Recovery.gov - Track the Money

Due to Agency IT priorities and toward maximizing job creation with the Recovery Act funds, USAID determined that the funding should be dedicated to the Global Acquisition and Assistance System (GLAAS) project.

GLAAS project funding contributes toward 180 full-time work years of employment for individuals in the Washington DC area, the majority of whom are small business employees. Recovery Act funding would be specifically used to procure those needed resources, providing the ability to retain critical systems development staff to provide additional functionality and to hire much needed system trainers and help desk support staff, thus creating a positive impact on employment while providing necessary support to GLAAS. Upon implementation, GLAAS will support USAID’s continuing effort to engage small businesses through acquisitions and assistance projects in support of the Agency’s mission.

The Recovery Act specifically identifies five goals as its purpose:
• Preserve and create jobs and promote economic recovery
• To assist those impacted by the recession
• To provide investments needed to increase economic efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and health
• To invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructures that will provide long-term economic benefits
• To stabilize State and local government budgets, in order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services and counterproductive state and local tax increases
In an effort to align our overall agency plans with these Recovery Act goals, USAID has decided to use this funding to complete the rollout of its Global Acquisition and Assistance System (GLAAS). GLAAS is a new enterprise business system that will, for the first time, give USAID the ability to process more than $11.5 billion in contract and grant transactions worldwide. GLAAS is integrated with the Agency’s financial system (Phoenix). When GLAAS is fully deployed, it will enable USAID to provide complete, timely and accurate reports to OMB, Congress and other external stakeholders.
Investment in the GLAAS system is consistent with the Agency’s business modernization initiatives and meets the objectives of e-Gov. GLAAS is able to maximize interoperability and minimize redundancy through integration with a host of internal and external systems. Through the real-time integration of GLAAS with USAID’s financial management system, the Agency is able to provide inclusive, timely, and accurate reporting to better accommodate mandates and management of stakeholders’ data calls. GLAAS will provide real-time integration with the Agency’s financial system for posting commitments, obligations, and awards, as well as synchronization of vendor data. This system will also integrate with external government systems including FPDS-NG, FedBizOpps, FAADS, and Grants.gov, which will reduce user workload and simplify the acquisition and assistance process and provide appropriate data for “Recovery.gov.” Utilizing a single acquisition and assistance (A&A) tool will provide significant benefit to the Agency in terms of optimizing staff workload, deployment, project management, reporting, and legacy system retirement. GLAAS will allow USAID to handle its increased workload while preparing for current trends, which include: 1) increased competition mandated by Congress; and 2) the need for additional oversight as USAID increases its opportunities targeted to new partners, small businesses, and local and indigenous organizations.

USAID is in the process of modifying the existing contracts that were awarded competitively under the Federal Acquisition Regulation for the GLAAS project and adding ARRA FAR compliance clauses, additional contract line items and reporting procedures specific for Recovery Act funds.

USAID expects its rate of competition where Recovery Act funds are involved to remain consistent with the level of competition that has been established and demonstrated over the proceeding eighteen month period. USAID maintains a series of 3 Information Technology multiple award Blanket Purchase Agreements (BPAs); each was competitively awarded. In addition, each Task Order award was competed among multiple vendors under the Fair Opportunity clause cited in the BPAs. USAID will invest Recovery Act funds across 4 existing Task Orders that were competitively awarded and a fifth award TBD.

USAID will use $38M in Recovery Act money for the labor associated with ensuring the successful world-wide deployment of the Global Acquisition and Assistance System (GLAAS). The total Recovery Act funds obligated will be issued under 4 previously competed Task Orders and 1 award that is TBD.

Due to the nature of the world-wide deployment and the evolution of system requirements as additional field locations are brought into the deployment, it was determined unreasonable to price the previously competed Task Orders using FFP vehicles. Thus, awards that were made previously were primarily Time and Materials (T&M) task orders with performance measures that result in incentives/disincentives based on contract performance.

The new award will be issued to ensure the uninterrupted continuation of GLAAS Development work and offers the potential to award up to 10-15% of the total $38M to a Firm Fixed Price (FFP) Task Order, increasing the use of FFP Task Orders for ARRA-funded contracts.

Deployment – an existing contract that provides the services necessary to allow staff at Headquarters offices and missions worldwide to access GLAAS. These services include development and conduct of staff training, collection and migration to GLAAS of required contract and grant data, user configuration and access, and post production support (initially onsite, along with Help Desk services.) A small business is providing the required deployment services. In FY 2011, USAID will determine whether to issue a new task order on this contract based on the performance of this company under the current contract.

Systems Development – an existing contract that provides the services necessary to complete the development of the remaining outstanding functionality required for full deployment of GLAAS. This contract covers the development of the two remaining releases (GLAAS 3.1 and GLAAS 3.2), including custom reports required to meet management and stakeholder reporting requirements. This systems developer will provide operations and production support services in support of the deployment effort. A new contract (to be determined) will be awarded to continue development support through implementation.

Project Management - Change Management, & Business Process Reengineering – an existing contract that provides project management services in support of USAID’s responsibilities for managing the overall management, Earned Value, Schedule, and Release Management. This contract also covers Change Management and Business Process Reengineering services designed to assist Headquarters’ offices and missions worldwide prepare their organizations for deployment of GLAAS. These activities include a full range of communication efforts, along with assisting individual offices and missions to refine their business processes to bring them in line with GLAAS. Since the existing contract expires on May 12, 2010, USAID plans to conduct a competitive acquisition process for these types of services through completion of the project.

Disaster Recovery – an existing and a new contract that provides disaster recovery services to ensure the availability of GLAAS in the event of a hardware or software failure.

All major USAID programs must participate in the USAID Life Cycle review process (illustrated in Figure 1) that has been established to standardize program/project management and reporting, improve quality of delivery, and assure that measurable program objectives and goals are established, tracked and achieved on schedule and within budget. GLAAS has already successfully completed multiple stage gate reviews, the most recent of which was an Integrated Baseline Review in January 2009. This baseline will be adjusted to reflect the additional ARRA funds and their respective milestones. The high-level milestones for tracking progress are listed within Section II of this plan; however the actual start and end dates may change based on availability of funds and the ability to place them on contracts.

USAID has established an ARRA Senior Risk Management Council (SRMC) to provide oversight of Recovery Act activities through periodic reviews and assessment of Recovery Act performance. The Council, led by the alternate Senior Accountable Official (SAO), will conduct regular reviews of recovery planning, implementation, reporting and performance to include risk identification and corrective actions. The Council is comprised of the SAO, the alternate SAO, the Chief Operating Officer, the Chief Financial Officer, the Senior Procurement Executive, the Chief Human Capital Officer, the Chief Information Officer, and the Performance Improvement Officer. The Office of General Counsel and Office of Inspectors General will serve in advisory roles on the Council.