Federal Acquisition Service Corrects IT Reseller Price Issues

The Federal Acquisition Service has appropriately mitigated issues around price discrepancies in the General Services Administration’s Schedules program, according to a review released this week by the agency’s Office of Inspector General.

The Schedules program was originally established to streamline the process in which the government can buy commercial products and services in large volumes at discount prices. Through the Office of Information Technology Schedules program, FAS awards IT schedule contracts to manufacturers and resellers of IT equipment, services and software.

In a 2016 audit, GSA’s IG identified problematic price variances among many identical items on FAS’ IT Schedule—for example, the cost of one of Sharp’s 70-inch LED Smart TVs ranged from $1,597 to $3,000. The audit also found many items available at lower commercial prices. Further, between August 2014 and July 2015, most IT Schedule purchases involved top-selling items being sold for higher than the lowest IT schedule price, essentially defeating the purpose of the Schedules program.

The watchdog made a series of recommendations including setting procedures to ensure that varying prices for identical IT schedule items are supported by price analysis and improving price protection for IT schedule reseller contracts by setting controls that ensure contracting officers receive accurate and complete information around manufacturers' commercial sales practices, among others.

Though the IG’s audit team did not elaborate on how FAS confronted the issues over the last three years or details into the agency’s implementation of GSA’s directions, the review said the agency took “appropriate corrective actions” to address the recommendations.

“We determined that no further action is necessary,” they said.