Over the past five years, agencies increasingly have left the General Services Administration’s Federal Technology Service holding the bag—a very large bag of money.
Since fiscal 2000, agencies have allowed more than $2 billion of unused money to build up in FTS’ IT Fund, which for years has let agencies extend the use of funds beyond the fiscal year. Now FTS is trying to figure out how so much money was left unaccounted for, and if agencies can continue using it. Funds for some projects may be expired, leaving agencies scrambling to make up the difference.
Whether the situation resulted from lax interpretation of the rules or illicit behavior by agency or FTS sales and contracting employees, GSA now is more strictly enforcing how customer agencies use the revolving fund. FTS will require departments to do a better job of planning how—and when—they will spend their money, experts said.
“I’ve been telling people that Aug. 1 is the new Sept. 1,” said Deidre Lee, the Defense Department’s director of procurement policy, referring to the extra time it will take to get procurements into the pipeline. “It is not as simple as it used to be, nor should it be. We will ask them what the acquisition strategy is, and all those questions that ensure good business decisions.”
DOD accounts for as much as 80 percent FTS’s business and has more than $1.4 billion of unused money in the IT Fund. The fund could be merged with the General Supply Fund to create an Acquisition Services Fund under GSA reorganization legislation passed by the House last month. But it’s not likely the legislation will become law before Sept. 30, because it does not have a Senate sponsor. The Brooks Act of 1965 created the IT Fund, and the 1996 Clinger-Cohen Act extended it. Under the rules set up by the two laws, agencies can put money into the fund if they have a bona-fide need.
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