Where to find stimulus contracts
By Bill Allison May 14 2009 6:02 p.m. 7 commentsA company that offers outsourcing services to federal and state governments got a a contract award for $2.8 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- the stimulus -- to set up call centers for the FCC's digital transition effort; they advertised for jobs paying $16.38 an hour in Buffalo, N.Y. The Dept. of Health and Human Services spent $326,000 in stimulus funds to purchase and install 98 workstations (and an option to store them until needed at a cost of $35 per pallet); a Midland, MI-based company, Space, Inc., got the sale. And the General Services Administration used stimulus funds to hire a pair of Northern Virginia contractors to help oversee the hiring of contractors bidding for both stimulus and non-stimulus work.
The information on federal contracts awarded under the stimulus comes not from the recovery sites of individual agencies or from the Office of Management & Budget or Recovery.gov, but from a government Web site called FedBizOpps.gov, which is used by federal procurement officers and private firms to track federal opportunities. The site currently lists 566 active and archived awards, which can be accessed through the advanced search page (to get the complete list, go to "Documents To Search" and choose "Both," then to Opportunity/Procurement Type and select Award Notice, then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and under "Recovery and Reinvestment Act Action," and click yes).
FedBizOpps isn't the easiest site to maneuver in. The results page doesn't list the name of the contractor that got the award or the amount of money -- one has to drill down into each result to get those details.
It is unclear when that information will be made available, in a more user friendly format, on Recovery.gov. That site's time line used to list May 20 as the date on which agencies were "to begin reporting their competitive contracts and grants." After we made inquiries to different agencies about exactly what information would be released on that date, it was removed from the time line. (Click the screen capture below to see the original version.)
USASpending.gov has also begun offering information on stimulus spending (here, for example, one can view stimulus contracts granted by congressional district to date, while this table tracks grants awarded by state), but the contracting information does not appear to be as current as that on FedBizOpps.gov (for example, as of this writing, there was no result for Space -- which sold the office furniture to DHHS -- in USASpending.gov.
The next milestone to keep an eye on is July 10, 2009, when recipients of stimulus funding will start reporting information to the federal government on how they're using funds, according to the pair of implementing guidance memos that OMB issued.
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In my experience (as a corporate librarian in an engineering R&D company), awards are posted to FedBizOpps in a very limited manner, even though all of them are SUPPOSED to be posted there. USASpending.gov seems to be considerably more complete in its awards data, not to mention being a good deal easier to use.
I agree -- FedBizOpps is not the best, but USASpending seems to be lagging a bit behind it. I recommend checking both FedBizOpps and USASpending.
Do companies go to these sites to see opportunities at the federal and state levels or do the Contracting Officers that are responsible for identify, qualify and select potential suppliers use general media to find companies to send an rfp to?
Companies go to FedBizOpps to look for federal RFPs, states have their own systems, but yeah, that's the way it's supposed to work. That said, procurement officials also have contractors in their system who are contracted with to provide goods and services on an as-needed basis. That is, the government doesn't put out an RFP every time it needs papers clips or office chairs or help processing IRS returns -- it has a group of vendors it can draw on for those services.
WE have the same thing going on here in the UK. The stimulus packages can be found in a site called tracker, it has been very useful to myself and other companies looking for contracts, especially small companies like myself. lets hope it keeps us all going until the recession is over.
Obama should appoint a FOIA ombudsman, whose job it is to investigate and answer Qs about the process.(is there one already? my subconscious likes to assume credit for stuff I've read, so perhaps yes)
That's not a bad idea, as long as he doesn't call the position a FOIA czar...