OMB guides agencies on blueprint

"Performance Goals and Management Initiatives for the FY 2002 Budget"

The Office of Management and Budget last week provided additional guidance for agencies on the specific management and performance goals outlined by President Bush in his fiscal 2002 budget.

The new guidance follows a Feb. 14 memo from OMB Director Mitchell Daniels Jr. that gave agencies a preview of what to expect in the president's blueprint, which was released Feb. 28. The March memo from deputy director Sean O'Keefe highlights the three reform initiatives emphasized in the blueprint and provides the following goals for fiscal 2002:

Performance-based contracting — 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. Online procurement — Post solicitations for all acquisitions of more than $25,000 on the governmentwide business opportunities Web site, FedBizOpps. Outsourcing — 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 what they should include in their FAIR Act inventories, which many in Congress and industry criticized for being too vague when agencies released the first lists in 1999.

Under the new guidance, agencies must list the number of jobs by function, location, training requirements and planned contract support. It also states Bush's commitment to — in the future — open to competition at least half of the federal positions listed in the inventories.

Agencies are to work with OMB's Office of Federal Procurement Policy to develop plans, including a time line showing when they expect to meet those goals. The White House still has not nominated an administrator for OFPP.

If the agencies do not believe they will meet the goal in fiscal 2002, the must describe "the actions they intend to take in order to mitigate this problem," O'Keefe wrote.