Capital Roundup In brief

FTS looks to fuse services offices

The General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service will combine its service development and service delivery offices into a single Office of Global Network Solutions in two to three months, said John Johnson, assistant commissioner for service delivery at FTS.

FTS' Office of Service Delivery provides telecommunications network solutions to federal agencies. Johnson said the reorganization would give contractors one-stop shopping, as they'll no longer have to communicate with two offices.

Performance-based rules debut

A proposed rule, published by the Federal Acquisition Council in the Federal Register July 21, tells industry and agencies how to do performance-based contracting for services. Comments on the proposed rule are due by Sept. 20 and may be filed at www.regulations.gov or e-mailed to
farcase.2003-018@gsa.gov.

Plans for service contracts or orders must describe how performance-based service acquisition methods are used or explain why they're not used, the rule said. If a firm, fixed-price contract is not used, the acquisition plan must explain why.
The rule also said performance work statements must be used to the maximum extent practical with contracts or orders for services.

E-voting security a long-term effort

It is too late for electronic voting technology to affect the 2004 election, witnesses said at a July 20 hearing of the House Government Reform subcommittee on technology, information policy, intergovernmental relations and the Census. Some states have said electronic voting machines can't be used in November because the machines aren't secure enough or lack a paper trail of recorded votes.

Requirements for electronic voting machines set by the Help America Vote Act don't kick in until 2006, when voting systems used in federal elections will have to provide for error correction by voters, manual auditing, accessibility, alternative languages and compliance with federal error-rate standards.