The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government-wide cost-minimizing policies, and other management tasks.
History
Former President Herbert Hoover was asked in 1947 by President Harry Truman to lead a commission to make recommendations to the President and Congress on how to improve the administrative activities of the federal government. One of the recommendations of the commission was the establishment of an “Office of the General Services.” This proposed office would combine the responsibilities of the Treasury Department‘s Bureau of Federal Supply and Office of Contract Settlement, the National Archives and Records Administration Establishment, the Federal Work Agency, and the War Assets Administration. GSA became an independent agency on July 1, 1949, following the passage of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act. General Jess Larson, Administrator of the War Assets Administration, was named as GSA’s first Administrator.
The first job awaiting Administrator Larson and the newly formed GSA was a complete renovation of the White House. The structure had fallen into such a state of disrepair by 1949 that one inspector of the time said the historic structure was standing “purely from habit.” Larson later explained the in depth nature of the total renovation by saying, “In order to make the White House structurally sound, it was necessary to completely dismantle, and I mean completely dismantle, everything from the White House except the four walls, which were constructed of stone. Everything, except the four walls without a roof, was finally stripped down, and that’s where the work started.” GSA worked closely with President Truman and First Lady Bess Truman to ensure that the new agency’s first major project was a success. GSA completed the renovation in 1952.[3] Its headquarters, located at Eighteenth and F Sts. NW, is in the historic U.S. General Services Administration Building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as Interior Department Offices.[4]
GSA today
GSA employs about 12,000 federal workers and has an annual operating budget of roughly $26.3 billion, approximately 1% of which is appropriated from taxpayer dollars. GSA oversees $66 billion of procurement annually. It contributes to the management of about $500 billion in U.S. Federal property, divided chiefly among 8,300 owned and leased buildings and a 210,000 vehicle motor pool. Among the real estate assets managed by the GSA are the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC, the largest U.S. Federal building after The Pentagon and the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center which had previously been the Battle Creek Sanitarium run by John Harvey Kellogg.
GSA’s business lines include the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) and the Public Buildings Service (PBS). Other divisions include the Office of Governmentwide Policy, and various Staff Offices, including the Office of Small Business Utilization, the Office of Civil Rights, and the Office of Citizen Services and Communications. The official U.S. government web portal, USA.gov, and the Spanish-language web portal to U.S. government services, GobiernoUSA.gov, are members of the Office of Citizen Services and Communication’s family of websites, which also includes pueblo.gsa.gov (the Federal Citizen Information Center), Kids.gov, ConsumerAction.gov, and WebContent.gov.
The National Archives and Records Administration was also part of GSA until it was made an independent agency in 1985.
GSA recently completed early-outs and buy-outs to reduce staff. It reorganized in 2005 to merge the Federal Supply Service (FSS) and Federal Technology Service (FTS) business lines into the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS).[5] Bush Administration political appointee Stephen A. Perry resigned as GSA Administrator on October 31, 2005. On May 31, 2006, Lurita Doan, also a Bush Administration political appointee, took the oath of office to become the 18th GSA Administrator and the first woman to hold the position. Lurita Doan resigned from office on April 29, 2008.[6] David Bibb was acting administrator from April 30, 2008 until September 1, 2008.
On June 25, 2008, the White House announced that Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner James A. Williams was nominated to be GSA’s administrator, replacing Lurita Doan. Williams served as the first commissioner of FAS after the agency combined the Federal Technology Service and the Federal Supply Service. Williams is a career SES member, rather than a political appointee. The announcement came on the same day that acting administrator David Bibb announced that he planned to retire on September 1, 2008 to pursue work in the private sector.[7]
On April 3, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Martha N. Johnson to serve as Administrator. After a lengthy delay, the United States Senate confirmed her nomination on February 4, 2010.
GSA Schedule
GSA assists with procurement work for other government agencies. As part of this effort, it maintains the large GSA Schedule, which other agencies can use to buy goods and services. The GSA Schedule can be thought of as a collection of pre-negotiated contracts. Procurement managers from government agencies can view these agreements and make purchases from the GSA Schedule knowing that all legal obligations have been taken care of by GSA.
Core Concepts that Govern the Operation of a GSA Schedule
The GSA Schedule is awarded as a prime contract entered into by the federal government and a vendor that has submitted an acceptable proposal. At the core of the GSA Schedule contract lie two key concepts: 1) Basis of Award customer or group of customers and 2) Price Reduction Clause. The two concepts are applied in concert to achieve the government’s pricing objectives for the GSA Schedule program. Namely, the government wants to ensure that when the vendor experiences competitive pressures to reduce its pricing, then the government can benefit from these and be extended reduced pricing as well.[8]
Basis of Award
The Basis of Award customer or group of customers represents the customer or group of customers whose sales are effected on the same terms and conditions as those with GSA, and whose pricing is used: 1) as the baseline during negotiations to establish discounts offered to GSA, and 2) as a price floor that, when breached, constitutes additional discounting that triggers the Price Reduction Clause.
Price Reduction Clause
The Price Reduction Clause ensures that vendor discounting practices and GSA Schedule prices maintain a fixed relationship. The vendor specifies in its GSA proposal, and during negotiations of GSA Schedule contract prices, the discounts to be given to Basis of Award customer(s). If the vendor then provides a larger discount to a Basis of Award customer than what was agreed upon in the GSA Schedule contract (i.e., if the price floor is breached), then the vendor’s GSA price will be reduced proportionately and retroactively.[9]
Price Reduction Clause Compliance
Effective Price Reduction Clause compliance procedures will protect vendors if their discounting practices are fully and accurately disclosed in their original proposals to GSA and then are used as a basis for compliance over the term of the contract.
Although not ideal, a compliance system implemented after a contract has been awarded can bring a contract into compliance, although sometimes at the expense of Template:Whose? profits. If implementing a system in the middle of a contract period, inaccuracies that turn up should be corrected immediately, and the GSA contracting officer should be made aware of them.
Price Reduction Clause compliance systems and procedures can range from the simple to the complex. A simple, manual system would be appropriate for a service contractor with standard labor rates that are not discounted. A complex system would be required for a reseller with thousands of products and discounting policies that differ among product groups.
Regions
GSA conducts its business activities through 11 offices (known as GSA Regions) throughout the United States, located in: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Ft. Worth, Kansas City, Missouri, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle (Auburn), and Washington, D.C.
| Region # | Region Name | Complex | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New England | Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Federal Building | Boston, MA |
| 2 | Northeast and Caribbean | Jacob K. Javits Federal Building | New York, NY |
| 3 | Mid-Atlantic | The Strawbridge Building | Philadelphia, PA |
| 4 | Southeast Sunbelt | 77 Forsyth Street | Atlanta, GA |
| 5 | Great Lakes | Kluczynski Federal Building | Chicago, IL |
| 6 | Heartland | Bannister Federal Complex | Kansas City, MO |
| 7 | Greater Southwest | Fritz G. Lanham Federal Building | Fort Worth, TX |
| 8 | Rocky Mountain | Denver Federal Center | Denver, CO |
| 9 | Pacific Rim | 450 Golden Gate Avenue | San Francisco, CA |
| 10 | Northwest/Arctic | 400 15th St. SW | Auburn, WA |
| 11 | National Capital | 301 7th St. SW | Washington, DC |