GSA Finally Pushing Price Competition to Where it Belongs: At the Task Order Level
Emily Murphy, the General Services Administration’s administrator, uttered her “famous” words during her nomination hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in October 2017: “We are trying to make sure GSA’s contracting officers and our policies support really vigorous competition at the task order level because that is the amount we actually are going to spend so we want to get the best deal there, the most competition we can there.”
She offered experience, understanding and hope where only previous administrators’ words offered hallowed general concepts before.
If anyone understood the ridiculousness of asking a vendor’s price for something they haven’t seen the requirements for, it was Murphy.
And when Congress blessed the concept of creating an “unpriced multiple award contract” where costs only mattered at each individual task order level in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, many in the acquisition community — including myself — thought the clarion call finally has been heard.