April 30, 2013: Washington, DC -- Today, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) announced that 15 of its buildings saved an estimated $961,470 taxpayer dollars and met top energy benchmarks in the 2012 ENERGY STAR National Building Competition. GSA is meeting energy performance standards in buildings across our portfolio with a variety of strategies, and our efforts are improving federal buildings and saving taxpayer dollars, while easing the government’s impact on the environment.

 

“These 15 buildings saved nearly a million taxpayer dollars, and across our portfolio of federal buildings we are finding ways to bring down costs and deliver better value to the American people,” said Dorothy Robyn, GSA’s Public Buildings Service Commissioner. “GSA is proud to have so many of our buildings meet top rankings in such a wide competition. We are using variety of strategies to make our existing buildings more energy efficient, and they are paying off.”

 

Two of GSA’s facilities achieved energy reductions of more than 30 percent and made it into the top 10 rankings in a competition that included more than 3,000 schools, businesses, and government buildings nationwide.  The Martin Luther King Jr. Federal Courthouse in Newark, New Jersey achieved a 36.8 percent energy savings and the San Antonio Federal Building in San Antonio, Texas achieved 34.4 savings. GSA had 13 more buildings that were remarkably strong competitors in this contest and reduced energy consumption by at least 20 percent.

GSA’s participation in this contest drove down utility bills and substantially reduced greenhouse gas emissions. GSA used advanced meters and smart buildings technology to monitor improvements. Some other examples of the measures taken in these buildings included insulation projects, sealing structures, manually adjusting window shades, using smaller water heaters, and retrofitting light fixtures.

 

The 2012 Energy Star National Building Competition measured energy performance for the entire 2012 calendar year. GSA tracked monthly energy consumption using EPA's free online energy tracking tool, Energy Star Portfolio Manager. The energy reductions for each of the top competitors were verified by an independently licensed professional engineer or registered architect. The program calculated cost savings using the national average costs for commercial utilities. More information on the 2012 Energy Star National Building Competition, including top overall finishers and top finishers by building category, an interactive map of competitors, and a wrap-up report: http://www.energystar.gov/BattleOfTheBuildings.

 

In his 2009 Executive Order, President Obama directed federal agencies to lead by example in their environmental, energy, and economic performance. GSA has made our portfolio of federal buildings more energy efficient through an array of strategies including EPA’s ENERGY STAR programs, Energy Savings Performance Contracts, GSA’s Shave Energy Program, advanced metering, and Green Proving Ground Program.

 

Below is a complete list of GSA’s 2012 ENERGY STAR National Building Competition facilities that reduced energy consumption by at least 20 percent.  Read full article.

State’s top management official said Friday that the budget sequester cut for the department would be only $400 million, less than half of $850 million that was originally estimated. Read full article.

The HUBZone Maps landing page has recently been updated with PDF and Excel documents displaying the most up to date qualifications for counties. Last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released 2012 annual unemployment data, which we use to determine nonmetropolitan county eligibility. The results are in!

Are you affected by these changes? Visit the HUBZone Maps landing page and open the PDF or Excel document for counties to check on the status of your county. If your county has become redesignated, its HUBZone status will expire in May 2016. If you have further questions about the HUBZone Maps or how this may affect your firm, please visit the maps section and the maintaining certification section of the FAQ page. Reference Article.

As agencies deal with budget cuts, the government is missing an opportunity for innovation and leadership by establishing "lowest price, technically acceptable" as the default approach to the acquisition of IT assets.

 

The LPTA approach has its place and can work well for commoditized services with clearly defined, low-risk requirements — think facilities maintenance. But "technically acceptable" implies minimum performance expectations based on what we know has worked in the past and does little to keep up with new demands or evolving threats. In other words, LPTA encourages government and industry to settle for "good enough" just to hit a price point.

 

And when it comes to the acquisition of new technology solutions and services, the LPTA approach offers short-term savings at the expense of long-term mission effectiveness. It hurts the business of government because technically acceptable does not anticipate the needs and threats of tomorrow — or provide for the technology and systems to address them. As the fiscal pressures intensify, it is essential that we reach new levels of performance and efficiency for the short and long term alike.

 

The time is right to get more from our acquisition approach by changing from "lowest price, technically acceptable" to "lowest price, functionally better" (LPFB). Read Full Article.

An investigation from the House Small Business Committee found what a lot of contractors have said for years: The General Services Administration's Multiple Award Schedule program doesn't always pay off, and can actually leave companies in the hole.

 

Between fiscal 2008 and 2012, the GSA canceled 3,300 MAS contracts, which give businesses the ability to sell goods and services to agencies, because the companies didn't meet a requirement to make at least $25,000 in sales under the contract per year.

 

Those that had their contracts canceled in a lot of cases are worse off than when they started, having invested anywhere from $6,000 to $40,000 to win the contract, not to mention the time and money required to then bid on purchase orders.

 

"Competing for a federal contracting is not only time-consuming but very costly, especially for small businesses, who often don’t have a large procurement team like larger corporations may have," the committee noted in a released statement.

 

The GSA guarantees that each business will receive at least $2,500 in sales and is required to pay out that amount should the company fall short and lose its contract. The committee found, however, that the GSA has failed to live up to that end of the bargain — and had not paid the required termination costs to small businesses for at least five years.

 

Of the 3,300 companies that had their contracts canceled, 1,334 were eligible for a minimum guaranteed payment from the GSA, and 1,281 of the eligible firms were small businesses. Read full article.

If the idea of the sequester is to save the government massive amounts of money and cut the deficit, a GSA report indicates that budget cuts actually may hamper the agency's ability to cut back on waste.

 

According to Federal Times, the GSA stands to lose $250 million in funding next year. That funding would force it to cut back on projects that find waste and fraud impacting American taxpayers.

 

Estimates indicate that more than $3 billion in savings could be missed due to the cuts. Read more.