State and local governments can use IT Schedule contracts

Starting today, state and local governments can buy IT products and services through the Federal Supply Service's schedule contracts.

The General Services Administration issued an interim rule in the Federal Register opening FSS' IT Schedule to all 50 states, 3,139 counties, 19,365 incorporated municipalities, 14,178 school districts, 550 Native American tribal governments and others.

GSA published a proposed rule in late January and received comments that led to substantive changes to the interim rule.

The chief addition to the interim rule lets state and local government organizations and vendors add terms and conditions to the statements of work or statements of objectives in contract orders, as long as the added terms do not conflict with any existing schedule term and condition.

GSA received a lot of comments from industry and governments on this issue, said David Drabkin, GSA's associate deputy associate administrator for acquisition policy. Sometimes, state and local agencies will need to add rules so that the schedule buys comply with their state or local procurement regulations.

The rule noted that the agency will study the feasibility of letting nonfederal entities use GSA Advantage or other government e-commerce portals to negotiate schedule contract orders.

GSA plans to issue a final rule in late summer after reviewing comments on the latest changes, Drabkin said.

Comments can be sent via e-mail to gsarcase.2002-505@gsa.gov.