GSA wants input

General Services Administration officials said they will hold an industry day to seek opinions regarding the agency's reorganization.

Donna Bennett, commissioner of the GSA's Federal Supply Service, said that the date has not been set. Speaking today at Input's MarketView2005 conference, Bennett and acting Federal Technology Service Commissioner Barbara Shelton said that plans to restructure the procurement agency are under development now.

However, she said, the agency's procurement services are not being affected by the ongoing work.

"We are still in operation," she said. "We are not totally consumed with working on reorganization."

The reorganization has a variety of causes, including the misuse of procurement funds by some field workers, and the changing nature of information technology purchases, Bennett said. It no longer makes sense to maintain a separate general fund and IT fund, she said.

"The distinctions that GSA has been forced to make [between IT and non-IT acquisitions] because of how our funds are structured have gotten in the way of smart buying," she said.

A steering team that GSA Administrator Stephen Perry appointed earlier this year is to deliver a draft reorganization plan by May and a final one by July.