Obama Administration Issues Additional Guidance on Federal Contracting

In a final series of directives issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on October 27, the Administration said that the civilian agencies should increase their acquisition workforce by at least five percent by 2014. In addition, the agency called for a limit on the use of noncompetitive and other "higher-risk" types of contracts. According to the OMB Acquisition Workforce Strategic Plan, the Federal government's investment in the acquisition workforce has not kept pace with changes in Federal contracting. AGC has long advocated About one federal acquisition professional in eight already is eligible to retire, and that will rise to more than half the workforce by 2016. The average retirement eligibility for contracting professionals will increase from 29 percent in FY 2011 to 50 percent in FY 2016. Although the federal agencies have a variety of tools to help recruit and retain older workers, the agencies have not always been aware of the full range of options. Recruitment, retention and training of the government workforce should be a high priority for both government and industry. A second memo on Increasing Competition and Structuring Contracts for the Best Results OMB released provide agencies with serues if guidelines to help Chief Acquisition Officers (CAOs) and Senior Procurement Executives (SPEs) evaluate the effectiveness of their agency's competition practices and processes for selecting contract types. The guidelines focus around three key questions: 1) How is the agency maximizing the effective use of competition and choosing the best contract type for the acquisition? 2) How is the agency mitigating risk when noncompetitive, cost-reimbursement, or T&M/LH contracts are used? 3) How is the agency creating opportunities to transition to more competitive and lower risk contracts? These consideration are designed to help implement President Obama's March 5 Memo on Contracting also called upon OMB to issue guidance: (1) to govern the appropriate use and oversight of sole-source and other types of noncompetitive contracts and to maximize the use of full and open competition and other competitive procurement processes; and (2) to govern the appropriate use and oversight of all contract types, in full consideration of the agency's needs, and to minimize risk and maximize the value of Government contracts generally. The White House on July 29 formally unveiled contracting and workforce reforms that are designed to save the taxpayers at least $40 billion a year. The reforms, released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), focus on three areas: improving acquisition, managing the multi-sector workforce and contractor performance information. Previously, President Obama established in a March 4 memorandum his principles for contracting reform, and charged the OMB with identifying the best approaches to accomplish his goals. For more information, contact Marco Giamberardino at (703) 837-5325 or giamberm@agc.org.