Sequestration Hit IT Contracts
Shebeko/Shutterstock.com
By
Joseph Marks
More than three-fourths of agencies re-scoped information technology contracts to manage the arbitrary cuts.
The Government Accountability Office released a mammoth report on Thursday detailing how agencies managed through sequestration during the 2013 fiscal year.
The report is full of details but one jumps out from a table on page 54: 18 of the 23 surveyed agencies re-scoped information technology projects in order to cut back costs. Re-scoping program management and support services contracts was the only sequestration fix that was more popular among agencies with 19 of 23 saying they’d resorted to it.
The Defense Department, which is by far the government’s largest IT spender, did not re-scope any IT contracts, according to the report.
As one example, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office delayed several IT upgrades, which, along with reduced hiring, will prolong the wait until the office can meet its goals for improved patent processing wait times.
(Image via Shebeko/Shutterstock.com)