GSA unveils first NewPay service

The General Services Administration released the first minimal viable product for payroll under its NewPay project in late September, the agency told FCW in a statement.

Launched in 2018, NewPay is GSA's software-as-a-service program intended to provide the entire government with commercial, cloud-based payroll, scheduling and leave management functions to replace again legacy systems that are expensive to maintain

GSA said it is also identifying the most likely federal agencies to try it out and further hone its capabilities.

During fiscal 2021, the agency said it is looking to expand the MVP's payroll foundation to develop work schedule and leave management capabilities by working with federal agency adopters, as well as shared service providers.

Carahsoft and Grant Thornton each lead teams operating blanket purchase agreements on the NewPay project, which has a ceiling value of $2.5 billion over 10 years. The project also received a $20.7 million boost from the Technology Modernization Fund in Feb. 2019.

According to the TMF website, NewPay has spent just over $10.8 million of its allocation, and is looking to configure and test the system covering 65 pay plans.

Amy Haseltine, director of GSA's Quality Service Management Office for civilian human resource transaction service and director of GSA's NewPay management office, said at a mid-September event that the agency was close to rolling out the first iteration of NewPay.

The minimum viable product lays the groundwork to address the legal, regulatory, policy and data standards that affect calculations that underpin federal agency payroll operations. The development process incorporated payroll stakeholder reviews and the harmonization of more than 6,500 existing shared service provider codes.

The project has faced some headwinds from appropriators in the House and the Senate. Most recently, in the July 2020 legislative report accompanying the House-passed Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill, lawmakers expressed concern about "GSA's implementation and program management [of NewPay], including the continued lack of transparency and details on implementation costs and return on investment for current federal agency personnel and customers."