Government Contracts Blog

One thing is clear- the Government knows its "IT" is sick. To get well, Congress has come up with a new stimulus bill or PILL, depending on how you view it but in more accurate terms, the HITECH Act. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) will help save lives and lower costs according to a report recently by the Majority Staff of the Committees on Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Science and Technology. According to the Staff, this bill is designed to accomplish four major goals to advance the use of health information technology (Health IT), such as electronic health records as follows:

 

·        Requiring the government to take a leadership role to develop standards by 2010 that allow for the nationwide electronic exchange and use of health information to improve quality and coordination of care.

 

·        Investing $20 billion in health information technology infrastructure and Medicare and Medicaid incentives to encourage doctors and hospitals to use HIT to electronically exchange patients' health information.

 

·        Saving the government $10 billion, and generating additional savings throughout the health sector, through improvements in quality of care and care coordination, and reductions in medical errors and duplicative care.

 

·        Strengthening Federal privacy and security law to protect identifiable health information from misuse as the health care sector increases use of Health IT.

 

For contractors looking to find how they can try to adminsiter the medicine, there is a lot more that needs to be ironed out before that is completely clear. I will follow up with a new posting as the bill matures.

 

It seems like DHS has it its eyes set on a new program targeted at small business and modeled after it's current EAGLE (Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions).

DHS's director of procurement operations office, Soraya Correa, said the new EAGLE II contract will be exclusively for small businesses including 8(a) companies, service-disabled veterans and firms located in historically underutilized business zones.

The initial EAGLE contract, which was awarded in 2006, had 28 small businesses, but almost two thirds of them have either graduated out of small-business status or were acquired by another company. While most of the DHS small business goals were met, service disabled veterans firms goals were missed. Hence, expect a focus here for EAGLE II.

As I have previously written on the original DHS EAGLE contract's success and tremendous contract awards, you can be sure there will be more of the same under EAGLE II.

10 companies for 10 years. That's the prescription for the new FDA program to modernize its aging IT systems. The FDA recently awarded 10 companies 10 contracts to compete for orders as the FDA remakes itself.  The contracts call for data management, data warehousing, IT infrastructure and security.

The 10 companies are:

• Buccaneer Computer Systems and Service Inc., Warrenton, Va.
• Computer Sciences Corp., Falls Church, Va.
• Dynanet Corp., Elkridge, Md.
• EDS Corp., Plano, Texas
• General Dynamics Corp., Falls Church, Va.
• HumanTouch LLC, McLean, Va.
• IDL-Pragmatics Innovation Partners, Vienna, Va.
• Interactive Technology Solutions LLC, Silver Spring, Md.
• Telesis Corp., Rockville, Md.
• Unisys Corp., Blue Bell, Pa.

Accordfing to FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach, the contracts will allow the FDA to acquire, analyze and act on data critical for import protection, food protection and medical product safety plans.

Apparently three task orders worth over $18 million have already been awarded to Interactive Technology Solutions, Buccaneer and EDS.

 

 

Once and awhile I come across some real cool tools to help find where all the big money is going. A tool on nextgov.com allows you to see where all the money is spent. The data is compiled by Eagle Eye, one of the premier data providers in the Federal contracting space. You can actually find data on where federal dollars are spent on information technology throughout the country - either by state, congressional district, or by contractor. Just go to www.nextgov.com/itspend and start seeing where it is all going. A great tool if you want to start a federal business.

Lockheed Martin Corp. was recently awarded a contract to oversee the inventory and distribution of automotive parts used on all U.S. military ground vehicles under a Defense Logistics Agency contract potentially worth $5.6 billion over 10 years.

Under the contract, Lockheed Martin will manage the supply chain that ensures delivery of maintenance and replacement automotive parts to warfighters in set periods of time. According to Lockheed, many of the suppliers are small businesses.

DLA awarded an initial four-year base contract to the company through the Fleet Automotive Support Initiative-Global program

While the government often takes a bad rap for waste, poor contract management and inefficent operations, once in awhile it deserves a pat on the back. An example of smart government is the Air Force Installation Acquisition Transformation initiative (IAT). IAT is a comprehensive restructuring of the Air Force continental U.S. installation acquisition practices. Under the transformation, the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, will head five geographically-based installation acquisition groups as follows: Northeast (Hampton Roads) Southeast (Warner Robbins) Midwest (St Louis) Southwest (San Antonio) and Northwest (Colorado Springs)

IAT will allow the Air Force to purchase, on time and at the best value, the best products and services for installation customers and warfighters and leverage scale for buying.

While the proposed IAT implementation schedule had been pushed back, the Air Force's current goal is to have 50% of contracting activities transferred to regional centers by the summer of FY 2010. Complete implementation will take between 3-5 years.

According to a recent report by INPUT, EAGLE should expect a "spending spree" in the fourth quarter. According to INPUT, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007, spending on EAGLE skyrocketed to $2.4 billion, almost quadruple the level from the previous three quarters combined. The jump was driven in part by two large task order contracts, but even when those contracts are not taken into account, fourth quarter fiscal 2007 spending was more than half of the total spending that year. The average agency completes about 34 percent of its annual spending in the last quarter of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

INPUT expects fourth quarter EAGLE spending to be higher in fiscal 2008 than it was in fiscal 2007. In the second quarter of fiscal 2008, contract spending topped $300 million, compared to $43 million in the second quarter of 2007. Moreover, INPUTnoted that EAGLE has significantly outpaced similar contract vehicles, such as the Air Force's NETCENTS and the Navy's SeaPort-e, in both number of task orders and dollars spent. What I found most interesting -The average task order size on EAGLE is $8.8 million, compared to $3.8 million on SeaPort-e and $542,000 on NETCENTS.

Four of the seven major agencies make up the bulk of spending at DHS. CBP, CIS, ICE and TSA is where I would go hunting.

Ever wondered when the big money would start rolling in the Base Realignment process.
On July 30 2008 the Department of the Navy, Naval Facilities Engineering Command contracting office awarded $312,495,000 to Hensel Phelps Construction Co to
design/build and to collocate Military Department (MILDEP) Investigation Agencies P012V.

This facility will be designed and constructed to include SCIF areas classrooms, offices, restrooms, lounges, locker rooms, showers, video viewing rooms, storage areas, cafeteria, mechanical rooms and other special spaces. Interior will be finished with a combination of tile, carpet, painted CMU walls, suspended gypsum board and acoustical ceiling tiles. Electrical systems include fire alarm systems, energy saving Electronic Monitoring and Control System (EMCS), and information systems.

Mechanical systems include plumbing, fire protection systems, and heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC). Supporting facilities includes site and building utility connections for potable water, sanitary and storm sewers, natural gas, electrical, telephone, area distribution node (AND) building and equipment, and local area network (LAN). Paving and site improvements include exterior site and building lighting, roadway access, roadway expansion and relocation, paved parking spaces, sidewalks, earthwork, grading, and landscaping. The scope also includes Technical Operating Manuals, Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection (AT/FP) features, and storm water management pond. Anti-terrorism Force Protection features include security fencing, site access control, video surveillance, intrusion detection system conduit and wiring, security lighting, and perimeter access control.

I just read an article publshed by an INPUT blog on the amount of year end spending DHS does and whether the large amounts spent in 2007 would be the same as in 2008. What was interesting is how much money DHS spends each year through this omnibus program and how important it is to monitor from a contracts perspective. Here is what INPUT said:

<em>"In federal fiscal year 2007, spending through task orders on DHS' EAGLE contract vehicle spiked in the fourth quarter dramatically. Increased spending in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year is expected at all agencies. However, spending on EAGLE was much more pronounced than the average total agency spend made in fourth quarter....by far! Spending in 4Q of FY2007 through DHS EAGLE was 46% of total spend through EAGLE that year or $2.4 billion--almost quadruple the spending from the previous three quarters of the year combined! The average agency fourth quarter spend is 34%."</em>

Lockheed Martin Corp. has been awarded a huge contract with the FAA. The contract will help manage employee payroll and other human resources functions for the TSA - maximum value  $1.2 billion!

The contract also includes an option for the government to use Lockheed Martin's human resources services to a larger degree, creating a possible maximum value of $3 billion over the eight and a half years, TSA said.

TSA is an agency of the Homeland Security Department. It employs more than 40,000 airport screeners as well as federal air marshals and other full- and part-time officials.

It seems like DHS is finally getting their consolidation plans together. After combining 22 agencies under the Homeland Security Act ve 4 years ago, one of the more daunting tasks was how to manage all the data. Well it seems like we have an answer.

This past week,  the Homeland Security Department awarded a $390 million contract to government systems integrator Computer Services Corp. to outsource its primary data center..The contract will help DHS complete consolidating its 18 data centers into two megacenters. The contract, which extends until Dec. 31, 2016, includes an initial award of $17 million and a ceiling price of $390 million.

The second megacenter is being built under an $800 million contract DHS awarded to EDS earlier this year and will act as a backup to the primary center.

As anyone will tell you, nothing better than bird in the hand. Recently, a General Dynamics unit received an $850 million increase from the Air Force under its Intelligence, Information, Command and Control Equipment and Enhancement contract.

The additional funding for the ICE2 program raises the value of the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract to $3.1 billion, the Defense Department said June 30.

Through the contract, General Dynamics Network Systems provides computer equipment support consisting of preventive and remedial maintenance of hardware and inventory management. The equipment supports key intelligence, command and control, and network operations for DOD components, intelligence agencies and related government departments.

If anyone has any doubt about the recently awarded GSA NETWORX contract living up to expecations, all they have to do is look at Verizon. Verizon Federal was awarded over $678 million in task orders from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for a world wide IP network.. GSA awarded the omnibus Networx Universal contracts in April 2007 to Verizon Business (then MCI Communications Services), AT&T and Qwest Government Services. One month later it awarded the second round of contracts, Networx Enterprise, to Verizon Business, AT&T, Level 3 Communications, Qwest Government Services and Sprint Solutions. The contracts include more than 40 networking and communications services, and most agencies are breaking up the services into separate task orders rather than making a single large procurement as they did under the FTS2001 contracts, Zeleniak said. This has resulted in a slow take-off for Networx.

We are on the tip of the crossover from the FTS 2001 contract. One reason for the flurry of activity is a Sept. 30 deadline for selecting Networx service providers in order for agencies to qualify for GSA transition credits to help pay for capital expenses in switching from the old FTS2001 contract.