GSA sets waiver process for Networx deadline

Agencies can request an extension to make their awards.

By Jason Miller
Executive Editor
FederalNewsRadio

The General Services Administration is giving agencies a chance to ask for more time to decide on a vendor under the Networx telecommunications contract.

FederalNewsRadio has learned that GSA sent a letter to agency officials Sept. 12 and briefed the Networx Transition Working Group on Sept. 18 about the waiver process.

For the past year, GSA has been firm in requiring agencies to meet the Sept. 30 deadline to make a “fair opportunity decision.” If agencies meet the deadline, GSA will reimburse them for their transition costs.

But as the deadline got closer, agencies, GSA and even vendors realized meeting this closing date was not possible, industry sources say.

“There are a lot of agencies that have not completed their fair opportunity exercise,” says one official from a vendor on the Networx contract.

“If you look at the entire population of the FTS 2001 user base, a lot of folks are in the process of doing their statement of work or GSA or vendors are in the process of evaluating the statement of works.”

The official, who requested anonymity in order to speak more freely about this sensitive issue, says the fear was the statements of work (SOW) were going to get caught up in the queue or industry would not be able to respond in time.

In the letter, GSA says agencies can request a waiver for an extension by sending in three pieces of information:

  • The number of fair opportunities decisions for transition and when the last of those decisions will be made, including those associated with statements of work
  • The number of SOWs the agency plans for transition and when each SOW will be submitted to GSA
  • The estimated date when all transition orders will be submitted to GSA

GSA also requests agencies submit their waiver requests before Sept. 30.

In the letter, GSA says agencies will no longer be eligible for transition reimbursement if they submit the request for extension after Sept. 30.

GSA officials were not available to comment on waiver process letter.

Industry sources say only about 3 percent of all known inventory under the FTS 2001 contract has transitioned to Networx.

“This decision is another speed bump along the way,” says Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting.

“It tells me that things are not going as quickly as GSA hoped. I think it is tied into bunch of things including the Trusted Internet Connections initiative. It is a very real requirement and complicated.”

Suss says for some agencies TIC, which will reduce the number of Internet gateways across government, is requiring them to re-architect their network and that just takes a lot of time and expertise.

“The agencies are trying to navigate all this stuff with incredible budget pressures and limited resources,” Suss says.

“So the fact that the schedule is the thing that takes the hit is reflection of fact that agencies don’t have a lot of money or engineering talent to put on this stuff.”

Agencies are not alone. Vendors also were having a rough time meeting the deadline.

Vendor sources say there were as many as 17 SOWs to respond to in early August. One vendor official says their company is working on about six now.

“Usually one or two big ones is normal, but 17 is huge,” the official says.

“What we did was engage a lot of other folks in our organization to have extra capture and engineering help. We can’t say no because this is the opportunity.”

The vendor official says they were expecting a lot of activity 9 months ago, but as the Sept. 30 deadline got closer, agencies were issuing SOW’s.

Other industry experts question why GSA waited so long to establish a waiver process.

One observer, who also wished to remain anonymous because of the sensitive nature of the topic, says if GSA had made the decision earlier, it would have allowed everyone to do better job in preparing and responding to the SOW’s.

“As it happens now everyone has been running around like a crazy person and dumping these things on GSA and GSA is not giving probably adequate review before pushing them out the door,” the expert says.

“I think it is very important. It is not too late and it will allow things to move forward more judiciously.”

The Interagency Management Council (IMC), which is a governmentwide organization that works with GSA on the Networx transition, asked for the extension in June, sources say.

GSA and the Office of Management and Budget refused to grant the extension, sources say.

Sources also say GSA was ready to announce the extension process in August at their Network conference in Dallas. But, sources say, OMB stepped in and said no.

“GSA needed to recognize the reality of the situation,” the source says.

“The IMC told GSA that if we don’t come to an agreement, they will have a lot of agencies that will not meet the deadline. Then GSA is in the position of having accumulated agency money in the transition fund and agencies not having access to it to pay for the costs.”

GSA says in the letter that they will look at requests on a case-by-case basis and decide as appropriate.


On the Web:

OMB – Networx memo (pdf)

GSA – Networx Web site

Interagency Management Council- target=”blank”>IMC Web site

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