REE Competitive Sourcing (CS) Program

HISTORY OF REE COMPETITIVE SOURCING

The REE mission area’s competitive sourcing (CS) program was formally organized in 2002 in direct support of USDA’s commitment to more actively pursue Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-76, “Performance of Commercial Activities“ as a result of the President’s Management Agenda Initiatives.  

At that time, an REE CS Working Group was organized which included a representative from each of the mission area’s agencies (ARS, CSREES, ERS, and NASS).  It also included program management staff (representing acquisition and human resources aspects) from the Administrative and Financial Management (AFM) organization in ARS. 

This Working Group was tasked in 2002 to provide support to the REE mission area on the CS program by conducting activities involving the annual Federal Activities Inventory Report (FAIR) Act requirements, as well as identifying commercial type functions for potential competitions.

REE conducted three competitions in ARS which included:  facilities operations and maintenance (O&M) support functions at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), the National Agricultural Library and the U.S. National Arboretum; research farming support services at BARC; and security services at BARC.   

The results of those competitions were that the facilities O&M study and the research farming study favored ARS’ Most Efficient Organizations (MEO’s) for performance of those commercial services.  The security services study results favored performance by the private sector and a contract was subsequently awarded. 

Starting in 2005, REE initiated activities to do long term strategic planning of its CS program which started with conducting feasibility reviews of its remaining commercial type activities.  This feasibility review process started with a macro-analysis (broad level analysis of its commercial functions). 

During 2007, REE started the process to conduct the next step of the feasibility review process by performing micro-analysis of its commercial IT functions.  The analysis of the REE IT Help Desk functions was completed and the result favored the Government (REE).  The micro-analysis on the remainder of the REE commercial IT functions is currently underway with a targeted completion in late summer 2008.  This is the point at which REE is now in its CS program. 

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Last updated: 11/16/07