Quick Hits: Nov. 27
*** Two critical Census Bureau systems have failed key tests and could put the 2020 census efforts at risk. The Commerce Department's inspector general has issued a management alert detailing the concerns, which center on the Decennial Applicant Personnel and Payroll system and the Census Hiring and Employment Check system.
The bureau's decennial count requires the hiring of hundreds of thousands of temporary workers, and there is "little time to resolve any additional issues discovered during retesting," the alert states. "In addition, the Bureau does not have an adequate, documented contingency plan in place in case the proposed solutions do not work."
*** The General Services Administration reminded its thousands of schedule contractors this week that they will soon see a revised solicitation in January that updates their contracts to reflect the agency’s move to consolidate its buying schedules.
The "mass mod" is coming in January, the agency said in a Nov. 25 post on its Interact web site, and will feature streamlined terms and conditions to go with the new categories and Special Item Numbers. The new single solicitation takes into account more than 1,000 comments GSA said it received from industry during its research into the consolidation earlier this year.
*** Beth Angerman, the principal deputy associate administrator in GSA’s Office of Governmentwide Policy, is leaving the agency on Dec. 6, an agency spokesperson confirmed to FCW.
Angerman was named to the OGP job in 2018. She had also led GSA's Office of Shared Solutions and Performance Improvement. In those positions, Angerman had been instrumental in moving GSA’s shared services efforts forward -- work that earned her a Federal 100 award -- as well as modernizing federal payroll systems using the cloud.
Angerman's departure plans were first reported by Federal News Network.
*** ASRC Federal has won the recompete of a NASA contract to help the agency plan and manage programs, mission and projects. The award, which is for the fifth version of NASA's Program Analysis and Control contract, has a potential five-year, $354 million ceiling. Washington Technology has additional details.
*** Health IT includes some of government's biggest modernization projects, and the technologies and tactics being used in those efforts can be applied to any number of agency missions. FCW's Dec. 4 Health IT Workshop features Department of Health and Human Services CIO Jose Arrieta, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization Chief Medical Officer Dr. Laura Kroupa, U.S. Digital Services expert Amy Gleason and Department of Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization Program Manager Craig Schaefer. Click here to learn more and register to attend.