Performance-based contract awarded for GAO tech upgrade

The General Services Administration announced on Tuesday that it has awarded a multimillion-dollar, multiyear task order contract to SRA International Inc., to upgrade the information technology systems at the Government Accountability Office.

The contract was awarded under GSA's Millennia governmentwide acquisition vehicle and is valued at $117 million over five years, with one base year and four one-year options. SRA will serve as systems integrator and provide GAO with a wide range of professional and IT services including infrastructure operations and maintenance, network upkeep, security services, enterprise architecture planning and software development. The company and GAO did not respond on Tuesday to requests for comment.

Pete Burr, manager of FEDSIM, an organization within GSA's Federal Acquisition Service that provides acquisition support to agencies, said the goal of the project is to reduce daily operational costs related to GAO's IT systems. Burr said GAO expected to save $15 million over five years through the consolidation of its various IT systems plus the reduction of its IT infrastructure and inventory.

The task order represents GAO's first attempt at performance-based contracting; SRA's payment will depend on semiannual reviews by government employees. Burr said the task order included quality assurance surveillance, which details how government employees will monitor performance in specific areas. The employees report every six months to the award fee board, which determines SRA's compensation. Burr said the surveillance by federal managers ensures there will be "constant monitoring and oversight by the government."

"Performance-based contracting is trying to get the government out of telling contractors how to do something," Burr said. "We hire contractors to be our experts these days. We're looking for them to bring their expertise to the table based on our end-state goals."

Rather than using service-level agreements, in which GAO pays for a particular service like help desk support, the task order will be used for objective-level agreements. SRA and its eight subcontractors must achieve an agency objective, such as creating an enterprisewide content management system. SRA would then propose a detailed game plan, including all personnel, hardware and infrastructure costs. Burr said this approach would have little noticeable impact on users, but is aimed at improving service among IT professionals within the agency.

"We're looking for more consolidation and a better mix of skills [from the contractor]," said Burr. "We want to have the contractor bring best practices into the organization to provide better service."