PSC

  • The Office of Federal Procurement Policy issued a memo to agencies setting the new benchmark for reimbursable costs at $952,308, up from $763,029 in 2011 for certain contractor employee salaries. The contractor cap has increased 55 percent over the last four years. OFPP blames Congress for not acting to change the formula for calculating the annual increases.

    December 05, 2013
  • With the announcement from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recalling most Defense Department civilians from furloughs, some large defense companies, which had been planning to furlough their employees, have canceled or scaled back their initial plans. However, DoD's move could wind up having only a limited impact on contractors more broadly.

    October 07, 2013
  • The General Services Administration plans to award the $60 billion multiple award contract for complex professional services by October. Concerns again arise over whether there are too many multiple award contracts.

    July 12, 2013
  • In a letter to Tom Sharpe, the commissioner of the General Services Administration's Federal Acquisition Service, three industry groups -- the Coalition for Government Procurement, the Professional Services Council and TechAmerica -- wrote that restricting communication between managers and contractors could have a "chilling effect" on managers' role in the Multiple Award Schedules (MAS) program.

    June 27, 2013
  • Reducing the contractor compensation cap to the level of the salary drawn by the President ($400,000) or the Vice President ($230,700), as suggested by some lawmakers and the White House in the past, would dramatically increase the number of employees who earn compensation above the allowable limits GAO said. But the changes would mostly affect large companies, auditors said, because few of the small companies it surveyed pay their employees more than the amount earned by the President and Vice President.

    June 19, 2013
  • Rep. Darrell Issa plans to formally introduce the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act before the end of March. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held its second hearing on the draft bill. Current and former federal officials say the bill should place a stronger emphasis on project management and workforce issues.

    February 28, 2013
  • In an analysis prepared for the American Federation of Government Employees, contracting expert Charles Tiefer said that agency managers have a number of tools at their disposal to legally scale back service-contract spending and that doing so would be preferable to federal furloughs.

    February 11, 2013
  • Guidance from the administration on what steps federal agencies should take to prepare for potential across-the-board budget cuts has set off a war of words between federal-employee unions and industry groups. The American Federation of Government Employees says guidance exempts contractors at the expense of federal employees, but industry groups say the criticism is misguided.

    January 18, 2013
  • Stan Soloway, the President and CEO of the PSC, and Phil Kangas, a principal with Grant Thornton, joined Pentagon Solutions with Francis Rose to discuss the findings of a survey of federal acquisition personnel.

    January 02, 2013
  • Congress has cleared the way for a $633 billion defense policy bill that includes mandated reductions to the Defense Department's civilian and contractor workforces. Leaders of a House-Senate conference committee, tasked with reconciling competing versions of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, included in the final report the automatic workforce reductions that opponents say would result in about 36,000 job losses.

    December 19, 2012
  • Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, is promising a Better Buying Power 2.0, an revision to earlier reforms. That's good news to many in the defense industry, who hope the changes provide more nuanced guidance — as opposed to strict blanket policies — to agency contracting officers. Stan Soloway, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, In Depth with Francis Rosethe time is ripe for an update.

    October 05, 2012
  • Federal News Radio asked seven different unions, organizations and government groups for their priorities in the upcoming administration. Their responses are part of the series, The Obama Impact: Evaluating the Last Four Years.

    September 21, 2012
  • Civilian agencies may lose almost $40 billion dollars in top-line funding if sequestration goes into effect on Jan. 2, according to a new analysis by the Professional Services Council. Using fiscal 2012 as a baseline, PSC calculated civilian discretionary spending would decline by $39 billion and that individual agency budget would decline by 7.8 percent. More granular data are hard to come by until the Office of Management and Budget provides more details about specific about how the cuts will affect specific programs.

    August 30, 2012
  • On the In Depth show blog, you can listen to the interviews, find more information about the guests on the show each day and links to additional resources. Stan Soloway, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, discusses whether sequestration can be averted.

    July 24, 2012