Contractors Tell Feds to Improve Acquisition Process

If Uncle Sam wants to avoid the fiasco he had when trying to get help to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, he’d better get his acquisition act together fast.

That’s the message from a report by the Professional Services Council, the group that represents contractors who will get a good chunk of the $787 billion stimulus package.

In order to get the money to the companies that will fix the roads, repair the bridges and make real those shovel ready projects, Sam needs a good, solid core of employees who need to do all of the advance work before the shovels break ground.

“We cannot repeat the Federal Government’s response to Hurricane Katrina,” the council says. “Without a government workforce sufficient to plan, deliver and manage the contracts and grants that dispense these huge funds, it will be like constructing an office building on a foundation of sand. While the stimulus legislation appropriately provides funds for more auditors to ensure accountability after the money is spent, it does little to address the need for expanding the government workforce required to handle this tsunami of funding.”

Stan Z. Soloway, president of the council, characterized the current state of the procurement workforce as “generally under resourced and under empowered.”

By Sara Goo  |  February 24, 2009; 4:28 PM ET  | Category:  Contracting
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