Seat management competition for IRS closed

The IRS announced last week in an information bulletin that it will not proceed with a public-private competition under Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 for the entire Seat Management program.

The IRS is working with the Treasury Department and OMB to consider alternatives, including business process re-engineering, to meet the IRS' Seat Management requirements.

A study outlining the next steps is expected to be completed by the end of December, an IRS spokesman said.

The IRS had expected to conduct a competition involving 2,700 IRS IT positions. Providers would have to be able to adapt to surges in workload situations because of the tax-processing environment and fluctuations in users, ranging from 90,000 to 120,000 IRS employees depending on the time of year, IRS said previously.

Seat management includes hardware and software acquisition, regularly scheduled technology refresh for hardware and software, voice services, local area network services, account administration, server infrastructure, asset management, application management, help desk services, customer support, installation services, training and relocations.

Mary Mosquera is a staff writer for Washington Technology's affiliate publication, Government Computer News.