The Week of 7 March -- much good stuff

Federal Acquisition Regulation
Federal Acquisition Circular 2001-28 is out.
Find it at WIFCON.

Have you ever gotten one of those actions to contract for a conference or high level meeting. The question always arises; can you use government funds to pay for food and drink and can you charge a registration fee. The Comptroller General (CG)has issued a decision. In National Institutes of Health -- Food at Government-Sponsored Conferences, B-300826, the CG lays out the rules. As always the answer is -- it depends. A must read.

The other shoe drops. In Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, et. al., B-295401 et. seq., February 24, 2005, the GAO deals with the remainder of the Darlene Druyun influence issues. GAO sustained all the protests. GAO synopsis.

1. Where a senior procurement official who functioned as the source selection authority has acknowledged bias in favor of the awardee, and was materially involved in the evaluation of proposals, indicating during the evaluation process that she believed the awardee's technical ratings should be raised in various areas and that the protesters' technical ratings should be lowered in various areas, the protests are sustained based on the agency's failure to demonstrate that the senior official's acknowledged bias did not prejudice the protesters and that the integrity of the procurement process was not compromised.

2. Protests are sustained where, following submission of final proposal revisions, the agency reopened discussions in order to permit the ultimate awardee to address an aspect of its proposal that was contrary to instructions previously given by the agency during discussions, but failed to identify similar concerns with the proposals of the protesters.

In another case, Keeton Corrections, Inc., B-293348, GAO sustained a protest finding that the information conveyed to the source selection authority (SSA) was inaccurate. GAO synopsis:

In a negotiated procurement, which provided for award on the basis of a cost/technical tradeoff and under which past performance was stated to be the most important evaluation factor, the selection of the awardee's significantly higher-priced offer based upon that firm's technical superiority and better past performance was unreasonable, where the information provided to the source selection authority to support the awardee's and protester's past performance evaluation did not accurately reflect the firms' evaluation but instead erroneously conveyed the impression that the awardee had no evaluated past performance weaknesses and that the protester's past performance had nearly only weaknesses.

OTHER INTERESTING INFORMATION

David Safavian, the new director of OFPP, stated at his recent confirmation hearing that shaping the acquisition workforce was a top priority.

Two congressmen have announced they are investigating contracts awarded to Alaska native corporations.

Two interesting articles as found on the WIFCON analysis page are worth your time to read. WIFCON sysnopsis:

Organizational Conflicts of Interest: A Growing Integrity Challenge
By Daniel L. Gordon

Courtesy of the Social Science Research Network

Conflicts of interest involving government officials have been very much in the news in recent years. At least in the United States, public procurement professionals are encountering more and more instances of a more particular kind of conflict, organizational conflicts of interest (OCIs), which can be defined, initially, as situations where an entity plays two or more roles that are, in some sense, at odds with one another. This article endeavors to set out some points for consideration in this increasingly important area. (February 2005)

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Emerging Policy and Practice Issues
By Steven L. Schooner and Christopher R. Yukins

Courtesy of the Social Science Research Network

That was the year that was. In this item, the authors share a paper that they presented at the West Government Contracts Year in Review Conference. The article covers a variety of issues including certain federal contracting scandals, task order contracting, and share-in-savings contracting. (February 2005)

As always, I encourage you to use the DAU Continuous Learning Center and the DAU Acquisition Community Connection(ACC), as additional resourcers for current information.