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Return to Article: Private sector advises acquisition panel

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  I can see it now: "Bring me the head of Ed the Fed" said Tom Davis at a recent meeting of the Council of Evil in Government (COEG).

  Connie the Contractor Posted April 1, 2005 5:51 PM
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  How nice for P&G. Except for the fact that private industry and the government are run totally differently for a myriad of reasons, once you contract out something from the government, it stays that way regardless of the way the contract is handled because once those employees are gone from their agency(ies), there's no one to replace them, period.

  GovExec.com reader Posted April 1, 2005 1:26 PM
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  Jeesh, Kimberly Palmer should get hazardous duty pay for going to this meeting! The high point seems to have been Carl DeMaio proclaiming the importance of Ethics, not to change ethics rules, but in the name of maintaining the status quo. Form over substance.

  Here's a "working itinerary" for the Panel:

  1) Go to Tom Davis, and ask what the Barons of Northern Virginia want.

  2) The Barons probably want 10 rule-changes to fatten their wallets. If somehow they can only come up with 9, make the 10th recommodation be "preserving ethics" or some nonsense that Carl DeMaio can take credit for.

  3) Put the changes in the report.

  4) Go home. Stop wasting taxpayer money by having unnecesarry meetings.

  Ed the Fed Posted April 1, 2005 1:04 PM
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  "P&G first screens potential bidders and then invites a handful to bid on a contract, he said. In the big service contracts he discussed, he said the company did not look at small, minority-owned, or women-owned businesses because there weren't any with the ability to do the job" If they do not even consider small contractors how do they know that they do not have the capability to handle the job?

  Also, is it not true that these private sector firms acquire without written contracts for much of the items they acquire? Also, don't they have a "capital budget" and an operating budget" from which acquisitions are made? The government has no capital budget, everything is operating or cash budget. The private sector companies need to look at the government process and point out areas of concern - not describe what private firms do. I had two budgets for each year - a $33 million capital budget and a $500 million operating budget. I did pretty much as I wanted within those budget constraints with continuous oversight and review but I did not have to follow any specific process or develop cost estimates. I did what I considered reasonable and was evaluated on the basis of the profit I generated and improvements in working conditions. I bought $3 million worth of equipment without any delay or independent estimate. You should not do that in government because it is the publics money and there is no profit measure. The commisssion should develop the process government should use in the absense of the profit measure. I never have seen the government determine spending on the basis of benfits derived from the spending they simply spend whatever is approved before hand. Independent cost estimnates are a joke! The contractors provide the independent cost estimates for the contracting service and that estimate is then provided to the contracts unit to contract. Guess what contractor is going to win the bid! As for unbundling of contract - good luck it ain't happening! Bundling is getting worse because the services do not want to spend the time to follow the acquisition rules written by a bunch of lawyers. Lawyers don't know how to purchase - they only cover your aspects of the purchase. It is interesting to see the remarks in the article from PG are from a lawyer not a purchasing agent. This commission will be worthless.

  taxpayer Posted April 1, 2005 7:46 AM
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  Thank Heavens for Carl DeMaio for recommending that the panel not overburden an already OVERBURDENED workforce due to a few people making unethical decisions. We are very overburdened and having to pick up for all the military personnel deployed with no help in sight, the budget cuts, cuts in trainging, etc isn't helping. When are we going to spend money at home instead of overseas? Adding another layer of ethics regulations is definitely excessive. Why do people in power continually overkill for every problem that hits the papers. We have already seen people leave for other jobs at the same or higher pay due to the stress level. I feel most of us are too busy trying to get the job done to have time to do what the people at the top did.

  Susan Jackson Posted April 1, 2005 7:00 AM