General Services Administration
The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government-wide cost-minimizing policies and other management tasks.[6]
Agency overview
July 1, 1949[1]
GSA Building
1800 F Street NW, Washington, D.C., U.S.
11,137 (FY 2018)[2]
$33.6 billion[3]
- Robin Carnahan, Administrator
- Katy Kale, Deputy Administrator[5]
- Public Buildings Service[4]
- Federal Acquisition Service
- Staff Offices (12)
- Independent Offices (2)
GSA employs about 12,000 federal workers. It has an annual operating budget of roughly $33 billion and oversees $66 billion of procurement annually. It contributes to the management of about $500 billion in U.S. federal property, divided chiefly among 8,700 owned and leased buildings and a 215,000 vehicle motor pool. Among the real estate assets it manages are the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., which is the largest U.S. federal building after the Pentagon.
GSA's business lines include the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) and the Public Buildings Service (PBS), as well as several Staff Offices including the Office of Government-wide Policy, the Office of Small Business Utilization, and the Office of Mission Assurance. As part of FAS, GSA's Technology Transformation Services (TTS) helps federal agencies improve the delivery of information and services to the public.[7] Key initiatives include the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, 18F (includes login.gov and cloud.gov), FedRAMP, the USAGov platform (USA.gov, GobiernoUSA.gov), Data.gov, and Challenge.gov, the U.S. Web Design System, and I.T. Modernization Centers of Excellence.
GSA is a member of the Procurement G6, an informal group leading the use of framework agreements and e-procurement instruments in public procurement.
Operations[edit]
Procurement and the GSA Schedule[edit]
The Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) provides products and services available to federal agencies across the U.S. government.[36] GSA assists with procurement work for other government agencies. As part of this effort, it maintains the GSA Schedule Program, which other agencies can use to buy goods and services. The GSA Schedule can be thought of as a collection of pre-negotiated contracts.[37] Procurement managers from government agencies can view these agreements and make purchases from the GSA Schedule by following the appropriate procedures prescribed by Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, Subpart 8.4.
The GSA Schedule is awarded as a prime contract entered into by the federal government and a vendor that has submitted an acceptable proposal. At the core of the GSA Schedule contract lie two key concepts: 1) Basis of Award customer or group of customers and 2) Price Reduction Clause. The two concepts are applied in concert to achieve the government's pricing objectives for the GSA Schedule program. Namely, the government wants to ensure that when the vendor experiences competitive pressures to reduce its pricing, then the government can benefit from these and be extended reduced pricing as well.[38]
The Basis of Award customer or group of customers represents the customer or group of customers whose sales are affected on the same terms and conditions as those with GSA, and whose pricing is used: 1) as the baseline during negotiations to establish discounts offered to GSA, and 2) as a price floor that, when breached, constitutes additional discounting that triggers the Price Reduction Clause.
The Price Reduction Clause ensures that vendor discounting practices and GSA Schedule prices maintain a fixed relationship. The vendor specifies in its GSA proposal, and during negotiations of GSA Schedule contract prices, the discounts to be given to Basis of Award customer(s). If the vendor then provides a larger discount to a Basis of Award customer than what was agreed upon in the GSA Schedule contract (i.e., if the price floor is breached), then the vendor's GSA price will be reduced proportionately and retroactively.[39]
Effective Price Reduction Clause compliance procedures will protect vendors if their discounting practices are fully and accurately disclosed in their original proposals to GSA, and then are used as a basis for compliance over the term of the contract. Although not ideal, a compliance system implemented after a contract has been awarded can bring a contract into compliance, although sometimes at the expense of profits. If implementing a system in the middle of a contract period, inaccuracies that turn up should be corrected immediately, and the GSA contracting officer should be made aware of them. Price Reduction Clause compliance systems and procedures can range from simple to complex. A simple, manual system would be appropriate for a service contractor with standard labor rates that are not discounted. A complex system would be required for a reseller with thousands of products and discounting policies that differ among product groups.
In response to increased mandates and standards required by the Federal Government of its agencies and in a push to plan for federal sustainability, GSA offers online tools to aid in the building and management of government offices that are subject to these requirements.[40]
GSA has delegated authority to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to procure medical supplies under the VA Federal Supply Schedules Program.[41]
In 2018, GSA awarded federal government debt collection services to IC System.[42][43]
Official website
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the General Services Administration.