Improving Government Acquisitions

Podcast style discussion of my the top 3 things to improve government acquisitions. Convert Expiring funds to Tech Innovation Funds: Work with the Appropriation committee to reimagine how agencies manage expiring funds. Instead of incentivizing agencies to sweep end of year money and obligate them to a generic IT contract to buy printers and laptops, judicious execution of a budget that results in underspending should be rewarded. Instead of sending unexecuted funds back to the treasury, those funds should be moved into a tech-innovation fund and become no year, no color money. These dollars could then be used to fund the next new idea that comes around mid-cycle or used as transition funds to bring innovation across the valley of death. To hear more on this, check out my interview with Tyler Sweat AQ2F marker 26:25. • Government Acquisitions with Jonathan... Expand Non-FAR based Authority: Currently only 10 agencies have OT Authority (19 if you include component agencies) by some counts there are approximately 400 agencies. Non-FAR base authority serves many purposes, and has been proven time again as an effective tool for driving innovation and accelerating acquisitions. If you want to learn more about #OTA’s check out my video below. This authority should be given to every federal agency and every warranted contracting officer should be considered for an agreements warrant as well. I also think there should be a dedicated Non-FAR based authority for SW Innovation, but that will be another video. • Other Transaction Authority Part 2 Raise the Bar on Protests: There should be a pre-trial “so-to-speak” where the complainant must prove there is sufficient cause before a protest is accepted. Currently all an unsuccessful offeror needs to do to protest is submit a letter. While the ability to challenge negligent, unethical, or improper acquisitions is important to maintaining the…. In 2024 GAO received 1,803 while this is an 11% decrease from 2023 the sustain rate also fell from 31% to 16%. While there was a 52% effective rate (or some form of relief from the agency), there is no indication of how meaningful that action was. These numbers do not include agency and Court of Federal Claim protests. Protests cost a lot of money, waste a tremendous amount of time and resources, and can delay development or transition of a program to the new vendor. What’s more, the fear of protest, interjects most of the delays we see in the acquisition process. https://studio.youtube.com/video/Ang3...https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-9.... Thanks for listening

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