The Multiple Award Schedule Advisory Panel is still debating what it should recommend to Jim Williams, acting administrator of the General Services Administration, regarding the schedules program. The panel will hear from presenters for the last time during its meeting Sept. 19. After that, members will spend at least three meetings discussing what they want to suggest to Williams.
The panel’s next four meetings are scheduled for:
Sept. 19 at 8 a.m.
Sept. 22 at 8 a.m.
Oct. 6 at 9 a.m.
Oct. 27 at 9 a.m.
All meetings will be held at the American Institute of Architects’ building at 1725 New York Avenue, N.W., in Washington, D.C.
— Matthew Weigelt
At what point in the procurement process does competition occur?
After 40 hours of discussions, a panel of procurement experts believes it may have an answer to the question, which is nowhere near as simple as it might seem.
The Multiple Award Schedule Advisory Panel, created to explore possibilities for improving the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award Schedules program, has held six meetings since May.
Here are five questions for which the panel’s members have been seeking answers:
Where does competition take place?
If competition primarily takes place at the task-order level, is it important to set a fair and reasonable price at the contract level?
If the consensus is that competition occurs at the task-order level, are the methods GSA uses to determine fair and reasonable prices adequate?
If the current policy is not adequate, can the panel help to improve the policy GSA uses to establish fair and reasonable pricing and to maintain the same pricing as the contractors’ other customers?
If fair and reasonable determination at the schedule contract level is not beneficial and price reasonableness is to be determined only at the task-order level, what is the best role for GSA?
In those meetings, the panel has heard from industry representatives, contractors and a handful of government officials about the price reduction clause and the “most favored customer” provision. Both of them are standard in GSA schedules contracts, and agency officials want to figure out if they are still relevant in today’s market.
The price reduction clause requires contractors to give the government the best discounts they give to their commercial customers.
The most favored customer provision gives GSA a mechanism to identify the companies that GSA contractors give the best discounts and track them to ensure the government gets at least as good a deal. It also applies to “basis of award” customers, those commercial customers that serve as GSA’s baseline for schedule pricing.
Are those provisions still serving a useful purpose? Opinions are sharply divided. People who have spoken before the panel and the panelists themselves have strong and sometimes conflicting views.
That is a question that the panelists agreed must be answered before they can offer acting GSA Administrator Jim Williams reasonable recommendations for improving the schedules program. And the answer to that question spawns a series of follow-ups, all of which need answers.
Based on the range of views expressed by experts meeting with the panel, it is safe to say that the answers are not obvious.
Tom Essig, chief procurement officer at the Homeland Security Department and a member of the panel, believes the prices set on the contracts are less important because the vendors will come down further when they fight for task orders.
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