The Real Deal on DHS 'No-Bid' Deal

The Washington Post lets fly today with another of its periodic salvos against federal agencies' contracting processes, with a piece about the Homeland Security Department's $2 billion million "no-bid contract" with Booz-Allen Hamilton that ballooned into a $124 million project to create an information analysis and infrastructure protection organization.

A couple of quick thoughts about the piece:

• The repeated use of the highly charged phrase "no-bid" conjures up cronyistic contracts shoveled out to preferred contractors with connections, political or otherwise. But it's clear from the story that these weren't no-bid deals in the sense of being doled out without any competition. The Veterans Affairs Department handled the procurement on behalf of DHS, using General Services Administration contract vehicles. Booz Allen had to go through a level of competition simply to be included on one of those vehicles.
• What's more, is the "no-bid" aspect really the point? If the contracts had been properly bid out with full procedures, DHS would in all likelihood have had to spend even more money to get the office off the ground. The real issue here is that the department utterly lacked the internal capacity not only to fulfill the mission it was assigned, but even to find a contractor to do it for them. Any way you slice it, they were going to have to spend a ton of money with contractors to do the job they were assigned to do.