Administration officials have encouraged agencies to become more entrepreneurial and competitive. It reports with approval that the Social Security Administration cut costs by arranging for the Interior Department to process SSA's payroll. Dennis DeGaetano, deputy associate FAA administrator for acquisitions, says the contract with the USDA center will cut his agency's costs by at least 15 percent. The intensity of the reaction to ICE-MAN suggest that it hit a sore point. Robert A. Dornan, senior vice president of Federal Sources Inc., a market analysis firm, surmises that news of the award coalesced frustration within industry and government alike over adjusting to the new rules that altered the federal IT landscape over the last year.
Federal officials agree.
The most important single change was the Clinger-Cohen Act, also known as the 1996 IT Management Reform Act. When it took effect last August, GSA lost its pre-eminence as the IT oversight authority in the executive branch, giving way to the Office of Management and Budget and a group of interagency task forces and councils. Many of the special rules governing IT procurement began to disappear. Clinger-Cohen and other new laws have pushed the government toward a procurement system where common sense is more common and commercial practices are more nearly the norm. Moreover, the new laws have dramatically shortened the time it takes an agency to buy hardware and software.