The
reports this week that the Homeland Security Department planned to spend $8 billion – more than half of its IT budget – by Sept. 30 made me wonder if that’s really the best way to manage your money.
I understand the use or lose it mentality but can you really make good, sound business decisions under such a tight deadline? Doesn’t it sound like the priority is just to spend the money, not spend it wisely?
Some in industry might be saying, who cares? Show me the money.
But what bothers me is that the rush likely will increase the risk of making bad choices and executing sloppy procurements, which in the long run will cost money.
I also have to wonder, if you are running your agency efficiently and you have money leftover at the end of year, then maybe you had too much to start with and you should lose those funds. Wouldn’t that be the responsible thing?
I know DHS isn’t the only agency to do this. The fourth quarter traditionally is a rush of task orders as agencies try to deplete their accounts.
But if you focus on the mission, how do you justify running your agency this way? Or it just fear that your mission will suffer if you lose funds?
Maybe I’m sounding like a curmudgeon but there has to be a better way.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Posted on May 17, 2012 at 2:19 PM2 comments
When I started in journalism, my first beat was cops and court and it was some of the most fun I ever had as a reporter.
I learned a lot about human nature and the police officers and deputies I met still rank high as some of the best and toughest sources I’ve had.
I like that the tech world and law enforcement are becoming so entwined. It’s a great market because the potential to save lives and improve communities is so great. Of course, money is being spent there so it can be lucrative as well.
But this is
National Police Week and thousands of police officers are converging on Washington, D.C. to celebrate and to memorialize those officers who lost their lives in the line of duty last year.
I want to share three stories about police officers from my days as a cop reporter. They shaped me as much as any work experience could.
I saw Capt. Martin Strobel every day for three years when I’d drop by the Harrisonburg, Va., Police Department to check on recent arrests and complaints. Getting information beyond what was in the log book was always a challenge. After a while I think he appreciated my persistence.
One day I was asking him about a break-in and vandalism incident at a local pizza shop.
As I was getting basic information on the break-in, the captain muttered under his breath to me, “Ask me what he was wearing.”
So I asked, what was he wearing? And thanks to that little tip from the toughest cop I knew, for the first and so far only time, I wrote a story that had the words “naked man” in the headline.
Sheriff Glenn Weatherholtz was the most popular politician in Rockingham County and I’d walk from the policy station to the sheriff’s department as part of my daily rounds. The shift in atmosphere was remarkable.
Weatherholtz was a tall, gregarious guy, who, the first time we met, got in my face and asked me, “Who’s your daddy?” Turns out he had grown up near a bunch of my relatives in the next county, so he knew the name Wakeman.
He turned out to be the best source I’ve ever had, bar none. He would tell me a lot of things or point me to sources that could talk, if he couldn’t.
When he was on vacation, it was a different story. I had to deal with his chief of detectives, Danny Comer. Danny was a great guy and we got a long well, but he didn’t like the role of the press.
I can’t remember the case but I was asking him questions and not getting anywhere beyond "No comment." I started giving him scenarios: “Would I be wrong if I wrote this? Or would it be accurate if I published this?" I got nowhere.
“I don’t care what you write, it doesn’t change anything,” he said.
Finally, in frustration, I told him, “I can hardly wait until the sheriff is back. He’s the biggest leak in this whole department.”
We laughed about that for months.
And finally, Harrisonburg was having a problem with teenagers cruising the streets. They were clogging a section of town with their slow back and forth driving, so I went on my first ride-along.
We stopped a few cars but mostly it was about a police presence to make the kids scatter. But as we went up and down the streets, I increasingly felt uneasy and then it dawned on me – Everyone stares at a police car when it drives by. I mean everyone. They stop and they look. They watch you. I do it too. You almost can’t help yourself.
Officer Roy (I can’t for the life of me remember his first name) laughed when I asked him about it. “Yeah, you’re a marked man.”
Those words seem particularly poignant during National Police Week when the 73 officers who lost their live in 2011 will be honored at the
National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
There are more than 19,000 names on the memorial, dating back to 1791. That’s a tremendous sacrifice.
If there are any police officers reading this: Thank you for your service. And if your company is selling products and services that help law enforcement do their jobs better, thank you too and keep up the good work.
This blog is dedicated to Sgt. Manuel Trenary, who was killed in Harrisonburg while responding to a burglary in progress on Oct. 8, 1959. The case remains unsolved.
Posted on May 15, 2012 at 12:33 PM1 comments
UPDATED: This blog has been updated to include the correct number of bid protests filed. Thanks to a reader who pointed out the mistake. The correct number is 11.
I wore my reporter's hat yesterday as I worked on the Air Force NetCents II story.
First, it was about protests being filed and then it quickly morphed into the Air Force deciding to rethink its award decisions.
I wrote those stories as objectively as I could. Pretty much just the facts. Unfortunately, the Air Force isn’t very forthcoming with me on why it pulled back just weeks after making the awards. The story at this stage doesn’t offer as much insight as I’d like.
But today as I mull the story over in my head, I’m putting on my other hat: my judgmental, soapbox hat. My wife loves that hat. It always makes me a little cranky.
In my mind there are two possible scenarios that led to the Air Force’s decision, both of which make the service look bad.
Scenario 1: The Air Force is gutless and caved to the pressure of having to defend its award decision when 11 companies filed bid protests.
Scenario 2: The Air Force is incompetent because its award decision couldn’t survive the scrutiny of 11 bid protests.
So now the Air Force is reopening discussions with the bidders and allowing them to submit another round of final proposal revisions.
Now, I’m not a contract or acquisition specialist, but my understanding is that the 11 losing bidders went through a debriefing where the Air Force explained why they lost and why the nine winners won. Based on that debrief, the losing bidders filed their protests and now get a second chance. The original winners are also thrown back into the competitive mix.
But doesn’t that give the protestors an advantage over the winners because they know why they lost and why the winners won?
And here is the cranky side of my soapbox hat:
This is a $6.9 billion contract that has had some delays already and is part of a $22 billion program for goods and services. It’s the Air Force’s biggest and most important IT contract and is a follow-on to the very successful NetCents I.
You’d think that the Air Force would have made sure the reasoning behind its award decisions was bullet proof. Or at least bullet proof enough to go through the GAO review process. Shouldn’t you make awards on a contract this big and this important with the confidence that you can withstand a protest?
Protests have become so commonplace that they seem to be part of company growth strategies. A case like this makes me think that a smart company should protest any losing bid because you’ll automatically get an extra shot.
I don’t agree with some commenters who called the protesters cry babies. No, sir, they aren’t. They are doing what’s necessary to hang onto business.
So if that’s not cranky enough for you, I’ll lay something else out there.
Should the Air Force fire whoever was in charge of making the bid decisions or ran the evaluation team? Shouldn’t someone be held accountable for fouling up a $6.9 billion contract?
What does this mean for the rest of the NetCents II program? More protests and more delays, I guess.
Maybe I’m being too judgmental without knowing all the facts. But the facts that I do know sure don’t look good for the Air Force.
Posted on May 02, 2012 at 7:26 AM32 comments