NIH-Run IT Contracting Vehicle Slashes Fees

One of the federal government’s largest governmentwide acquisition vehicles is slashing the fees it charges agencies to purchase IT products and services.

The National Institute of Health’s Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center -- known as NITAAC -- announced Jan. 5 it would pare back the prices for its three offerings by as much as 35 percent.

The center is one of just three entities authorized by the Office of Management and Budget to manage governmentwide acquisition contracts, or GWACS.

NITAAC officials cited the success of three agency-run programs for the fee drop. In 2015, the center expanded its services, including offering assisted acquisition services to Defense Department agencies.

“We’re doing all we can to improve efficiencies in our own program, so we can pass those savings along to our governmentwide customers,” said Robert Coen, the center’s program director, in a statement.

The new fee structure:

• CIO-SP3 (for IT services and solutions) - reduced from 1 percent to 0.65 percent;
• CIO-SB3 (small business) - reduced from 0.75 percent to 0.55 percent
• CIO-CS (IT commodities) - reduced from 0.50 percent to 0.35 percent

Under the NITAAC vehicles -- tagline “everything IT” -- agencies can purchase products and services across 137 labor categories including cloud services, cybersecurity solutions, software development and systems engineering as well as basic IT commodities.

Another governmentwide vehicle, NASA’s Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement, also cut fees last year and now charges agencies 0.39 percent.

The General Services Administration’s IT Schedule 70, which similarly offers agencies a menu of IT purchasing options, charges agencies agencies a 0.75 percent fee.

Governmentwide purchasing vehicles, such as NITAAC, could be seeing some new business thanks to a recent push by OMB to streamline the federal government’s largely inefficient purchasing of IT commodities.

In October, OMB ordered a freeze on new contracts for basic laptops and desktops, requiring agencies to use one of the three governmentwide options for new orders.

(Image via Cienpies Design/Shutterstock.com)