Top news roundup

LINK2GOV NABS IRS E-PAYMENT DEAL

Link2Gov Corp. has won a contract from the Internal Revenue Service to provide electronic payment services for individual income tax payments, the company announced May 2.

Under the contract, Nashville, Tenn.-based Link2Gov will accept credit card payments for federal tax forms 1040 and 1040-ES over the Internet and telephone beginning Jan. 10, 2003.

IBM Corp. of Armonk, N.Y., will be a subcontractor to Link2Gov on the project, providing equipment hosting, said Tom Tarver, Link2Gov's president. The IRS awarded a similar contract to Official Payments Corp. of Stamford, Conn., he said.

Tarver said the company would charge a maximum of 2.49 percent of each transaction. The fee would be paid by citizens making the online payments. "We are going to offer whatever we need to [offer] to be competitive," he said, expecting competition between the two companies.

More than 626,000 electronic payments, an increase of 8 percent over the previous year, were made by taxpayers during the 2002 tax season, according to the IRS.

Before the IRS award, Link2Gov was in 10 states and 600 counties, but the company now expects to be doing business in 50 states as a result of the award, Tarver said. "This makes us a national player," he said. ? WILLIAM WELSH


STUDY: GSA SHOULD BLEND FUNCTIONS

A study commissioned by the General Services Administration in January is recommending that the agency streamline operations by combining the marketing, sales and delivery functions that now are separately run within the Federal Supply Service and Federal Technology Service. The study also recommended that GSA eliminate duplicative contract offerings.

The study, conducted by Accenture Ltd., Hamilton, Bermuda, and released April 30, found significant overlaps between FSS and FTS, the two organizations responsible for procuring information technology and telecommunications products and services for federal agencies.

GSA hired Accenture "to help the agency assess the potential overlaps, improve internal efficiencies and strengthen its focus on customer service," the report said.

FTS provides services and products for local and long-distance telecommunications, IT systems, information security and integrated technology, assisting customers by helping design solutions and overseeing the transaction process.

FSS, by contrast, offers products and services through pre-negotiated contracts with vendors, listing them on schedules from which federal agencies may make purchases directly.

The overlaps between the two fall primarily in market research, marketing, customer account planning and management, sales, service deliver and contract development and maintenance.

In general, federal agencies value GSA's services, the study found. It also concluded that "industry partners also value GSA, though they see room to improve efficiencies in their interactions with [the agency]." In particular, vendors are concerned about overlapping schedules, vehicles and one-time competitions that require companies to submit proposals multiple times.

Accenture recommended that areas of overlap be combined into common functions. For example, only one group should be responsible for market research; and in marketing, there could be a central account team created for each customer, to better coordinate strategies for meeting its needs.

In addition, Accenture recommended GSA cut down on redundant contract offerings. "FSS is already conducting a review of its schedule offerings," the reported noted, suggesting that "this effort be expanded and accelerated." This recommendation is aimed directly at FTS' collection of governmentwide acquisition contracts, although the study did not identify which of this contracts it regarded as redundant. ? PATIENCE WAIT

BILL WOULD CREATE TECH OFFICE FOR HOMELAND SECURITY

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., wants $200 million to develop homeland security technologies under a new Science and Technology Office within a cabinet-level Homeland Security Department.

Lieberman and Sens. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., May 2 introduced the National Homeland Security and Combating Terrorism Act of 2002 to centralize the government's many homeland security functions. The new department would coordinate and act as a focal point for all homeland security activities as well as the government's response to natural and manmade crises.

"We must mobilize government so that it can quickly and effectively reduce terrorist threats," Lieberman said. "Without a government that is permanently reoriented to meet unexpected challenges, new vulnerabilities will constantly emerge."

The bill would bring under one roof the Agriculture Department's quarantine inspection functions, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, Customs Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Immigration and Naturalization Service.

In addition, Commerce's Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office and the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center and National Domestic Preparedness Office would be transferred to the new department.

The bill calls for a White House Office of Combating Terrorism to assess threats, develop a national terrorism strategy and allocate anti-terrorism funds. The director would be presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate. ? JASON MILLER, GCN

CONTRACT DEBACLE ROCKS CALIF. IT DEPT.

California Gov. Gray Davis May 2 accepted the resignation of Arun Baheti, California's director of e-government, and suspended state CIO Elias Cortez in the wake of an audit of a $95 million, six-year enterprise software contract with Oracle Corp.

Vin Patel, director of executive information systems, will serve as interim director of e-government, Davis said. Robert Dresser, the IT department's chief counsel, will act as interim director.

The state auditor said a contract was awarded without competitive bids for Oracle software that no state workers were using almost a year later. The auditor found that the contract cost taxpayers $41 million more than if the state had bought single copies of the unidentified software without an enterprise contract.

Baheti wrote in his resignation letter that it was "clear that, at this time, the best thing I can do is leave the administration. While I was briefed on the Oracle contract and supported the concept of an enterprise licensing agreement, it is apparent in retrospect that I should have more vociferously raised questions about the details."

His departure came on the heels of last week's resignation by Barry Keene, director of the state's General Services Department. In his resignation letter, Keene wrote that he approved the contract with Oracle "the day after a serious and destabilizing development in my marital relationship."

In a related incident, the governor's legal affairs office May 2 received a report of possible document shredding at the department.

Barry Goode, legal affairs secretary to Davis, directed officials to cease any shredding immediately, if it was occurring. Goode then asked attorney general Bill Lockyer to begin investigating the incident. Lockyer dispatched the state highway patrol to secure all the department's document shredders and trash.

"While we had no conclusive evidence that any shredding or destruction of documents occurred, the mere suggestion that it may have occurred has led us to take these steps," Goode wrote in a statement. ? TRUDY WALSH, GCN