Panel: Price reduction clause 'meaningless'

The Multiple Award Schedule Advisory Panel plans to recommend that the General Services Administration kill the Price Reduction Clause.

The schedules advisory panel on Sept. 19 approved a recommendation to have GSA eliminate the Price Reduction Clause for Multiple Award Schedules contracts for services and require competition at the task-order level with stricter competition rules.

"The clause is meaningless" for services, said Elliott Branch, chairman of the panel. Several other panelists agreed that the clause has no effect on services.

The panel's motion would eliminate the clause that ensures the government is getting at least as good a deal as a contractor's private-sector clients because the services vary too much compared to commodities, experts and panelists have said.

The panel also approved recommending "803-like" procedures for competition. That would require agencies to solicit all contractors to offer a bid when issuing a task order or receive at least three bids from contractors. The Defense Department is required in Section 803 in the fiscal 2002 Defense Authorization bill to meet either of those two criteria. Civilian agencies aren't covered under the same statute.

The panel is reviewing GSA's MAS program and will make recommendations to GSA's administrator.

Matthew Weigelt writes for Federal Computer Week, an 1105 Government Information Group publication.