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WILLIAMS LIKES JOB AS MANAGER RUNNING GSA'S DUGOUT CREW
Jim Williams paraphrases Babe Ruth, who noted that a group of all-stars that fails to play as a team won't go very far. In the same breath, he characterizes the leadership team at GSA as being akin to, say, the Boston Red Sox of 2004 — a star-studded lineup that indeed plays like a team. As Acting Administrator of GSA, Jim Williams has a lot of pride in the agency's leadership.
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BUDGET PICTURE DARKENS, BUT DOES BUYING OUTLOOK?
Now that the deed is done – the $700 billion financial rescue plan – you can add that spending to the estimated $450 billion deficit that was already forecast for fiscal 2009. What will that mean to procurement budgets? It looks like status quo, or perhaps growth for some, and a slowdown for others.
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Early bird registration for IRMCO 2009 is now open! Plan now to attend IRMCO 2009 on April 19-22, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay in Cambridge, Maryland. Federal Travel Regulation; Conference Planning-Prepayment of Registration Fee, FTR Amendment 2006-02 allows for the reimbursement of the prepayment of early bird discounted registration fees to attend a conference, so take advantage of the IRMCO 2009 early bird rates. The 48th annual government-only gathering of agency career and political leaders is the premier place to network and discuss the government's challenges.
IRMCO, GSA's Interagency Resources Management Conference, has been produced by GSA since 1961 to serve the needs of the government's senior executives. The three-day retreat provides these leaders the opportunity for dialogue with experts in organizational change, peer-to-peer discussion of strategies to transform their agencies, and insightful keynotes from industry and government visionaries.
Bookmark www.irmco.gov to register early for government's management conference. To register call 202-237-0300.
CONGRESS TRIES 'TRANSPARENCY' AT THE EXPENSE OF DIGNITY
After "game changing," — a meaningless phrase if there ever was one — "transparency" seems to be the most-used word in Washington these days. The concept of transparency is simple, but it might not be easy to implement in Washington.
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TRANSACTION OUTSOURCING: DO VENDORS HAVE COLD FEET?
Of all the revealing stories out in the last week, perhaps the most intriguing in terms of industry-government relations comes from the Veterans Affairs Department. It staged a request for proposals, and no one showed up. Apparently this spooked would-be contractors, and they have reason to be spooked.
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Complete Articles for October 15, 2008
Williams Likes Job As Manager Running GSA's Dugout Crew
Jim Williams
Jim Williams paraphrases Babe Ruth, who noted that a group of all-stars that fails to play as a team won't go very far. In the same breath, he characterizes the leadership team at GSA as being akin to, say, the Boston Red Sox of 2004 — a star-studded lineup that indeed plays like a team.
Williams became General Services Administration's Acting Administrator back in August, after having been Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service. In that job he oversaw the integration of two major acquisition units into one. This week marks his 30th anniversary of public service. Williams has a history of taking on big, visible federal IT projects. For example, he was director of IRS Modernization and Program Manager for the U.S. Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator Technology program. He professed no real surprises since becoming acting administrator, but a lot of pride in the agency's leadership.
"I was somewhat aware of the vast array of things GSA does. And I'm very happy with the tremendous quality of people running these programs," Williams said.
Williams had been nominated by President Bush to be administrator, without the "acting," but Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) put a last minute hold on the nomination last summer. But Williams said the "acting" modifier has had little effect on his ability to guide the agency.
He spoke with FedInsider about some of the initiatives and issues at GSA.
Multiple Award Schedules pricing advisory panel: The previous administrator, Lurita Doan, initiated an outside group to look at pricing practices in MAS. Its main recommendation so far is to do away with the price reduction clause. Vendors and government buyers alike have found this rule — which stipulates that the government always get the lowest price a vendor offers its commercial customers — confusing and hard to enforce. The recommendations have been officially transmitted to Williams.
In the meantime, Williams is non-committal on the price reduction clause and anything else the panel might recommend. Reason: "I have not paid too much attention [to the recommendations] so as not to influence the panel. So I don't have my mind made up," Williams said. He will have the Federal Acquisition Service staff and other advisors look at the recommendations before making any decisions, he said.
But GSA is going ahead with a project called MAS Modification Transformation. Under development for more than a year, it is designed to make it easier for vendors to refresh the products they sell through GSA schedule contracts. Williams said the detail work on the plan was done by staff leadership and not by his office. (See the last three slides of this GSA presentation.)
Networx adoption: Williams expressed confidence that those agencies that have not yet switched their telecommunications and networking requirements over to the Networx program will get there by the new, June 2009 deadline. He said of about 152 so-called opportunity decisions from 135 agencies, about half have made their choice — including the Homeland Security and Treasury Departments.
"So we have some big wins already," Williams said. He acknowledged that making the switch from FTS 2001 and other contracts isn't the easiest task in the world.
"Agencies are moving as fast as they can. We've thrown a lot at them, overworked them sometimes. But I care more about the quality of the transition than the speed," Williams said.
"The conditions, what we put on telecom managers — FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act compliance), TIC (Trusted Internet Connection requirement from the Office of Management and Budget), and on top of that all of the proposals the private sector must respond to" – conspire to slow things down, he said. But adding TIC vendors to Networx will speed the process, he added. And, Williams said, he remains confident GSA will not have to extend the existing contracts past the middle of next year.
Buildings Service: From the new Center for Drug Evaluation and Research building in White Oak, Md. to the ultra-green Federal Building in San Francisco, GSA has received recent credit for commissioning high quality, leading-edge architecture for its federal tenants. Definitely not the dull cubicle farms of the 1970s.
Williams noted that the GSA's Building Service is running a deficit, for which the agency has requested appropriations to cover. The deficit comes from the trend towards leasing, rather than owning, real estate, award-winning projects notwithstanding.
"I get to cut a lot of ribbons after a lot of people have done some great work," Williams said, praising Buildings Service Commissioner Dave Winstead and his staff. For Winstead, Williams, and all GSA staff members concerned with building, Williams said, "We're doing excellent work in building symbols of the United States' ideals, sustainability and preserving our heritage."
Presidential transition: The Presidential Transition Act of 1963 designates GSA as the agency in charge of logistics for transition. And, Williams said, it has grown into a major operation. Between the inaugural and transition teams, GSA has to provision temporary office space for nearly 1,500 people.
One new twist is that GSA is working with the National Archives and Records Administration to develop a web site to supplement what has until now been a purely paper directory to the incoming team, Williams said.
Now that the deed is done – the $700 billion financial rescue plan – you can add that spending to the estimated $450 billion deficit that was already forecast for fiscal 2009.
What will that mean to procurement budgets?
The consensus forecast is that ongoing programs probably won't be hit all that hard, but some really big ticket initiatives, notably new weapons systems, will be delayed, scaled back or canceled.
You'll find lots of numbers and forecasts floating around. But for a general picture, these are the emerging areas that government agencies will be interested in, and where there is likely to be money:
Cyber security. That might seem obvious, but the seriousness of the government's intent is starting to gel. The Office of Management and Budget is well along in its Trusted Internet Connection, just as Homeland Security is starting to deploy the second generation of its so-called Einstein intrusion monitors. The administration's secretive National Cyber Security Initiative is likely to remain in some form into the next administration, and the 2008 version of the Federal Information Security Management Act would mandate chief information security officers with teeth.
Unmanned sensing. One example, noted in an earlier issue: The military is having good results using robotic, sensor-laden aerial and ground vehicles.
Biometrics and biometric systems. The Army is executive agent for biometric activities in the Defense Department. It funds research in biometric subfields that will be important to the military. But the general idea of expanded biometric use is not confined to the military. Any application that requires authentication of individuals is a candidate for a biometric solution. The challenges are still-evolving standards for newly adapted body parts such as vein patterns in the hands.
Defense systems. Modernizing and rebuilding the Army will be top measures in the coming administration. GovExec provided a good roundup. "Modernizing and rebuilding" includes thawing the iced project for new aerial tankers.
The bottom line is that discretionary budgets won't disappear, in spite of the candidates' bickering over earmarks and other soft targets. But don't expect grand new initiatives to make a lot of headway either. Especially in defense, contractors are already starting to prepare for a slowdown in the ships-planes-tanks end of the market.
Congress Tries 'Transparency' At The Expense Of Dignity
After "game changing," — a meaningless phrase if there ever was one — "transparency" seems to be the most-used word in Washington these days. The concept of transparency is simple: If people know what is going on in the innards of something that embodies the public's information, then everyone concerned can make better decisions. And the rascals won't be able to get away with anything.
Publicly held companies are supposed to be transparent. Their financial and other decisions are, in theory, supposed to be readily visible to stockholders, customers, regulators, members of Congress, and MSNBC. But even with disclosure laws and regulations, public corporations routinely hide damaging or embarrassing information in plain site. The problem with finances is that few people — even stock analysts who are supposed to possess special knowledge — have sufficient financial literacy to know what they are looking at when confronting a big company's balance sheet, or those innocuous-looking footnotes in annual reports.
A wise financial reporter for a big Eastern establishment newspaper once told me how she broke a national-award-winning business story: She read the footnotes.
So it will be interesting to see if the latest IT gambit by the Securities and Exchange Commission will really help transparency. The SEC — admirably, by the way — is starting to phase out one of the earliest and most successful online government systems, EDGAR. That stands for Electronic Data Gathering And Retrieval. Dating back to the MS-DOS days, it is the way public companies file their 10K documents. Like the IRS systems, but on a smaller scale, EDGAR is obsolete. The SEC plans to phase in a system called IDEA using XBRL, a financial extension of XML. Companies will be required to tag their data in such a way that once uploaded, visitors to a web site can search the data and create queries.
On Federal News Radio last week, Dr. William D. Lutz, the program manager for what the SEC calls its 21st Century Disclosure Initiative, said that the agency would add tools to make searches and reports easier. Perhaps, he said, more people might have been able to discern the looming problems with mortgage-backed securities.
Transparency also came up recently in a small way on Capitol Hill. The Committee on House Administration is now allowing Members to put videos of their speeches on YouTube — more precisely, on sites outside of the government, where there might also be ads. FCW reported that Rep. John Culbertson (R-Texas), a backer of the loosened rules, is a boost to transparency.
Maybe. It is certainly a strike for visibility. But Congress should be careful of what may end up on YouTube. One popular video on YouTube shows Rep. Mike Capuano (D-Mass.) delivering a hackneyed tirade to FAA acting Director Michael Sturgell. He comes off like a bullying assistant junior high school principal. Lots of other Members, including some from the Senate side, have videos on YouTube. Read the comments that accompany some of these videos, and you'll wonder whether the quality of debate and transparency are enhanced at all.
Transaction Outsourcing: Do Vendors Have Cold Feet?
Of all the revealing stories out in the last week, perhaps the most intriguing in terms of industry-government relations comes from the Veterans Affairs Department.
It staged a request for proposals, and no one showed up. Well, few enough that VA canceled the project to outsource a major benefits processing program and retain the work for VA employees.
The requirement stems from the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, which greatly expands the education benefits available to returning soldiers, including those from the National Guard and Reserves. Although VA staff already processes existing GI Bill benefits, and has for many years, it wanted to hire a vendor to process claims for the expanded, more complicated program.
As the Air Force Times reported, service members, veterans groups, and some on Capitol Hill weren't thrilled with the idea. Apparently this spooked would-be contractors.
They have reason to be spooked. In September, the IRS decided not to renew management contracts for seven regional tax return processing centers, so the work is reverting back to agency employees. Earlier this year, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services took an outsourced call center back in-house. And, just this week, the State Department came under fire for using a contractor to investigate possible wrongdoing by other contractors.
After seven years of relentless pressure to outsource, we have a case of the pendulum swinging back to a preference for doing work in-house. Outsourcing won't disappear, but should the next president be Barack Obama, the tendency will be to side with employee unions and keep work on the inside, and just the opposite should John McCain be elected.
MARTHA JOHNSON Administrator, General Services Administration THE HONORABLE JOHN BERRY Director, Office of Personnel Management VIVEK KUNDRA Federal Chief Information Officer and Administrator for E-Government and Information Technology, Office of Management and Budget (invited) DANNY WERFEL Controller, Office of Federal Financial Management (invited) DR. SHELLEY METZENBAUM Associate Director for Personnel & Performance Management, Office of Management and Budget (invited) MICHAEL ROBERTSON White House Liaison, Associate Administrator for Governmentwide Policy and Chief Acquisition Officer, U.S. General Services Administration WILLIAM D. EGGERS Co-Author, If We Can Put a Man on the Moon…Getting Big Things Done in Government; Global Director, Deloitte Research-Public Sector JOHN O'LEARY Co-Author, If We Can Put a Man on the Moon…Getting Big Things Done in Government; Executive Editor of Better, Faster, Cheaper; Research Fellow, Ash Institute of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government
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