FederalDaily.com > Banning Unscrupulous Contractors

FederalDaily - November 22, 2005

Banning Unscrupulous Contractors

The Department of Transportation (DOT) will take steps to ban companies and individuals convicted of defrauding the federal government from future federal contracts, DOT Secretary Norman Y. Mineta announced last week. “Anyone who cheats the American people on a transportation grant or contract will find the door to federal funds closed to them,” said Mineta. The announcement came as Mineta and Acting Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty outlined new financial accountability measures, including a recently issued departmental order on contractor suspension and debarment. The directive establishes specific criteria agency officials must consider in deciding whether companies and individuals who have been indicted or convicted for a criminal offense should be suspended or debarred from doing business with the federal government. According to Mineta, since the order was signed on June 5, one company has already been permanently debarred and the DOT inspector general has referred 22 additional companies or individuals for suspension and debarment. The order is available on the DOT Web site at www.dot.gov/ost/m60.

GAO Comments on Problems with NSPS

The Department of Defense (DoD) has designed its own new human resources management system, called the National Security Personnel System (NSPS). Government Accountability Office (GAO) Comptroller General David Walker last week testified that he believes that the final NSPS regulations provide for (1) a flexible, contemporary, market-based and performance-oriented compensation system—such as pay bands and pay for performance; (2) giving greater priority to employee performance in its retention decisions; and (3) involvement of employee representatives throughout the implementation process. However, Walker said GAO also has several areas of concern. First, DoD has considerable work ahead to define the “important details”—such as measures of performance. Second, the regulations do not require the use of core competencies that can help provide consistency. Third, although the regulations do provide for continuing collaboration with employee representatives, they do not identify a process for the continuing involvement of individual employees in the implementation of NSPS. To read Walker ’s testimony, go to www.gao.gov/new.items/d06227t.pdf.

Military Recruitment Struggles

The Department of Defense (DoD) must recruit and retain hundreds of thousands of servicemembers each year to carry out its missions. A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said that DoD reports that over half of today’s youth cannot meet the military’s entry standards for education, aptitude, health, moral character or other requirements, making recruiting “a significant challenge.” For 2005, five of 10 components—the Army, Army Reserve, Army National Guard, Air National Guard and Navy Reserve—missed their recruiting goals by 8 to 20 percent, GAO said. Also, factors such as the use of stop-loss, which delays servicemembers from leaving active duty, indicate that the components may experience future recruiting challenges. To read the GAO report, go to www.gao.gov/new.items/d06134.pdf.

House Passes 2006 VA Appropriations

On Nov. 18 the House passed the Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006, H.R. 2528, which appropriates $70.038 billon for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Specifics of the bill include:

Veterans’ medical services are funded at $22.5 billion, $575 million above the president’s budget request and $1.7 billion above fiscal year (FY) 2005. VA also has available an additional $1.14 billion in funding from FY 2005 for carry-over into FY 2006.

For the first time, $2.2 billion is fenced for specialty mental health care and the bill doubles funding for mental health research.

This bill contains a new Prosthetics and Integrative Health Care Initiative to treat returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan who have lost limbs in combat. $412 million will provide for medical and prosthetic research, which is $19 million over the budget request.