencies.  House Republicans have made clear that they expect their language to be adopted, something with which the Senate is not likely to agree.  Also, while March may seem like it’s a long way off, the House is out of session this week and both chambers will take an extended 10-day break for the President’s Day holiday in February.    That doesn’t leave very many days to work together to iron out differences and separately vote on each measure.  Although few are saying it, the situation could lead to a year-long CR for most civilian operations, with potential carve-outs for programs deemed to be of particular importance.  Not passing a DOD appropriations bill would simply be a total failure of duty given today’s geopolitical reality.  As such, DOD would likely finally get an appropriations bill at some point this year.  Contractors and their customers must continue to wait and see how these events unfold.  Congress will again go right down to the wire.  Stay tuned.

GSA has long said that its aim was to collect enough information on pricing and sales trends to use as a tool to help them make pricing decisions.  Welcome to the future.  A recent agency webinar showed just how much data the agency collects and how it is being used to pressure companies into offering lower prices on Schedule contracts or risk having specific items, or an entire contract, terminated.  GSA analysts discussed the three factors that go into making Schedule pricing decisions:  the catalog or median price, the lowest catalog or commercial price, and price analysis of the same or similar items offered via TDR-based Schedule contracts. Read more

“AI all day, every day” is a top priority for many federal CIO officials, according to recent comments made by DHS and DOD CIO representatives during a Federal Executive Forum webinar offered by Federal News Network.  While this issue should not be a surprise to contractors, there may be some CIO priorities that are.  Both Rachelle Henderson, CIO of ICE, and Kristin Ruiz, Deputy CIO at TSA, said that culture is important to implementing technology solutions that work for their offices.  Building external and internal relationships, delivering solutions that improve business functions, not just automate existing processes, and building on foundations are all steps that ensure that technology achieves its maximum potential.  As Read more

Congress pushed final action on FY’24 appropriations out for at least another six weeks last week, keeping the government open, but effectively cutting the fiscal year by nearly half.  The new measure retains the two-tiered approach in the previous CR, meaning that the VA, HUD, and Treasury are among the agencies that face a new March 1^st funding deadline, while March 8^th is the date for DOD, DHS and most of the rest of the government   The best-case scenario now is that individual offices will have their spending budgets in mid-April, creating an extremely tight timeframe in which to conduct business.  The best-case scenario isn’t a done Read more

The General Services Administration first issued its ill-fated Alliant II Small Business GWAC solicitation in February of 2018, almost six years ago.  With protests continuing over POLARIS, the similarly plagued intended successor, GSA senior leadership must answer the question: “Is another small business IT GWAC needed now?”.  The federal IT market has most definitely moved on, changing in some significant ways over the past six years. The primacy of cybersecurity requirements, increased emphasis on supply chains (see below), and socio-economic additions to contracts are just some examples.  GSA also has an outstanding record of small business participation in its existing IT contracts.  The GSA Schedules program, 8(a) Read more