After omnibus, what’s next for agencies and industry?

The $1.1 trillion spending bill has been signed, but that doesn’t mean agencies should start looking for their checks in the mail just yet.

Speaking on Friday’s Federal Drive with Tom Temin, Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners, warned that it would likely be mid-January before departments “know their number.”

“We tend to forget that this is actually not supposed to be the norm,” Allen said. “We have 2 1/2, three months effectively where agencies can’t initiate any new projects, they can’t do any planning with any surety of what they’d like to do moving forward. No business I’m aware of spends 25 percent of its year just basically trying to tread water, and yet the United States government does that every year for at least a quarter, and you can see the problems that result.”

Those problems include extra spending in the last few weeks of the fiscal year, less-than-optimal planning, and rushing to get any new projects out the door, Allen said.

“It may be the standard operating procedure, but it’s not what anybody who’s in favor of good government management would hope for,” Allen said.

Once Congress resumes and Washingtonians are back in town, Allen said what is likely to be some of the first things taking shape are National Defense Authorization Act reforms, as well as the Defense Information Systems Agency’s ENCORE III contract, which covers all activities within the military services and the Defense Department. Allen said another action could be the General Services Administration’s telecommunications-based Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions contract.

Reporters who cover RFPs might end up with a cramp in their writing arms, Allen said, but “that signifies some good business coming out.”

Allen said there is a benefit to the biennial budget that was signed in early November, and funds the government through fiscal 2017.

For both government and industry, “at the strategic level, better planning can be done. You may not know exactly when it is you’ll be able to start something, but at some point you know you will be able to start,” Allen said. “So you can at least do some planning around that. That’s helpful and it’s a nice trend.”

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