According to a recent interview with the Federal Times, Acting GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini presented the case that GSA remains undaunted by current budgetary uncertainties. The agency is making efforts to expand market share by rededicating its efforts to channel more federal procurements through GSA contracts. In fact Tom Sharpe, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service commissioner, highlighted in a separate interview that GSA is creating agency specific plans to help agencies cut costs and save money by using GSA programs and schedules.

On May 20, 2013 the General Services Administration (GSA) announced the third company to become FedRAMP certified as Amazon Web Services. As part of the program, Amazon has been granted two Agency Authorities to Operate (ATOs) by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. CGI Federal and Autonomic Resources are the other two FedRAMP-certified providers.

If you recently had your GSA Schedule Contract canceled due to not meeting the minimum sales requirements, you might have been short changed. Since 2008, the General Services Administration (GSA) has failed to fulfill the Guaranteed Minimum Clause I-FSS-106, as reported by the U. S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Small Business. The clause serves to guarantee contractors within the Multiple Awards Schedules (MAS) Program a minimum of $2,500 in total orders. Should a contractor receive total orders for less than $2,500 at the expiration date of their contract or if cancellation is initiated by the government, GSA is to pay the difference. This minimum guarantee is essentially a payment by the government for the contractor’s promise to deliver the agreed upon goods and services at the agreed upon prices.

Since assuming the position of federal Chief Information Officer one year ago, Steven VanRoekel has already saved the government $300 million and plans to expand those savings to $2.5 billion by 2015. His PortfolioStat program includes a multifaceted approach beginning with an examination of how federal agencies utilize IT commodities. The program is designed to later consolidate and improve the efficiency of data centers and in doing so empower agency-level CIOs. A new plan put forth by VanRoekel and acting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Jeffrey Zients highlights the need to lower the costs and power footprints of federal agencies. By determining the agencies’ IT needs and not solely focusing on closing ‘non-core data centers’, the program can substantially improve the efficiency of IT services consumed by federal agencies.

The upcoming government furloughs will put many hard-working employees out of work. In his letter to OPM director John Berry, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) proposes to eliminate employees that aren’t doing jobs necessary to their agency’s mission. This would cut out any employees who are considered AWOL, non-mission critical, on standby, or are waiting for their security clearances. From 2001 to 2007, the employees that were AWOL from 18 agencies, missed 19.6 million hours. Employees who perform work unrelated to their agencies missions accounted for $155 million for their 3.4 million hours of work. Coburn also wrote that some 1,800 employees on standby received about $13 million between 2010 and 2011. On top of all this, around 20% of government contractors received a salary while they were waiting for their security clearances. These contractors could cost the government as much as $1.8 billion a month, while they were not doing the work stated in their contracts. Coburn believes that if these areas are focused on for the job cuts, then the employees performing critical jobs will be protected.