FCW Insider: Reporting live from schedule advisory panel

FCW reporter Matthew Weigelt filed this brief from today's meeting of the GSA schedules advisory panel:

The schedules advisory panel on Friday morning approved a recommendation to have the General Services Administration eliminate the Price Reduction Clause for Multiple Award Schedules contracts for services and require competition at the task order level with stricter competition rules.

“The clause is meaningless” for services, said Elliott Branch, chairman of the Multiple Award Schedule Advisory Panel, who made the motion. Several other panelists agreed that the clause has no effect on services.

The panel’s motion eliminates the clause that ensures the government is getting at least as good a deal as a contractor’s private-sector clients, because the services vary too much, compared to commodities, experts and panelists have said.

The panel also approved in the recommendation to include “803-like” procedures for competition. That would require agencies to solicit all contractors to offer a bid when issuing a task order or receive at least three bids from contractors. The Defense Department is required under statute, section 803 in the fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill, to meet either of those two criteria. Civilian agencies aren’t under the same statute.

The panel is reviewing GSA’s MAS program and will offer recommendations to the GSA administrator.

Stay tuned for more updates....