MILLER ON PROCUREMENT.

***CONTRACTING ***

It is my firm belief that the primary reason for "procurement reform" was to allow smarter techies to largely bypass the procurement shops because these shops were poorly trained, not well motivated, understaffed and not serving their agencies very well.

Most techies are not MIPR aware that if you have a lousy contracting shops you can often MIPR your money to another agency like GSA etc. and get a more skilled group to buy on your behalf.

If you do this with a few major RFP's the yo yo who heads contracts will be in soon on his knees asking what he can do to earn your business. Most of the world has to earn business contracts shops seldom do.

But a strange anomaly exists. You may have seen recent pictures of a young scientist at NIST who just won the Nobel Prize. He represents the best of federal employees. He is the second one to do so in recent years. I was a federal techie for 15 years and was often in awe of the quality of some of my colleagues. But excellence in the tech shop usually does not translate into the same in contracting.

I have had four instances where an agency lost my client's winning bid. Once was NISA, once was IRS and two times it happened at GSA.

Has this ever happened to your firm? We would enjoy the story. And if you are interested we will tell you how to prevent this mishap.

NIST is a mess in contracting. I have often dealt with them and even consulted for them. They simply don't know how to play this game. They are not alone. Maybe I will give you my list of those with skill. This does not include VA, Commerce and NIH.

***GAO REPORTS***

I have long, long association with GAO going back to about 1964. Nice people, well educated, often very competent. The monthly GAO reports are usually excellent. If you are not on the subscription list do so ASAP by calling.

But the protest people at GAO are a completely different breed of cat. They are home team refs. It was pathetic prior to the CICA law in 1984 but they greatly improved when they were competing with the GSBCA. In 1996 when that went away they appear to be slowly sliding into their old ways.

I am currently involved with a protest in which GAO is showing all the signs of being that old home team officials. When I was a GSA 30 years ago we got a protest and began the protest of dealing with the vendor and GAO. When GAO rendered the decision that neither the protester or GSA has raised. Talk about being a home team ref.

GAO can best be described as a player who misses ten half court three point shots and then hits one and says how about that coach? Vendors only win about 10% of protests at GAO and we would normally urge a firm to try some other venue.

***RFP ERRORS***

Having read tens of thousands of RFP's in the past 40 years, I have had many chances to observe their quality to lack thereof. I have not seen an RFP from any agency during the last 15 years that did not have serious problems, errors or unfairness. Here are a few of them.

Life Cycle- The FAR is pathetic in this area and are most RFP's. If you want to get a healthy dose of how it should be done look at our Mono 9 on LCC or request or free e-mail article titled "Life Cycle Cost". The types of errors runs into dozens and the government has forgotten how to do lease versus purchase and often forgets about residual value, unbalanced bids, options etc. This is one of the most deadly portions of an RFP in the hands of 80% of contracting people. Until the Feds fix FAR 7.4 nothing will change and what about FAR Part 39 on IT? Where is it?

Present Value - Most RFP's ignore it but OMB Circular A-94 says it must be part of any multi-year RFP.

Taxes - Unless the agency chooses the right tax class the winner could have an outstanding liability in the future of millions. This is immensely complex and the agencies often get it wrong. A newsletter even exists on this subject and you unknowingly could win a bid and be subject to a subway tax in Wichita or an inventory tax in Periox. We saw one major software firm get hit by the states on federal contracts in excess of $20 million. Who is your expert in this area?

Most Favored Customer - Primes and agencies have no basis for a claim of a most favored price. But they often attempt to do so. We find that otherwise intelligent government employees get lost in the wilderness in this area. See B-183942.