PSC Calls on EPA to Resume Contracting Activity
The Professional Services Council (PSC), a large trade association for federal contractors, has written to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Acting Administrator Catherine McCabe, seeking a rollback of the halt to all EPA contracting activity. “There may be good reasons for these steps, to align with the priorities of the new administration or to prevent scarce taxpayer dollars from going to initiatives that will not be continued,” write PSC’s President David Berteau. “However, a blunt, across the board halt on contracting actions will disrupt core government operations, drive away hard-to-find workers, and may cost more to restart than it saves by stopping.”
States Can Help School Districts Buy Collaboratively
EdWeek looks at how local school districts are getting help from state governments to leverage buying power and negotiate better deals for supplies, particularly in education technology. The article points to Wisconsin’s “virtual school,” which helps local districts negotiate contracts, and better understand interoperability. “We’ve done it with broadband and devices. Why can’t we do that for furniture and architectural services?” said Tracey Weeks, the executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA).
GAO Sustains Protest Over Out-of-Scope Task Order
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has sustained the protest of Threat Management Group, LLC (TMG), which challenged a task order issued to a competitor by the U.S. Air Force. GAO agreed with TMG that the training procured through the task order was actually a new requirement and outside the scope of the underlying indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract awarded to the competitor. The GAO report states that the Air Force “failed to provide relevant documents addressing the scope of the task order, and… the limited documents available support the conclusion that some of the work is outside the scope of the underlying contract.”