Government Accountability Office
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A group of lawmakers are backing legislation to make it easier for veterans to get approved for business contracts under the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA is also in the midst of taking public comment on proposed changes to its verification guidelines.
November 10, 2015 -
The FITARA implementation scorecard released last week by the House Oversight and Government Reform committee that shows agencies failing efforts to improve IT acquisition and operations — turned government watchers into upset parent's — asking their children why they are getting D's and F's. David Powner, director of information technology management issues at the Government Accountability Office, filled in Federal Drive with Tom Temin on the gaps in learning and a study guide for agencies to improve their FITARA grade point average.
November 09, 2015 -
Vendors and agencies need to improve communication starting with oral debriefings for all contract awards as part of an effort to stem the real and perceived increases of bid-protests, said Rob Burton, a former OFPP deputy administrator and now partner with Venable.
November 09, 2015 -
Protesting the cancellation of a solicitation after a protest caused a cancellation is the latest wrinkle in the government contracting protest space. The General Services Administration is at the heart of this case. Bill Welch, a partner at the law firm McMahon Welch and Learned, told In Depth with Francis Rose that GSA got a kick in the pants from the Government Accountability Office.
November 05, 2015 -
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act scorecard and the governmentwide average is a “D.” Lawmakers and OMB expect agency scores to improve across the four metrics.
November 05, 2015 -
VA's Veterans First contracting program is making progress since a critical 2013 accountability report, but lawmakers say the agency could be doing more.
November 05, 2015 -
Budget constraints, IT management issues and a tight timeline could thwart the Census Bureau's ambitious redesign plan for the 2020 count. The bureau said it could save more than $5 billion during the 2020 Census cycle. Census' last count was the most expensive ever in U.S. history.
November 04, 2015 -
Rep. Will Hurd, the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Technology, plans to release the first set of grades for agencies on how they are implementing the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, and the news isn’t good for many agencies.
November 03, 2015 -
Every federal agency has its own management challenges, but the Small Business Administration has a lot of long-standing ones. And it still hasn't resolved most of them. That's according to the Government Accountability Office. Bill Shear is the director of financial markets and community issues at GAO and joins the Federal Drive with Tom Temin with more on the latest audit.
November 03, 2015 -
A new report from the Government Accountability Office looked at four agencies to see how their money management and use of unobligated balances helped offset the impacts of the government shutdown and sequestration.
November 03, 2015 -
The 1033 program contributes only a fraction of the federal resources that result in what some believe are overly militarized local police departments.
November 02, 2015 -
The Veterans Health Administration might have a problem when it comes to calculating mental health wait times. The Government Accountability Office found some discrepancies between when veterans requested an appointment with VHA and when those appointments actually happened. Debra Draper, GAO's director of health care issues, updated the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on the problems recently. She joins In Depth with Francis Rose to talk about her testimony.
November 02, 2015 -
It's no secret that property management is no easy task for the government, which has to manage a massive portfolio of thousands of buildings. Part of the problem is that it's hard to get a clear picture of what the government owns because of agencies' inconsistent approaches to counting facilities and different definitions for real property. David Wise, director of physical infrastructure issues at GAO, joined In Depth guest host Jared Serbu to discuss data reliability in federal real estate.
October 28, 2015 -
The government spends $30 billion on IT services a year. The Government Accountability Office said agencies can save a chunk of that if they bought more of those services in bulk, i.e., strategic sourcing. Tim DiNapoli, director of acquisition and sourcing management issues at GAO, recently wrote a report to Congress on this issue and he joined In Depth with Francis Rose to share the details.
October 26, 2015 -
Data problems continue to haunt the Obama administration's efforts to tame the government's property portfolio. But they are not the same problems of yesteryear.
October 22, 2015