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What do federal contractors want out of the 2020 election winner?


Tom Temin: One of the things we learned in the pandemic is that, yes, government is capable of spending a lot of money on response. But the response really depended so much on contracted work. So there’s a good example of, if you’re going to have a policy that gets carried out properly, government and industry really are one entity in that sense.


David Berteau: Absolutely. I think we’ve seen a couple of real positive lessons grow out of the COVID-19 response, right. One is that government and business can collaborate and cooperate much, but it really is a better-cemented partnership, I think, recognized by all on both sides going forward. And we moved into that so quickly. And part of it was due to good leadership, OMB and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, putting out some key memoranda right at the front end, Defense Department and GSA and other agencies doing the same thing. And then implementing those, because good ideas don’t self-implement. They’ve actually got to be implemented by thousands of contracting officers and program managers across the government, and contractors have to fill in there as well. And we saw all of that work in the response to COVID-19.


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Call to change how agencies rate contractor performance rises to new level


Let’s start out with this basic truism: No one likes the current approach to rating contractor performance.


Neither the agency contracting officers nor program managers, and not the vendors who sometimes wait three to six months after the contract is complete to get a mostly meaningless “satisfactory” rating.


The data itself lacks value and transparency.


And, to be honest, it seems to have become another checklist activity for many agencies.


A new survey by GovConRx and the Office of Federal Procurement Policy shows, once again, just how little value there is in the current approach to contractor performance assessment ratings (CPARs).


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Coronavirus has boosted federal contract spending


Tom Temin: Rob, good to have you back.


Rob Levinson: Great to be here Tom.


Tom Temin: So tell us first of all the top line how much has spending increased because of the pandemic?


Rob Levinson: Well, the top line Tom is $228 billion as of the end of the fiscal 2020, which ended on September 30. Now, again, that is only for civilian agencies, we don’t have the DoD data, because it’s delayed three months. So we won’t know that until January. But this $228 billion does appear to be a record as far back as we can tell. And it boosted about 17% from the previous year, fiscal 2019, which is also it seems to be a record jump. Usually we get like single digit percent increases every year. So this was two or three times what we’ve seen in recent years.


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