GSA to examine schedules use

CHICAGO -- One of the first duties of the reorganized General Services Administration will be to figure out just what agencies are buying through the popular schedules contracts.

The work will fall to Customer Accounts and Research, one of the five program offices that will be established through the agency's ongoing reorganization, said Barbara Shelton, acting commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service speaking to an audience at the agency's Network Services Conference being held this week in Chicago.

The schedule contracts are widely used multiple award contracts that allow agencies to buy supplies from many vendors under prenegotiated pricing arrangements.

GSA does not have a detailed understanding about how agencies use them, she said. The information gap "makes it hard for us to enter into discussions about strategic sourcing" and other measures that might lead to better bargains for government buyers, she said.

Shelton, along with Stephen Perry, GSA administrator, John Johnson, assistant commissioner of service delivery and development, and Deidre Lee, recently hired to serve as assistant commissioner for integrated technology services, discussed the reorganization at the conference's opening session this morning.