NITAAC IAC Meeting
Bldg.
Conference Room 605K
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
1:30 P.M. - 3:00PM
Attendees:
Mr. David
R. Ramos, NIH
Mr.
Victor E. Powers, NIH
Mr. Greg
Holliday, NIH
Mr.
Donald Wilson, NIH
Mr. Rusty
Wall, CSC
Mr.
Howard Ady, Bearing Point
Ms.
Esther Burgess, SI International
Mr.
Robert Montgomery, Argosy Omnimedia, Inc.
Agenda Items:
Ms.
Esther Burgess, IAC Co-chair, raised the issue of internal company transfers of
IAC committee members and subcommittee members to work duties not involving
NITAAC Contract vehicles without providing committee replacements. She noted that this company practice has
resulted in a shortfall in IAC membership.
After much discussion, NITAAC Executive Director, Dave Ramos recommended
that this topic be the subject of a future meeting – perhaps on September 16th
- to discuss the overall charter, IAC membership, and subcommittees. It was generally agreed that when companies
make changes, the replacement personnel assigned should be asked to assume the
IAC-related responsibilities as well as the direct contract-related duties.
The IAC
discussed the GSA initiative and associated contract vehicles mentioned in a
recent article pertaining to share-in –savings.
It was
generally agreed that the time might be right for NITAAC to flesh out the
associated procedures for Government customers to follow in order to procure
support using the Cost Sharing contract type and emphasize on the NITAAC web
site that this contract type has always been available on CIO-SP2i via NITAAC.
The IAC
discussed that GSA is examining alternatives in order to resolve and
accommodate the contract vehicle vacuum that developed when it chose to allow
the Safeguard Information Security contracting vehicle to expire without
replacement. It was generally agreed
that NITAAC should consider advertising to its customers that the
CIO-SP2i Contract vehicle has the scope and
capability to provide all the same services that were lost with the expiration
of GSA’s Safeguard vehicle, and, as a result, Government customers should
consider the use of NITAAC contract vehicles.
In July
2004, GSA’s Administrator Mr. Perry and the DoD Procurement Executive,
Ms.
Deidre Lee kicked-off the GSA “Get it Right” Program to address procedural
lapses and issues within GSA’s and DoD contracting processes. The areas of issue for the organizations
involved DoD’s use of GSA schedules and GWACs.
The specific issues have been widely reported in the press and are also
the subject of draft legislation including proposed legislation to strictly
limit any DoD use of GSA’s contract vehicles.
DoD is also considering internal procedures to limit the use of non-DoD
vehicles.
This
issue was raised in the IAC because several members believed that NITAAC should
take the opportunity to address Ms Lee at DoD and advise her that the NITAAC
vehicles remain available to DoD, and that NITAAC continues to get it right. No new initiative is necessary. One member estimated that DoD has placed over
$1B in orders on the
CIO-SP2i contract alone in the last 3 years and
that the NITAAC GWAC vehicles remain a valuable resource for DoD. Mr. Powers indicated that he and NITAAC have
worked closely with Ms Lee concerning various initiatives. Mr. Powers related that he had worked with
Ms. Lee when she was the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy,
OMB. As a result, NITAAC agreed that
they would investigate getting on her calendar.
Mr. Powers related that ongoing dialogue with her and her office would
be beneficial. Ms. Lee has been NITAAC’s
guest at briefings on the program and ordering system capabilities within the
past couple of years.
Mr.
Victor Powers informed the IAC that as a result of GAO Decision B302499, NITAAC
has undertaken a close examination of the two-step Fair Opportunity
process. It was NITAAC’s initial
reaction that certain procedures might either have to be modified or be more
clearly explained in accordance with FAR for this procedure to be continued on
agency GWACs. NITAAC stated that at some
point they might seek the opinions of
CIO-SP2i Prime contractors for their views of
the impact of this GAO decision.
The chart
below details the current awards for the NITAAC GWACs. The contracting officers discussed the
current statistics (awards and dollars from contract inception) during the IAC
meeting.
NITAAC GWACs
Contract Name |
No. of Awards |
Total Dollars Awarded |
---|---|---|
CIO-SP2i |
||
TOs |
301 |
$826M |
IW2nd |
||
TOs |
33 |
$19M |
DOs |
326 |
$45M |
ECS III |
||
DOs |
28,415 |
$644M |
The
meeting adjourned.