Bush mandates outlined

"Performance Goals and Management Initiatives forthe FY 2002 Budget"

Agencies struggling to understand President Bush's new management and performance initiatives received specific guidance and goals from the Office of Management and Budget last week.

The new guidance issued by OMB deputy director Sean O'Keefe highlights three reform initiatives from President Bush's fiscal 2002 blueprint and provides the following goals:

n Use performance-based contracting techniques for no less than 20 percent of contracts with a value of more than $25,000, consistent with goals from the federal Procurement Executives Council.

n Post solicitations for all acquisitions of more than $25,000 on the government-wide business opportunities Web site, FedBizOpps.

n Compete no less than 5 percent of the federal jobs listed in each agency's inventory under the Federal Activities Inventory Reform Act. The FAIR Act requires agencies to list all functions that are not inherently governmental and could be performed by the private sector.

The memo also guides agencies on information to include in their FAIR Act inventories, which many in Congress and industry criticized for being too vague when agencies first released lists in 1999. It states Bush's commitment to opening competition for at least half the federal positions listed in the inventories.