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Savvy real estate firms in the DC area are salivating. For many of them, the bloated, billion dollar, bailout has an upside and represents a once in a lifetime opportunity. These firms hope to win contracts to help Treasury sell, buy and offer advice to all of the involved parties in the real estate deals of the century.
Bully for them!
But, for the American Taxpayer, there are troubled waters ahead. Navigating the murky shoals of Congressional politics to get approval for the bailout was only the first step in what will, inevitably, be a tortuous process.
One of the next steps is troublesome because government has not addressed a seminal procurement problem. There aren't enough contracting officers to deal with all the funds that need to be committed. There weren't enough to handle the $400 Billion/year that the government already contracts out. And, there certainly aren't enough procurement professionals for post-bailout requirements and perhaps another $700 Billion in procurement activity.
The simple fact is that government leaders have not yet resolved the problems that surround the work environment of the Contracting officers, providing suitable pay incentives, nor providing a supportive and entrepreneurial work environment.
Government leaders have not yet eliminated the "gotcha" environment in which the procurement official is the target in the inevitable blame game that passes in Washington for active oversight.
As a direct result of a false infatuation with oversight, many of the most experienced contracting officers are leaving government early, exasperated with a system that does not competently manage, reward, or retain them.
Both Presidential candidates are on record stating that the bloated budget is a priority that must be managed immediately. Both Presidential candidates are on record saying that procurement integrity and accountability are essential and that oversight of procurements must be a priority. And, both Presidential candidates have shown little or no interest in sharing the underlying details of their presidential platforms that would indicate any substantive knowledge of how to accomplish the bold, but desirable, task of procurement reform.
I give President Bush a lot of credit for, early on, recognizing the problems facing procurement. Early in 2002, he alerted the government that this was a priority. Unfortunately, the President delegated that authority to an extraordinarily weak team at OMB that was not willing to make the required exertions and bring fundamental reform to the federal procurement system.
Instead, OMB got lost on tangential issues like pushing the poorly executed Scorecard system when time may have been better spent developing innovative ways to increase the procurement work force, removing bureaucratic impediments to better and faster contracting, and eliminating so much of the redundancies that currently exist.
The current OMB team hasn't shared President Bush's tougher desire to impose fiscal discipline and accountability on the government. Too often, OMB's desire was to simply go with the flow, and opportunities for real change were lost. The past few years have seen an extraordinary bloating of the budget, an almost unprecedented increase in GWAC proliferation (under the guise of "competition") to accommodate the budget, and an increase in the blame game that openly attacks and plays "gotcha" with procurement professionals.
With a scant 100 days left in this Administration, OMB still has an opportunity to bring good government and competent management to the $700 Billion rescue package. OMB should immediately move to restore the confidence of the badly beleaguered federal procurement community.
Procurement professionals need to know that their service is valued and their professionalism respected. Our procurement professionals perform one of the most difficult jobs in government. It is time to honor that service and stop the rot.
After all, the execution costs of the rescue package, and the risks that it will not successfully deliver the long-term, desired benefits to the American taxpayer, remain high. With the government now on the hook to spend $700 Billion quickly, fairly and honestly, to give taxpayers the greatest possible return, our procurement professionals have never before been in greater demand. OMB has an active role to play in the execution of the $700 Billion bailout. But first, OMB needs to change course and resolve the issues facing the people that are going to have to roll up their sleeves and get that job done. |
