WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2001
FTS Hearing Set
GAO DIRECTS SSA TO REOPEN BIDS ON WORLDCOM CONTRACT
General Accounting Office (GAO) has directed Social Security Administration (SSA) to open for new bids telecom contract that had been awarded to WorldCom and was challenged by losing rival. In decision made in Dec. and disclosed this month, GAO upheld protest by Rockwell Electronic Commerce, which argued that evaluation of WorldCom proposal didn’t fully account for all of FTS 2001 costs included in bid. In latest decision, which is set to be released publicly in next several weeks, GAO takes earlier conclusions step further by requiring SSA to seek new bids. In letter to SSA last week (CD April 23 p3), Rep. Davis (R-Va.), chmn. of Govt. Reform Committee’s Subcommittee on Technology & Procurement Policy, had called contract one of first "significant" competitive bids since FTS 2001 was awarded to Sprint and WorldCom. GAO’s latest decision comes as Davis is set to hold major FTS oversight hearing Thurs. "Now that the GAO has reiterated its ruling that the SSA should reopen the competition under an amended solicitation, Rockwell hopes that this process will be accomplished expeditiously, and we look forward to the opportunity for submitting a competitive proposal," Rockwell spokesman said. Rockwell’s challenge to SSA contract award involved extent to which WorldCom’s FTS 2001 services would be used to deliver station-to-station calls between service delivery points. GAO’s earlier decision upholding Rockwell challenge concluded that SSA hadn’t evaluated all FTS 2001 costs related to WorldCom bid. Rockwell had contended that WorldCom had edge in bidding because it didn’t explicitly include all costs of FTS 2001 in its proposal. GAO held that SSA’s request for proposals should have included FTS 2001 cost in evaluated price of proposal, rejecting SSA arguments that those costs couldn’t be evaluated because bid request didn’t state estimated level of administrative call traffic. WorldCom spokeswoman declined comment on GAO decision on contract, which company already is implementing. "I think there’s a lot riding on this [SSA] decision for other upcoming contracts," said Lisa Crawford, procurement consultant who formerly headed AT&T’s FTS 2000 program. She cited example of upcoming, multibillion-dollar FAA infrastructure contract that would replace FAA links program awarded to MCI in 1980s. Meanwhile, subcommittee said oversight hearing was focusing on whether $1.5 billion federal long distance contract had met goals of "ensuring the best service and price" for federal govt. and whether it had maximized competition for services. "We need to look at the problems federal government agencies encountered in transitioning from FTS 2000 to FTS 2001," Davis said. GSA has missed several self-imposed deadlines for transitioning federal agency traffic to new FTS 2001 contract, culminating in award of new "bridge" contracts to AT&T and Sprint in Dec. to move all traffic by new date of June 2001. "To date, it is not evident that agencies received the necessary support from GSA to manage their transitions," Davis said. "Moreover, it is unclear what actions GSA took to monitor contractor performance and rapidly remedy transition problems." Davis said GAO had found that GSA eliminated contract performance requirements until completion of transition and couldn’t create database to manage shift in traffic until Jan. 2001. "We need to find out why and how this all occurred, what the delays have cost taxpayers and what we can do to prevent these types of delays from occurring again," Davis said. Hearing will examine steps GSA took to eliminate transition challenges, what it did to make sure updated information had been available to agencies and how cooperative GSA and other agencies had worked with Interagency Management Council "to share problems experienced from agency to agency and maximize the success of the program," subcommittee said. Set to testify are: GAO Assoc. Dir.-Governmentwide & Defense Information Systems Linda Koontz, GSA Federal Technology Service Comr. Sandra Bates, Brig. Gen. Gregory Premo of Defense Information Systems Agency, Treasury Chief Information Officer James Flyzik, and executives of Sprint, WorldCom, Qwest, AT&T. In related news, Qwest said that GAO indicated Fri. it would hold in abeyance motions to dismiss that carrier’s protest of FTS 2000 bridge contract and would move ahead with consideration of Qwest’s protest. Qwest had turned to GAO last month after losing agency-level protest at GSA over bridge contract for FTS 2001 program. Qwest is challenging most recent extension contracts awarded to AT&T and Sprint, contending sole-source agreements carried rates that on average were 25% higher than those in original FTS 2000 contract and that GSA should have bid contracts competitively. "I think they have politely said we are going forward with the merits," said James Payne, senior vp, Qwest Govt. Systems Div. – Mary Greczyn