GSA chief orders reorganization of technology, supply units

The administrator of the General Services Administration has ordered an internal agency team to come up with a plan to reorganize the agency's Federal Technology Service and Federal Supply Service by mid-summer.

Such a plan is needed "to strengthen the capability of GSA's business lines to meet increasing customer requirements for excellent acquisition services, make it easier for industry contractors to interface with our acquisition processes, and enhance the efficiency of GSA's administrative support functions by reorganizing and combining certain activities that are now performed in separate units," Stephen Perry wrote in a memo to GSA employees on Friday.

FTS, which procures information technology goods and services for federal agencies, has been beset for more than a year by findings of contracting and procurement violations and mismanagement in its regional offices. Earlier this month, FTS Commissioner Sandra Bates announced she would leave the agency in February.

Perry said last week that Barbara Shelton, administrator of GSA's Mid-Atlantic Region headquartered in Philadelphia, will take over at that time as acting commissioner of FTS. He said that Shelton "will have a key role in working with others on the GSA management team to reorganize functions of FTS and the Federal Supply Service." FSS manages the widely used schedules program, a series of contracts for goods and services open to all federal agencies.

In his memo, Perry said he had ordered the creation of an FTS/FSS reorganization steering team, whose members are: Perry; Shelton; FSS Commissioner Donna D. Bennett; F. Joseph Moravec, commissioner of the Public Buildings Service; Donald C. Williams, administrator of GSA's National Capital Region; Peter G. Stamison, administrator of the Pacific Rim Region; Kathleen M. Turco, chief financial officer; G. Martin Wagner, head of the Office of Governmentwide Policy; Michael Carleton, chief information officer; and Susan G. Marshall, head of the Office of Performance Improvement.

Perry also created several task force teams to investigate options for combining functions of FTS and FSS operations, such as:

• The General Supply Fund and the Information Technology Fund.
• Components of GSA's financial management processes.
• Components of GSA's information technology processes.
• FTS and FSS acquisition services for customers acquiring telecommunications and IT solutions, professional services and other products and services.
• Other functions to be determined.

Congressional overseers have made it clear they're interested in seeing organizational changes at GSA. In reaction to an inspector general's report, released in December, that found widespread contracting abuse at FTS, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who chairs the House Government Reform Committee, indicated that he will consider a "permanent reorganization" of GSA this year.