HOUSE/SENATE BILLS WOULD BRING COMMON SENSE TO ACQUISITION

Increasing the Micro Purchase Threshold (MPT) to $25,000 and the Simplified Acquisition Threshold (SAT) to $500,000 are just two of the provisions included in the Federal Improvement in Technology Procurement Act (FITPA, H.R. 9595).  Although intended to streamline IT and cloud acquisition these changes would have an impact across the federal market.  Similar legislation, though without the proposed MPT change, is under consideration in the Senate.     The SAT hasn’t increased since the mid-1990’s, nearly 30 years ago.  Although “simplified” is a relative term as such acquisitions still bring plenty of rules with them, the overall intent of expanding the universe of procurements eligible for relatively fewer rules is a sound idea.  Similarly, the MPT hasn’t changed in over six years, mostly due to concerns that not enough data had been collected on acquisitions at that level to determine whether or not the government was getting good deals.  Now, however, the data should be available and, along with programs like GSA’s Commercial Platform that builds in transparency, the government should have enough tools to be able to ensure that they get good deals even at a higher level.   Another key feature of each bill would enshrine the ability of federal agencies to pay in advance when they obtain cloud-based subscription pricing.  This expands and puts into law a GSA policy change issued earlier this year.  Both the House and Senate measures have industry support.  The Alliance for Digital Innovation recently said in a letter to key Congressional officials that “H.R. 9595, if passed, will facilitate a competitive, flexible procurement environment that encourages innovation, reduces acquisition delays, and creates new opportunities…”.  Although time is short in this Congress to pass any legislation that is not deemed essential, these measures show a positive trend that could make enacting legislation in the next session easier.  All of industry should get behind these efforts and promote acquisition methods that improve the delivery of solutions to federal agencies.