Small agencies spared CCR fee

Central Contractor Registration

In hopes of boosting governmentwide use of the Central Contractor Registration database, the Defense Department has decided to exempt small agencies from paying to use it.

CCR is a repository of vendor data that makes transactions, especially electronic transactions, more efficient. It makes vendors responsible for updating their company's information — such as taxpayer identification numbers and electronic funds transfer data — a task that had become a bureaucratic ordeal for DOD.

Bush administration officials are pushing for governmentwide use of CCR.

Lisa Romney, CCR program manager with the Defense Electronic Business Program Office, said that most agencies using CCR are required to pay according to a formula based largely on the number of vendors that the agency is going to have in the system. Agencies then pay a corresponding percentage of CCR's operating budget.

The Defense Electronic Business Program Office, however, has decided not to charge agencies that would pay less than $5,000 based on the formula, Romney said. "It just would cost more than the money we would take in," she said.

The payment issue has been a significant hurdle for broader use of CCR, and Romney said the Office of Management and Budget is still examining the issue.

CCR officials are meeting with agencies if asked, but Romney said they do not have the staff to market CCR more broadly.

So far, only a few agencies are using the database. They include the departments of Interior, State, Transportation and Treasury as well as the Office of Personnel Management and NASA.

Governmentwide use of CCR is a goal, but could soon become mandatory. "Things are happening. It's just not in policy yet," Romney said.

DOD's use of CCR has sharply increased in recent years, enabling the Pentagon to save money by paying more vendors electronically and dramatically reducing the need for paper.

Robert Bemben, a procurement analyst in the Defense procurement office, said that electronic payments to large vendors has increased from 82 percent of all transactions in fiscal 1999 to 96 percent in fiscal 2002. But among smaller vendors, the percentage of electronic payments has increased more dramatically, from 26 percent in fiscal 1999 to more than 74 percent in fiscal 2002, he said.

Nearly 192,000 vendors are registered on CCR, Romney said.