President Donald Trump signed an executive order (EO) late Thursday that aims to consolidate Federal contracting under the General Services Administration (GSA), including IT contracts.
Within 30 days of the executive order, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will designate GSA as the “executive agent” of all governmentwide acquisition contracts for IT.
Additionally, GSA can “defer or decline” the executive agent designation for governmentwide acquisition contracts for IT “when necessary to ensure continuity of service or as otherwise appropriate.”
“Consolidating domestic Federal procurement in the General Services Administration – the agency designed to conduct procurement – will eliminate waste and duplication, while enabling agencies to focus on their core mission of delivering the best possible services for the American people,” the order says.
According to a fact sheet on the EO, the Federal government spends about $490 billion per year on contracts for common goods and services – making it the world’s largest buyer.
However, the fact sheet explains that agencies have independently purchased software, such as office productivity tools, leading to inefficiencies and pricing inconsistencies.
“For example, the cost of a comprehensive suite of Microsoft Office 365 services could vary between agencies by more than $200 per license,” the White House claims. “Consolidating the acquisition of this software in GSA could result in more than $100M in savings per year.”
By centralizing and standardizing procurement within GSA, the White House hopes to make Federal purchasing “as simple and efficient as possible.”
The EO gives Federal agencies 60 days to submit proposals to GSA to have the agency conduct their domestic procurement for common goods and services.
It also tasks the GSA administrator with submitting a comprehensive plan to the OMB director within 90 days, detailing how it will procure common goods and services across the domestic components of the Federal government “where permitted by law.”
Additionally, the GSA administrator will lead ongoing efforts to “rationalize governmentwide indefinite delivery contract vehicles for information technology for agencies across the government, including as part of identifying and eliminating contract duplication, redundancy, and other inefficiencies.”
OMB will submit guidance to Federal agencies on how to carry out this executive order within 14 days.
The order does not clarify what will happen to non-GSA IT contracts, such as the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center’s (NITAAC) Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 3 (CIO-SP3) contract and its CIO-SP4 successor.
