GSA expects schedules office by July

The General Services Administration could set up a new office as early as July to oversee its multiple-award schedule contracts, a GSA official said today.Leaders of the offices in charge of various schedule contracts are still negotiating the details of the new office’s role, said Steven Kempf, assistant commissioner for acquisition management at GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service. However, he added that the new office likely wouldn’t play a heavy-handed role in supervising the $36 billion program.Instead, he said, it would leave the responsibility for operating and managing the contracts to offices such as Integrated Technology Services, which oversees the largest contract — Schedule 70 for information technology products and services.Kempf said the new office would likely manage policies and guidelines to bring uniformity to the program. Such an office has been needed for a long time, he added, because the offices in charge of schedule contracts have taken divergent paths and established different policies.Kempf said the program needs a consistent approach to the more than 17,000 governmentwide contracts that span at least three offices. He said the new office would serve as the central point for handling critical issues.Bill Gormley, a former GSA official and now president of the Washington Management Group, said the office is vital so GSA can manage the growing program.