GSA's shocking numbers

Want to be shocked? Here are some numbers that we got from GSA about for IT solutions (regional and national IT solutions). Why is the agency found itself in a fix? Business volume has decreased from a high of $7,223 million in fiscal 2004 to a projected low of $4,342 million by the end of fiscal 2006.

I find that number just stunning… shocking. If my math is right, that is an almost 40 percent drop in business.

Marty Wagner, acting administrator of the GSA's newly created Federal Acquisition Service, has the unenviable position of picking up the pieces of what has been a string of problems. What are they? Remember that an IT contract was used to provide the military with interrogators in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

That, among other things, led to a precipitous drop in the Defense Department's use of GSA contracts, prompting DOD to redouble its good procurement efforts and for GSA to create the Get It Right campaign.

On top of that, there was the long probe of problems at GSA's regional offices and a weak administrator in Stephen Perry, and then, just for a bit of spice, add the arrest of David Safavian, who at the time was administrator of the Office of Procurement Policy but who was charged in connection with incidents related to his tenure as GSA's chief of staff.

It all has resulted in a mighty mess at a very important agency.

GSA is an important agency in this community so Wagner has his work cut out for him. Unfortunately he is only acting in that post, given that GSA still does not have an administrator and the names that had been floating around seem not to pan out.