Contract Proliferation, GSA, and OFPP -an Analysis

October 10, 2026

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“The reason contract bloat and redundancy exist in government contracting is OMB’s fault.  It was the acting positions that resulted in ineffective management to control contract proliferation by other agencies and keeping NASA and NIH in check.’” ~ Former Executive, General Services Administration 

 

This was a public claim that tries to advance an argument for the condition that created vehicle bloat in government, and to consolidate this function under GSA. With any good claim there are always opportunities to test to see if it is true or not; whether what is claimed is fact or fiction. The results were interesting. 

 

First step was discovery.  There is no list of former OFPP administrators. Nothing in any .gov sites, nothing on Wikipedia, nothing in Google Scholar (which I found terrible). So, I constructed a timeline of OFPP Administrators (appointed and acting) from 1988-Present starting with Allen V. Burman (who served under presidents Ronald Regan and George H. W. Bush), who began initiating the reforms that laid the foundation for Clinger-Cohen, though to the appointment of Dr. Kevin Rhodes.  I then assembled a list of government-wide vehicles to see either a) when they were established or b) when the first order was placed.[1]

 

And here is a table of what I found:

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TABLE SUMMARY

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• GWCV - Government-wide Contract Vehcile

• There have only been two since 2003 - Acting Administrators Robert Burton and Leslie Fields.

• Since 1993 NASA has established 6 versions of their NASA SEWP GWAC.

• Since 1993 NIH established 9 versions of their NIH GWACS (CS, SP, and SP SB)

• Since 1993 GSA established 34 versions of their various government-wide contracts.

• There was no vehicle growth in during Agela Styles and Dr. Michael Wooten’s terms as OFPP Administrator, and when Robert Burton or Paul Denett were acting Administrator's for the short period of time towards the end of the George W. Bush Administration.

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TABLE ANALYSIS

 

In 1992, the George H. W. Bush Administration sought to address growing problems in federal IT contracting. The General Services Administration’s Federal Supply Schedule model was ill-suited for rapidly evolving IT needs, and dissatisfaction was widespread. Recognizing the need for reform, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), and the General Services Administration (GSA) turned to NASA to pioneer a new approach—launching the government’s first Governmentwide Acquisition Contract (GWAC).

 

For about 10 years NASA experimented with their SEWP GWAC (recompeting it and evolving it from SEWP I-III), and NIH experimented with their models as a service GWAC (CIO-SP model 1 and 2) and a GWAC for Imaging Equipment (Image World model 1 and 2).  It is also obvious to note that this was all occurring at the time there was a Senate-confirmed OFPP Administrator.

 

GSA established their first GWAC in 1999 with the creation of the ANSWER GWAC (Applications ‘n Support for Widely-Diverse End-user Requirements – don’t blame me…I didn’t make the acronyms up), followed by the Alliant predecessor programs in the GSA Millennia and Millenia SB GWAC in 2000.  These were followed by their 8a Stars GWAC in 2004 and the establishment of the Vets GWAC in 2007.  This decision was followed by the creation of the Alliant and Alliant SB GWAC family (which were in direct ‘competition’ with NITAAC’s CIO-SP program).

 

These actions (along with the establishment of the GSA GWAC family) run contrary to why GWACs were created to begin with - to create structures outside of GSA as an option for the federal government to meet their IT acquisition needs.  Shortly thereafter GSA began duplicating vehicles and efforts.

 

During the mid 2000’s ta GSA Administrator led a campaign very much like the one being waged today.  She openly questioned why NASA would be in the position to serve the needs of federal acquisitions through GWACs and GSA should ‘take’ their program.  This was the first time GSA and GSA-driven interests tried to kill NASA’s program, and OMB disagreed and allowed NASA to launch their 4th version of their SEWP GWAC.  They made many of the same claims made repeatedly by former GSA executives today.  In fact, in many cases it was the same former executives.

 

When GSA started building outsourcing initiatives around the Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative and later through Category Management.   To address the need for data and definition, GSA instituted a mechanism of Schedule-based government-wide BPAs as a tool and really got into the acquisition vehicle creation game.  Companies now had to go through the administrative burden of managing their Schedules contract, add the new burden of responding to BPA requirements and managing the BPA terms, before then getting to the additional expense required to bid on real requirements driven work that would come from task orders, which they would then have to put resources towards, execute, and manage.  It was not a model of efficiency, and Small Business interests took issue with what they viewed as an anti-competetive nature of some of the FSSI vehicles.

 

WHAT TO CONCLUDE

 

After looking at the historical record ask yourself again, what has been the reason and cause of government contract bloat?  Is the claim that a lack of a politically appointed OFPP Administrator is the cause of government-wide vehicle bloat, or are these the conditions we find ourselves in due to self-inflicted wounds by a single agency?  Look at the chart above and tell me, what has been the cause of increased costs and who appears responsible for this condition?

 

[1] Using BGov for Historical Information on Federal Contract Data.

 

                                                                                                                                                                           ~ J. Johnson