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The proposed rule might imply that small companies would require to have one employee spend 3 months a year simply entering data. Keep in mind, this is information the federal government currently has but does not collect centrally. While I am all in favor of producing jobs, I do not believe forcing little companies to employ workers to supply data a 2nd time is a beneficial use of their dollars or tax dollars, since someone has actually got to spend for this.
Data is not free. Businesses will choose it is better to offer independently of GSA, which will enhance the government's expense to purchase, or the small companies will drop out of the federal market completely, decreasing competitors. We have already lost over 100 little specialists in the previous 2 years.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about the impacts of GSA's proposed rule and any option they would suggest to enhance how the government purchases whatever it buys. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good early morning.
The GSA schedules have a number of benefits for both suppliers and buying firms. Most notably, it creates a simpler system that enables contracting officers direct access to the services and products of various companies without the requirement of releasing multiple solicitations for every single requirement. For small companies with limited resources, relative inexperience navigating the procurement procedure, landing on a GSA schedule can be an important very first action towards protecting the federal government as a customer.
The rule requires that firms that hold schedule agreements while other government-wide acquisition agreements report transactional data through an electronic system. While it appears that much of this data is currently offered to the GSA, the new guideline increases the frequency of reporting and expands what details firms are required to offer. GSA Search Engine Ranker.
With that, I thank the witnesses for testifying today, and I yield back. Chairman HANNA. Thank you.
What the rule needs is regular monthly reports from a variety of GSA contractors. This includes both the schedule contractors, in addition to those who hold IDIQ, indefinite shipment, indefinite quantity specialists, and what we call GWACs, Government-wide Acquisition Contracts, to prepare these regular monthly reports of all federal sales made during the prior month.
For those professionals who take part in the pilot program, they will be minimized from a problem, what we call the cost decreases provision, which is another compliance provision that is in GSA agreements. In the public meeting that GSA held on April 17th, I participated in virtually. My understanding of that conference is that everyone in the room had concerns about the guideline, including GSA's own inspector general.
The proposed guideline raises a variety of issues (GSA SER Services). The very first, which I am sure you will hear from all our panel members about, is the expense of execution and compliance.
I would recommend that for some specialists, it will take 6 hours for them to determine which of their IT systems hold the numerous information aspects that GSA has needed for this rule. That does not enable at any time for establishing a report, ensuring that the report is accurate, and training its workers on how they will submit that report on a month-to-month basis.
This could not perhaps allow whenever for the specialists to really examine the reports to guarantee that the data is correct. There is absolutely nothing in the proposed rule that suggests what would take place if the contractors submit inaccurate information or if they just eliminate data due to the fact that it is undoubtedly inaccurate.
The 2nd bothersome location is the potential expansion of what we call industrial sales practice requirements. GSA contractors are needed to send industrial sales practices prior to contract award and throughout agreement performance when certain things occur, like if they go to add products to a professional's increased costs. The proposed rule permits GSA to request for CSPs at any time (GSA SER).
This needs specialists to enter into their data systems and take a look at real discount rates on deals. I mean, we see news release after news release from the Department of Justice mentioning that specialists have actually fraudulently offered this details when in truth they just have actually not examined. So this is a big issue.
We understand it is going to cost a lot to collect the info, but what is not clear is what benefit GSA is going to get from the details. And then finally, is the private and proprietary nature of the information. Transactional information pricing has constantly been secured by the courts under FOIA, and GSA does not appear to appreciate based on comments made at the meeting that this holds true.
GSA acknowledges the extra reporting requirement will certainly have a cost for affected businesses. SBA's Workplace of Advocacy and GSA's own inspector basic kept in mind that price quotes in the proposed guideline appear considerably understated.
Complexity, on the other hand, steps if a policy modification will make offering to the federal government harder or easier. Essentially, will the federal market be more or less tough to understand? Or as I frequently hear from organization owners, am I going to require to hire somebody for this? While GSA contents its reporting solution will be user- friendly, our experience is that government data systems are anything however - GSA SER.
Frequently, nevertheless, small companies provide tailored and ingenious solutions that in conjunction with competitive pricing produce best value in procurement rather of least expensive rate. While GSA suggests that prices will only be one consider determining best worth, it provides substantial weight. The words "rate" or "rates" appear 165 times in the policy, while "finest value" only appears 7.
This resembles asking retailers selling on Amazon to report to Amazon what it sold on Amazon. This seems to be an inefficient way to gather information. And speaking to the motorist behind this policy, we continue to be concerned about a vision of government procurement that looks for to classify customized services into narrow categories (GSA Search Engine Ranker).
I am pleased to respond to any concerns. Chairman HANNA. Thank you, Mr. Stanford. Next, we have Mr. Roger Waldron, who is president of the Coalition of Federal Government Procurement. Think it or not, we have time. We can break now but I believe we do have time to make it through. As you can see, there are 400 individuals who have not shown up.
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