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Government officials need more training to respond effectively to sudden purchasing demands in emergency situations, an Office of Management and Budget official said Monday.

Shortcomings in contingency contracting capabilities surfaced during last summer's hurricane season, said Robert Burton, acting administrator of OMB's Office of Federal Procurement Policy, at a conference hosted by the Arlington, Va.-based Performance Institute. A lack of staff, particularly of managers and people experienced in handling emergencies, was a key problem at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies, he said.

FEMA had 36 contracting professionals last summer, and had a request pending to add 200 over the next five years. Moreover, "Our folks were not necessarily trained well in contingency contracting," he said. People had little knowledge of what contract vehicles were already in place at different agencies that could have been used to quickly buy supplies for areas affected by the hurricane.

Without that knowledge, duplicate procurements were made in some cases, and in others, supplies were delayed, Burton said.

He noted that the Chief Acquisition Officers Council, a group of procurement chiefs, has established a working group on contingency contracting that is developing an outline of best practices for agencies to follow, as well as directories of individuals with expertise in emergency procurement and of existing contracts that could be relevant to future emergencies.

While some lawmakers have called for more flexibility in federal acquisitions guidelines to respond to unanticipated events, knowledge of how to use the existing rules will be sufficient to meet agencies' contingency needs, Burton said. "The [Federal Acquisition Regulation] is extremely flexible," he said, "flexible to the point that FEMA was able to award three contracts with a ceiling of $500 million, verbally."

Burton also said interagency contracts and strategic sourcing, where agencies analyze purchasing habits and use that information to negotiate better deals, are priorities this year.

The Government Accountability Office last year identified interagency contracts as a high-risk area for fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. Such contracting vehicles have proliferated across the executive branch, Burton said, with a minimum of data available on how they are used, what responsibilities the purchasing and ordering agencies each have and how contracting fees figure into agencies' budgets.

Perhaps more significantly, these interagency contracts escape much of the scrutiny of other contracting vehicles and are susceptible to being "out of scope," with information technology contracts, especially, used for a wide range of acquisitions unrelated to the purposes for which the funds were appropriated.

In strategic sourcing, Burton said his office will continue to move forward on initiatives begun over the past year, including shared sourcing of key commodities and better training for the acquisition workforce.

Burton said improving the Federal Procurement Data System also would be a major activity of the year, noting that gains from initiatives such as strategic sourcing could not be measured without high-quality, consistent benchmark data.

COMMENTS

• I predict that a contract will be submitted to conduct training. Of course it will be Web-based training just as everything else is now. Then in a year or two, there will be an article on GovExec.com concerning continual problems with emergency procurement officials. There will then be a contract submitted to do a study as to why problems continue even after training has been conducted. The result of the study will be that Web-based training is neither effective nor appropriate for procurement functions. Then there will be a contract submitted for real life human beings to teach emergency procurement. This will result in a great number of highly qualified and experienced acquisition and procurement government employees jumping ship to work as instructors for the contractor which will require hiring new personnel to replace them and require more training for the new people. Anyone see a pattern here that saves any money or makes us more efficient. If you do, please explain it to me. ORF GovExec.com reader Posted February 16, 2006 6:22 PM
• They had a staff of 36 with a request to add 200. You are asking these people to do the full job when only staffed 15 percent. If each person is doing the job of seven, how are they supposed to fit in time for training? Under the staffing conditions, everyone should be grateful for what was accomplished. GovExec.com reader Posted February 14, 2006 6:46 PM
• "Our folks were not necessarily trained well in contingency contracting," he said. People had little knowledge of what contract vehicles were already in place at different agencies that could have been used to quickly buy supplies for areas affected by the hurricane." One must immediately ask "What part of Federal Emergency Management Agency is confusing here?" You would think that working at an agency with a middle name such as “Emergency” would automatically require this type of knowledge and expertise. One would think that this agency’s primary purpose would be to provide training that would concentrate on preparing its employees to respond to different types of emergencies such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and any other type of disaster that has an impact on a large portion of an area of the country or vast numbers of people. To not train personnel working in the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be prepared to respond to an emergency, would be like not training Army personnel on how to fight a battle or win a war! One would have thought that 9/11 would have provided the government with an example of what was needed to respond to an emergency, and provided the incentive to "brainstorm" about what different efforts would be needed to respond to different types of emergencies. Vast sums of money have been spent by the Department of Homeland Security, little of it being spent prudently and wisely. We need to get rid of the political appointees, and put professionals who know what is needed in charge, and we need to do it before another emergency occurs, not in the middle of one! JD Posted February 14, 2006 6:35 AM