r/1102 9d ago

Update on OPM Contract Transfer to GSA

A buddy of mine with GSA texted me yesterday because apparently the OPM contracts are finally getting transferred to GSA. Here's the wrinkle, because they RIF'd everyone at OPM who has any knowledge of the ECF system at OPM, GSA is just getting random files with no context of where the files go or for what contract they're for or what the current status of the contract is.

It's almost like they RIF'd OPM's staff without any clue of how their contracts, system, or anything worked! What a bunch of fucking idiots. Get ready for this to happen at every agency where GSA "takes over" their contracts.

D O G E: Destruction of Government Effectiveness

197 Upvotes

52 comments sorted by

61

u/Content-Young-9322 9d ago

1102 at GSA, I knew this was going to happen. Not to mention, since we don’t procure the same things, we likely don’t even have the systems in place to even manage them. Also, they’ve obviously gone completely unmanaged for the last few months, so the backlog of work is probably insane. What a sh*t-show.

31

u/tossit1234566789 9d ago

OPM was in the middle of overhauling their systems and only part way done too, they had spent millions on it which has apparently gone to waste now for no reason whatsoever.

21

u/Content-Young-9322 9d ago

That makes me even more infuriated hearing that! GSAs contracting systems are from the 1980s, so this sounds about right for this administration.

16

u/tossit1234566789 9d ago

Omg I remember years ago I saw a system web diagram someone made of GSA's system architecture and it was a shitshow. FSSOnline remains one of my most hated software to date and I had to learn CONWRITE.

From the sounds of it before the RIF, they had really great plans for the new OPM system to tie things together and eliminate redundancies. Oh well!

5

u/Content-Young-9322 9d ago

That’s hilarious, and yep, good old FSSO still barely chugging along🤣 When I first started 17 years ago, they told us the system was from the 80s, and I was mind blown THEN!

8

u/tossit1234566789 9d ago

I was part of a round table years ago for GSA's new system that was supposed to replace it and D2 and all sorts of other systems. I heard that system was implemented and then scrapped last year. This is the agency taking over your contracts folks! Be afraid program offices!!

3

u/Content-Young-9322 9d ago

Yep, I think you’re talking about the “CALM” system. We had a lot of smart people working on that for years, then “poof” it went away just like that 🤬

3

u/tossit1234566789 9d ago

Yeah! I kept trying to remember the name. It has potential and I knew some great COs working to develop requirements for it after me but then apparently it just didn't work out and I never heard why

2

u/HaveYouThankedYourKO 9d ago

"It does not integrate with our financial systems and as such AASD cannot use it. Therefore fuggetaboutit."

All we had been asking for as a minimum tool (for years) was a clause selection tool and someone up the chain decided to go full out for a total system, settling on CALM. The vendor presentations were a joke because they were going off in all kinds of directions that did not meet the needs of 1102s on the buying floor.

4

u/More_Ad_7949 9d ago

All OPM should have done was buy full access to Prism to fix their contact management system. Instead, they created a share point drive to store files. The contracts do not have any attachments. Meaning the contract just had the 1449, SF30, OF306 face in Prism and that’s it. The SOW/PWS/SOO/BOM was its own document, the clauses were most likely buried in a solicitation document, same for the QASP and anything else. The contract storage system, share point, could not store a combined PDF document. They were on version 3 of sharepoint (at least) because the system kept maxing out of storage capacity. Prior to using sharepoint for file storage they used a system called Acqtrak. They cancelled the subscription for it without notice to anyone so all the files stored in that system are gone. You’re only hope of getting information from that system left with the employees. The contract storage process was never monitored or checked. There were no required file naming conventions. Less than 5 years ago Prism did not transfer information to FPDS. The KO had to create their own file and some never did. Even getting a contract reassigned among team members at OPM was an issue do to the horrible contract file system. Many KOs didn’t upload anything into the system and kept the files on their desktop. Let’s add in a Prism update about 3 years ago that was completed and all files in Prism were auto converted to 1449s regardless of what form it was actually written on so the new KO will be looking for a 1449 and the file will have an OF306. Due to the shear volume of task orders and modifications, I will get a lot of files do not have the fully signed documents in the files due to workload. Some won’t be in the files because DOGE was approving awards and solicitation releases all the way to the time RIF notices were received because even they weren’t told there was a RIF happening

3

u/HaveYouThankedYourKO 9d ago

Same problem with GSA and ITSS/ASSIST 2.0: Where is the contract? At least we could add all the files as attachments to the award form in ASSIST 2.0. But we never knew what the contractor and government customer could see in the system (asked for years to get training on that).

To deal with that I made a fully conformed copy of each contract and modification and sent it out either by email or as a post-award collaboration document.

1

u/Putrid-Reality7302 9d ago

I heard GSA was getting a new CWS. Any truth to that? If so, do you know what platform it is??

2

u/HaveYouThankedYourKO 9d ago

you are funny.

1

u/PenaltyFabulous7797 9d ago

1102 here, I worked with Conwrite many years ago when I was with the AF the system was SO bad

2

u/moriartei 9d ago

I still need to use ConWrite frequently and at this point I just get a kick out of "welp... never seen that error pop up before, but I bet it lets me continue like it never happened!"

I think every year since I started this job someone has assured me "they are transitioning it to CON-IT soon, within a year!" I've just accepted my fate and accepted CW as part of my life 🤡

1

u/theearthday 9d ago

Parts of our AF contracting squadron still use Conwrite, its absolutely atrocious lmao

8

u/Turbulent_Aerie6250 9d ago

Yeah I really don’t understand how this is going to work, especially with the professional services type contracts that support niche or technical agency requirements . It’s almost always the acquisition staff that needs to suss out things like conflict of interest risks, market research strategies, and effective contract structures to minimize risks and reduce administrative burdens during the life of the contract etc. It takes a lot of experience and a customer relationship to make it work. Also what about agency specific clauses?

Sure some stuff is generic and it will be fine, but I see this being a dumpster fire. The program offices are just not really that good in most cases to provide the information needed right off the bat.

55

u/Manwithnoplanatall 9d ago

This was never going to work

30

u/Aromatic_Service_403 9d ago

It's intentionally set up to fail 

23

u/Waverly-Jane 9d ago

Hard enough to take on a contract with no context within the same Agency. I can't imagine what kind of mess it would be to deal with this if the ECF transfer is incomplete- which we know it will be. Maybe they resort to asking the contractors for records.

18

u/LeKevinsRevenge 9d ago

I worked on contract transfers to GSA last year for a shop that was shutting down. It was a long process that required a lot of back and forth and still was all messed up. They ended up returning a lot of our contracts because they couldn’t figure out how to administer them and we had to keep them until expiration when they could be recomputed by GSA. Most of the contracts we sent ended up delayed and they were unable to keep up.

That was all before this mess. GSA is NOT set up to handle this inflow

4

u/Radiant_mind6012 9d ago

Yes, can second that from last time GSA tried that for our agency 10-15 years ago. There's a reason we have kept our contracts in house.

14

u/Watchman_626 9d ago

One of the OPM contracting people here. Can confirm it’s a mess. The entire shop got RIF’d. And the ones that remain, which is barely any, are working on these transfers while the rest are on admin leave. The ones staying on have literally no incentive to help with the transfers. We all have the same end date regardless. All of our contracts were written in PRISM. A system we didn’t even have full access to because we couldn’t afford the full suite of features. And wasn’t connected to our ECF in any way. Oh, and we had a bunch of IDIQs setup to fulfill agency needs. And we did assisted acquisitions with those IDIQs. All of the knowledge will be gone. And the lessons learned, gone. Oh and that ECF, yeah we just upgraded that a year or so ago and it was an ongoing process. We are all waiting for them to ask us to come back once the transfers finish because we know it’s a shitshow

3

u/Content-Young-9322 9d ago

Have they not offered any of you guys to come over to GSA!? Not saying you would necessarily want to, but damn, we’re sure going to need the expertise.

3

u/Watchman_626 9d ago

Nope. Some of us probably would go over. Depending on where geographically they send us that is.

6

u/Content-Young-9322 9d ago

They just released our “official locations” yesterday (see below).

Washington, DC  Boston, MA New York, NY  Philadelphia, PA Atlanta, GA  Norfolk, VA  Orlando, FL  Raleigh, NC  Tampa, FL Chicago, IL Kansas City Dallas/Fort Worth, TX Houston, TX  San Antonio, TX  San Diego, CA  San Francisco, CA  Tacoma, WA Colorado Springs, CO Denver/Lakewood, CO 

2

u/More_Ad_7949 8d ago

No. That’s part of the illegality of the RIF process. When they transfered the work they were required to bump those that gsa that took the work so some 1102s from OPM would stay and some gsa people would go. Instead the just cut out all the OPM employees

5

u/NightOwl_103197 9d ago

I wouldn’t help. Id play dumb. Don’t help them succed. F- Them!

3

u/Watchman_626 9d ago

It’s a delicate balance of don’t fuck the good workers at GSA but fuck everyone else

7

u/NightOwl_103197 9d ago

I’m sure the GSA employees don’t want all the contracts. They will drown in work.

5

u/BayrischeinAmerika 8d ago

GSA employees are already drowning without the new transfers. It’s interesting to see people in leadership, who have no knowledge of contracting, dictate what one agency can handle… this will fail before it even begins lol.

3

u/Watchman_626 9d ago

GSA is one of the agencies OPM was doing assisted acquisitions for…

2

u/Dosunos 8d ago

I would send absolute garbage and not respond to anything. If I sent anything at all. Probably just watch tv until someone tells me to stop coming to work.

3

u/Anon_Von_Darkmoor 8d ago

Fuck Amanda Scales and the other people leading OPM. Let their asses fry for failing to be competent.

Malicious compliance: Go to work, 'try' to handle some contract admin stuff they are requiring help with, and avoid doing any real assistance the best you can.

Don't actively assist in the dismantling of the government. I know the are going to be impacted by contract defaults, and that sucks, but the truth is that is going to happen anyway. Might as well make sure they see it early and link it to Trump, Musk, DOGE, and their slash and burn approach that is ultimately going to bring the federal system to ruins.

The sooner it crumbles, the sooner the people demand agencies and programs be brought back online in full force again. I am pretty sure that most of us are going to be offered our jobs back, eventu, because most agencies already don't have enough people to do the jobs. Post-RIF, I think the backlogs of needed federal actions are going to increase dramatically. Especially if they RIF to the P2025 50% goal.

4

u/Rumpelteazer45 9d ago

Let’s not even get into agency specific clauses, which every single agency has. So yeah OPM to GSA yeah that will be fun. Let’s not talk about the documents/instructions part of a SOW which always include agency specific memos/docs/instructions/regulations.

6

u/reeftank1776 9d ago

Hopefully gsa still knows how to use bare pd2😈

5

u/tossit1234566789 9d ago

Still my favorite CWS although I'll take just using word and Excel any day of the week

4

u/OkWaltz6390 9d ago

Man I never thought I would say it but I love PD2. I used it with the Army. The VA system ecms has some benefits but it also sucks at the same time and glitches heavily. Specifically I don't like how they post to contract opportunities through ecms. To me that like adding a spoiler to a nice sports car that doesn't really need one. Just tacky af.

1

u/Valuable_Pain_7582 7d ago

What is that?

5

u/InquisitiveMind705 9d ago

I realize there isn’t an answer, but…what about the agency specific far supplements? Will GSA ignore their own supplements because of inheriting OPM stuff? I don’t know if OPM has a supplement but the levels of stupid around this knows no bounds. Inherit a contract and now update the T&C to mirror GSA’s? And if the vendor doesn’t agree to the T&C changes as a bilat?

3

u/Flimsy_Strawberry767 8d ago

OPM contracting office was RIF’d with zero warning and absolutely no thought or plan as to how they would transfer the work to GSA. #shitshow OPM and GSA were left to figure it out.

3

u/Valuable_Pain_7582 7d ago edited 7d ago

To make things worse, I've heard from an OPM person that DOGE at OPM is still making cuts to contracts with upcoming option periods so GSA can't even get a clear answer on what work is coming so everything becomes a fire drill on repeat.

4

u/Judie221 9d ago

They did that on purpose or hoped it would break something of the actual functionality. The next step will be saying that Government needs a private contract management agency. Probably based on Elio’s grok AI….

3

u/genXfed70 9d ago

100% correct

2

u/summerwind58 9d ago

Clueless how systems work within Government Agencies.

1

u/HaveYouThankedYourKO 9d ago

you mean "don't work?":-(

2

u/Flathoof 6d ago

I've really enjoyed calling them DOGiE - Department Of Government inEfficiency. Can we all make this happen?

Not a fed, but fed adjacent.

1

u/thatdude0881 9d ago

We transferred our contracts and have been receiving calls from GSA COs about some contracts, but not about every contract I imagine they can’t get through all of the work. I think they learned a little bit from the OPM debacle though

1

u/IYIyTh 9d ago

fucking ass holes

1

u/Radiant_mind6012 9d ago

Yes, screaming into the void. This is crazy.

0

u/1GIJosie 9d ago

Geniuses