OPM postpones E-Learning procurement

The Office of Personnel Management today postponed the E-Learning solicitation after vendors submitted more than 1,000 questions.

"The director [Kay Coles James] was briefed on the issue and after hearing some of the questions raised, her overriding concern that there should no perception that there is anything going on with the procurement," said Scott Hatch, OPM's director of communications. "She said 'let's stop where we are, let's make it right and let's reissue it,' and that is what we are going to do."

E-Learning is one of five Quicksilver initiatives OPM manages, and the second high-profile e-government project that has hit a bump in the road.

OPM also was forced to reissue the Recruitment One-Stop solicitation after a losing vendor protested the award to Monster Government Solutions of Maynard, Mass., last year. OPM last week re-released the solicitation for Recruitment One-Stop.

Ron Flom, OPM's procurement executive, said the agency would release a synopsis on Friday for the new E-Learning contract, which gives them 15 days to re-release the request for proposals.

Flom said his office will incorporate the answers to the questions vendors submitted into the RFP and clean it up to reflect the government's need more clearly.

"If there is any confusion out there, we want no sense of any sort of irregularity," Hatch said. "It is best for everyone ? for us to go ahead and pull it back and reissue it."

Flom said the proposal due date will be around Oct. 1, and the contract award date of mid-December still is possible.