The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) recently announced that instead of having 24 separate schedules for the government to order goods and services, it intends to have one single schedule. According to GSA Administrator, Emily Murphy, “Reforming our schedules will improve customer service, make it easier for small businesses to access the schedules program, reduce duplication for all our vendors, and allows GSA’s workforce to focus on delivering solutions…. This is an important step in addressing feedback we’ve received from our government and business partners.” The idea is to make it easier for the buying community to order supplies and for the supplier community to have less administrative burden for administering more than one schedule.

As part of the process of consolidating the schedules, GSA is reviewing all of the terms and conditions of the various schedules and the Special Item Numbers (SINs) to determine where there may be efficiencies. While GSA plans to roll out the consolidation over the next two to five years, GSA announced, as part of an industry day on December 12, 2018, that it intended to release the consolidated schedule in FY 2019 and close out the 24 current schedules at that time. The modifications to existing schedules would then begin to be issued in the latter part of FY 2020. Notwithstanding the current changes, companies should not change how they are currently working under the GSA schedule, nor should they hold up in submitting the documentation to get a GSA schedule. Finally, the Cooperative Purchasing under Schedule 70 and 84 and Transaction Data Reporting pilot programs will continue to apply at the category level and may or may not be rolled out across all the categories.

This consolidation will not affect the Veteran’s Affairs schedules.

For more information, contact MWL Counsel Jody Reed.