What's more important to you: Time or money?

Want $17 million in your pocket? $2.3 million a year wouldn’t be bad either in days like these.

Well, in a new report, the Government Accountability Office gave several examples of big savings achieved when an agency competed a follow-on contract instead awarding it again as a sole-source contract to a tribal 8(a) small business, such as an Alaska Native Corporation.

The Air Force awarded a contract competitively for base operation support, a decision that saved about $17 million for a contract worth more than $100 million. Officials said the previous contractor had high management costs, GAO reported.

At the Army, GAO reviewed an approximately $8.9 million sole-source contract with a tribal 8(a) firm for one year of medical services. The Army recompeted the follow-on contract, and the contracting officer estimated savings of $2.3 million annually, for a total of $11.5 million over the life of the contract.

At the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the contracting officer told GAO that when a follow-on to the sole-source tribal 8(a) contract had been competed among small businesses, the labor rates on the new contract were, with one exception, between 5 and 46 percent lower than the previous sole-source contract.

On the other hand, do you want more hours in your day? Time is money to many people.

Contracting officers opted to award the sole-source contracts to speed up an acquisition. Some agencies were caught at the end of the fiscal year. GAO reported that other agencies needed to avoid a break in critical services. The sole-source award to an ANC would even avoid a protest.

“Contracting officials said that awarding contracts to tribal firms under the 8(a) program allows officials to award sole-source contracts for any value quickly, easily, and legally, and helps agencies meet their small business goals,” GAO reported.

But which is more important: time or money?

Posted by Matthew Weigelt on Feb 07, 2012 at 1:42 PM