OPM to compete financial systems update

The Office of Personnel Management has laid out its plans to replace its two accounting and single procurement systems under its Financial Systems Modernization. OPM plans to conduct a public/private competition September through November, select a provider by June 2008 and begin implementation by October 2009, the agency said in its recent posting on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site.

OPM is in the final days of seeking information from interested parties for its competition among public and commercial shared-service providers to comply with the Financial Management Line of Business.

To modernize its systems, OPM will need systems implementation, application hosting services and software through a single acquisition process that will result in one contract.

When OPM awards the contract, it will establish a blanket purchase agreement either with a federal shared-service provider under the business line using an interagency agreement or with a vendor under the General Services Administration Schedule 70 for information technology equipment, software and services.

Also, GSA's Financial Systems Integration Office had expected to release last month a request for proposals for commercial shared service providers under FMLOB but delayed it until late summer.

When OPM selects a provider, the agency plans to first replace its Government Financial Information System, its administrative system, which is an implementation of CGI's Momentum application. It also plans to replace its procurement system, the CGI Procurement Desktop. Next, OPM will replace its Benefits Financial Management System, the trust fund system, a collection of custom and commercial applications, by moving trust fund management and accounting to the new system implemented in the initial phase. That will result in a single integrated system. Later phases will include cost accounting and property tracking.

The best path to financial modernization can sometimes be the result of trial and error. In August 2005, OPM awarded a contract to the Treasury Department's Bureau of Public Debt to provide financial-management services to OPM. But late last year, OPM terminated its agreement with the bureau after realizing that the bureau couldn't handle some of its requirements.

Mary Mosquera writes for Government Computer News and Federal Computer Week, 1105 Government Information Group publications.