GSA poised to lower industry fee

Vendors will pay less money to the General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service next year to sell products and services through the GSA schedule contracts system.

FSS published a final rule today that gives it the unilateral right to change the percentage rate of the industrial funding fee, and promised to lower it from 1 percent to 0.75 percent effective Jan. 1, 2004.

FSS generates most of its revenue through the fees, which are supposed to cover the program's costs. However, a 2002 General Accounting Office study found that from 1999 to 2001, revenue from the fees exceeded the program's cost by almost 54 percent, or more than $151 million.