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For proposal professionals, budgeting or appropriations delays within the federal government continue being a source of concern. With Congressional delays or patch-work Continuing Resolutions, we can expect there will be a significant reduction in the volume of RFP releases. If there is uncertainty, the federal departments processing solicitations have only one response – to sit on the programs until the budget situation is clarified.

January 12, 2011 - The Homeland Security Department’s border protection agency plans to hire 1,000 additional IT staffers this fiscal year as it seeks to “federalize” its work force, a senior official said today.
Ken Ritchhart, deputy assistant commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Information Technology (OIT), said at a seminar that hiring a government employee can save up to $40,000 a year per person compared with contracting for similar tasks.

The government staff roster for the OIT is expanding from about 1,500 employees at the end of fiscal 2010 to a projected 2,500 employees by the end of fiscal 2011, Ritchhart said in an executive session sponsored by the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council. About 700 IT staffers have been hired so far and 500 have started work, he added. Many of the new hires are entry-level, low-level and midlevel IT workers who are comfortable with new technologies, Ritchhart said. Currently, the OIT has 2,131 government staff members and 3,268 contract employees.

On June 28, 2010, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued Memorandum 10-26, Immediate Review of Financial Systems IT Projects. This Memorandum establishes government-wide policies associated with financial system modernizations. These policies require Federal agencies to set the scope for financial system modernizations in a manner that reduces project costs, aligns projects more closely to top priority business needs, accelerates deployments, and improves the performance of the systems once deployed.

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) is issuing a proposed policy letter to provide guidance addressing when work must be reserved for performance by federal employees. The policy letter is intended to implement direction in the President's March 4, 2009, Memorandum on Government Contracting which requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ''clarify when governmental outsourcing for services is and is not appropriate.'' The proposed policy letter would:

Courtesy of Mark Baker and Jon O’Connell of Holland & Knight

As a result of legislation recently signed into law by President Obama, most defense contractors will no longer be permitted to subject employees to mandatory arbitration for the resolution of certain types of claims.

Funding secured for insourcing, supplying troops and cutting wasteful spending
Courtesy of FCW

The House of Representatives has approved more than $636 billion in Defense Department spending for fiscal 2010, and the measure would increase oversight to reduce waste and fraud.

   The key question facing proposal professionals now is -- what affect will the Obama administration have on our work?  All of us recall the 18-month slowdown in proposal activity that took place when President Bush entered office.