Davis wants answers on MAA awards

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., has asked the General Accounting Office to examine how the GSA's Federal Technology Service awards its Metropolitan Area Award contracts for local telecommunications service.

GSA has awarded 22 MAA contracts so far; four more contracts are in the request for proposal stage.

Davis spokesman David Marin said the GAO has been looking at how GSA has implemented the MAAs, why it has taken so long for the contracts to be awarded ? the first three awards were made in May 1999 ? what is the fee structure the GSA uses and how the agency has been handling crossover, which allows companies on one contract to be added to another contract.

"Preliminary briefings conclude that implementation has been somewhat confused and delayed," Marin said.

Davis, chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on technology and procurement policy, sent a letter April 8 to the GAO asking it to also investigate the GSA's fair consideration process. That is how the procurement agency chooses a contractor in a city where multiple contracts have been awarded.

"I question whether GSA's fair consideration decisions are properly supported. I am concerned whether GSA is following a consistent and uniform approach to fair consideration," Davis said in the letter.

If GSA's approach varies from [one] metropolitan area to another, Davis wrote he would like to know why and if it affects the outcome of the process.

The request was made just three days before Davis' subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the GSA's organizational structure and its split between the Federal Supply Service, which administers the agency's purchasing schedules, and the Federal Technology Service, which administers contracts such as the MAAs.