U.S. GSA Squabbles Over Office Supplies Strategic Sourcing Contracts

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U.S. GSA Squabbles Over office Supplies Strategic Sourcing contracts
An interagency squabble over version three of the office supplies strategic sourcing contract goes public, and the General Services Administration is not happy about it. In Inside the Reporter's Notebook, Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller promises Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp a bit of humor to an otherwise dry federal procurement process.
 

Strategic sourcing's humorous side?

Federal procurement is rarely funny. And even more rare is when a government-to-government rebuff becomes public like the ongoing quarrel between the Small Business Administration and bid protestors, and the General Services Administration over the Office Supplies 3 contract.

First a little background: GSA issued the solicitation for version 3 of the Office Supplies strategic sourcing contract (OS3) in January. It was not well received by the contractor community, facing 14 pre-award protests to the Government Accountability Office. As part of the GAO's review of the protests, attorneys asked SBA to analyze GSA's justification for consolidation contracting requirements under OS3. The Small Business Jobs Act requires agencies to perform an analysis on any negative impacts the consolidation would have on small firms, and possible ways to mitigate them.

SBA found GSA didn't perform an appropriate analysis and thus its justification was inadequate.

Here comes the funny part. GSA actually wrote to GAO complaining that one of the protestors was "leaking" information to the public and the press, and then asked GAO to issue a "cease and desist" letter to the protestors. (Check out the full email exchange).

"Protester KPaul filed a protest with GAO and is now asking federal agencies to end their participation in the subject contract/procurement (and another, current GSA contract that is not the subject of this protest) without waiting for a decision from GAO," Kristen Nowadly, assistant regional counsel for GSA wrote to GAO's Katherine Riback. "GSA submits that this correspondence is highly improper during the pendency of this protest."

Jonathan Kang, assistant general counsel for GAO, responded to Nowadly with what many consider a smackdown.

Kang wrote because "there is no protective order for the protests, and thus there are no restrictions on the parties' ability to share documents or information," and "With regard [to] your concern about correspondence by the protesters with other government agencies, this is a matter outside of our jurisdiction. Our rules do not contemplate that we may restrict the ability of parties to a protest to correspond with other government agencies."

Several experts were surprised by GSA's request for a "cease and desist." Basically, GSA wants GAO to stop the bad press it was getting for not doing what's required under the law.

There are no rules against consolidation or bundling, but there are requirements to fulfill, and SBA found GSA didn't meet them.

An increase in contract consolidation and bundling is a rising concern across the government, and SBA's willingness to hold an agency such as GSA accountable is an important footnote to this story.

U.S. GSA Squabbles Over office Supplies Strategic Sourcing contracts
An interagency squabble over version three of the office supplies strategic sourcing contract goes public, and the General Services Administration is not happy about it. In Inside the Reporter's Notebook, Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller promises Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp a bit of humor to an otherwise dry federal procurement process.
 

Strategic sourcing's humorous side?

Federal procurement is rarely funny. And even more rare is when a government-to-government rebuff becomes public like the ongoing quarrel between the Small Business Administration and bid protestors, and the General Services Administration over the Office Supplies 3 contract.

First a little background: GSA issued the solicitation for version 3 of the Office Supplies strategic sourcing contract (OS3) in January. It was not well received by the contractor community, facing 14 pre-award protests to the Government Accountability Office. As part of the GAO's review of the protests, attorneys asked SBA to analyze GSA's justification for consolidation contracting requirements under OS3. The Small Business Jobs Act requires agencies to perform an analysis on any negative impacts the consolidation would have on small firms, and possible ways to mitigate them.

SBA found GSA didn't perform an appropriate analysis and thus its justification was inadequate.

Here comes the funny part. GSA actually wrote to GAO complaining that one of the protestors was "leaking" information to the public and the press, and then asked GAO to issue a "cease and desist" letter to the protestors. (Check out the full email exchange).

"Protester KPaul filed a protest with GAO and is now asking federal agencies to end their participation in the subject contract/procurement (and another, current GSA contract that is not the subject of this protest) without waiting for a decision from GAO," Kristen Nowadly, assistant regional counsel for GSA wrote to GAO's Katherine Riback. "GSA submits that this correspondence is highly improper during the pendency of this protest."

Jonathan Kang, assistant general counsel for GAO, responded to Nowadly with what many consider a smackdown.

Kang wrote because "there is no protective order for the protests, and thus there are no restrictions on the parties' ability to share documents or information," and "With regard [to] your concern about correspondence by the protesters with other government agencies, this is a matter outside of our jurisdiction. Our rules do not contemplate that we may restrict the ability of parties to a protest to correspond with other government agencies."

Several experts were surprised by GSA's request for a "cease and desist." Basically, GSA wants GAO to stop the bad press it was getting for not doing what's required under the law.

There are no rules against consolidation or bundling, but there are requirements to fulfill, and SBA found GSA didn't meet them.

An increase in contract consolidation and bundling is a rising concern across the government, and SBA's willingness to hold an agency such as GSA accountable is an important footnote to this story.

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May 1, 2014 at 10:27 AM