Of Toilets and Contracts

From my colleage Rob Brodsky:

At today’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing, several lawmakers brought up my March 18th article detailing some of the concerns with the first 11 Recovery Act contracts. Included among those contracts was a $460,000 contract to install 22 precast concrete toilet buildings in Missouri's Mark Twain National Forest.

The article has garnered a good deal of attention [both positive and negative] from lawmakers, agency leaders and interest groups. But, much of the discussion has missed the intent of the story, so I wanted to take a moment to clarify what the article said and did not say.

The article does not suggest that agencies used GSA Schedules or blanket purchase agreements with the intent of avoiding competition. Rather, the story raised the question of whether these types of contracts are in compliance with the administration’s stated goal of awarding Recovery Act contracts with maximum competition. That is not to say that GSA Schedules or BPAs are not competitive. They are and can be a useful tool for agencies to find competent, pre-vetted contractors and move funds out the door quickly. However, I noted that it was unclear from the OMB’s initial guidance to federal agencies how these types of contracts fit into the administration’s state competition goal.

Secondly, the story deliberately did not suggest that the contracts, including the toilet building award, were wasteful or overpriced. Sen. Claire McCaskill said today that the contract was “not a bad deal.” She may be right. But my goal was not to debate whether this was a wise or proper use of taxpayer funds. The story simply described, in detail, the nature of the contract and used it as an example of the type of early awards that had been issued. No snarky toilet jokes or mentions of gold-plated military toilet seats.

Much of this discussion comes back to the central idea behind transparency. Government Executive and undoubtedly dozens of other media outlets are going to examine Recovery Act contracts with intense scrutiny. The administration has even encouraged such an examination. However, I would encourage readers not to leap to conclusions that the mere mention of specific contracts equals some form of criticism about its quality. Sometimes transparency is just … transparency.