The General Services Administration has established a new office within its Federal Acquisition Service — the Office of Centralized Acquisition Services — that will serve as a central hub supporting a variety of federal agencies’ acquisition efforts for nearly $500 billion worth of goods and services each year.
The office has been in the works for months since President Donald Trump’s March 20 executive order on procurement consolidation and follows a series of major acquisition efforts undertaken by the agency, including a rewrite of Federal Acquisition Regulation.
GSA Acting Administrator Michael J. Rigas has signed off on the office and longtime GSA senior executive Thomas Meiron will serve as the assistant commissioner for the new OCAS, according to sources familiar. Meiron has nearly 30 years of experience as a procurement official and has served as acting assistant commissioner for the FAS Office of Customer and Stakeholder Engagement for the past seven months.
In an email to GSA staff expected later today from FAS Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum and shared with Nextgov/FCW, Gruenbaum says: “By centralizing procurement for common goods and services, we can leverage the government’s buying power to secure the best prices for the taxpayer. This effort will also streamline and consolidate governmentwide procurement and regulations, reducing duplication and enabling agencies to focus on their core missions. Procurement consolidation means that we will leverage the power of the wallet through use of IDIQs, shared services, demand management, and assisted acquisition.”
The email adds: “Under Tom’s leadership, the team is building a strong organizational foundation to implement our vision of streamlining and consolidating federal procurement, achieving savings, and improving the experience.”
The office will handle contracting functions for several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management and Small Business Administration. Furthermore, the office is intended to serve as the management destination for the NASA SEWP and NITAAC CIO-CP3/4 contract vehicles, should transfer plans be approved to move the vehicles under GSA.
In May, GSA announced plans internally to move the contracting vehicles responsible for more than $100 billion in IT services annually under the agency, but GSA Senior Procurement Executive Jeff Koses said final decisions were still to come.
