Subscribe to the Free Print Edition!
Celebrating 25 Years

GCN Home > February 7, 2000 issue

FEDERAL CONTRACT LAW

Procurement rules apply to FSS buys—but oddly

Now that the General Services Administration’s Federal Supply Schedule is a multibillion-dollar program, the rules for using it are more important than ever, one would think. Finding details of the rules, however, involves not just knowledge of the regulations, but also of case law.

FSS started modestly enough as a mechanism for the government to pool its purchasing power. Through GSA, the government sought to get better discounts for commonly purchased items such as office furniture and equipment. In recent years, FSS has grown enormously to include computer hardware and software, a variety of services and practically anything else of a commercial nature. GSA contract specialists negotiate the contracts and the discounts from commercial pricing. The agency collects a 1 percent fee from the contractor whenever an agency places an order.

Ordering rules are set out in Subpart 8.4 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. For orders larger than $2,500, the contracting officer is obligated to check three schedule contracts before settling on one vendor.

If the order exceeds the contract’s maximum order threshold—a misnomer on its face—the contracting officer is supposed to check more than three contracts and ask for additional price concessions. When this is done, the acquisition meets the requirements of the Competition in Contracting Act for full-and-open competition. Why? Because the regulations say so.

Schedule orders are simple to place. They do not require a synopsis in Commerce Business Daily, a separate determination of price reasonableness, a small-business set-aside or a solicitation.

Also known as

Some agencies do issue abridged solicitations to schedule contractors. These are often called requests for quotations or requests for pricing. When agencies do this, however, they open the door to a protest.

Interestingly, the General Accounting Office, on the one hand, does not interpret the strict statutory limitation on protests against orders under task and delivery order contracts as applying to FSS. Therefore it will hear and decide protests resulting from such minicompetitions. On the other hand, GAO does not apply the full panoply of FAR Part 15 rules, either.



GCN Popup