FCW Insider: GSA's musical chairs

There continue to be what-if discussions over at the General Services Administration given last week's announcements that David Bibb, deputy administrator and current acting administrator, will be retiring on Sept. 1 and that Jim Williams, commissioner of GSA's Federal Technology Service, has been nominated to the GSA administrator job. And there is a little bit of musical chairs that might be going on.

So with Bibb retiring, who might become deputy administrator? One assumes that Williams would name that person. There are a few names being circulated around GSA HQ and over in Crystal City. One name that keeps coming up is Barney Brasseux, who is currently Williams' deputy at the Federal Acquisition Service. The other name I keep hearing: Kathleen Turco, GSA's chief financial officer who, it should be noted, served as GSA deputy administrator back when former GSA Administrator Steve Perry left.

And, of course, if Williams ends up in the corner office, that would also leave the important GSA FAS commissioner job open. Again, I have hear Brasseux's name mentioned for that post.

The big question that people keep pondering: Will the Senate actually get the nomination done by Sept. 1? The Senate calendar has them out of town until July 7 (the Senate's calendar online says "July 6"— a Sunday, as if all the lawmakers will be back in town ready to go at 9 a.m. Monday, July 7.) Lawmakers are in town for five weeks because the August recess starts in early August. (Again, the Senate calendar says Aug. 9 — a Saturday — as if it won't be a ghost town on Capitol Hill starting on the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 7.) In addition, the Democratic National Convention is in Denver Aug. 25-28, and the Republican National Convention is Sept. 1-4. So it is going to be a busy few weeks if this nomination is going to get processed on time.

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