EQUAL TIME
Good faith, integrity remain critical to CDC
By WILLIAM GIMSON
Published on: 12/07/06
Outside firms are critical to the success of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and our
agency greatly values the work of the contractors
who provide us vital services.
As noted in the recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution
article, through the efforts of Celerant Consulting
and many people throughout the CDC, improvements in
our agency's procurement operations have already
achieved an estimated $4.9 million in cost avoidance
( savings), reduced by 34 percent the average time
it takes to for us to process contract and grant
actions, and improved our service to a broad
spectrum of health agencies, academic partners and
others.
Like most federal government agencies, CDC has
invested more in service contracts in recent years.
We've worked hard to better serve our employees,
public health partners and the public through more
efficient operations and more effective management
systems. CDC's efforts include contracting with Booz
Allen Hamilton to help us improve the nation's
childhood vaccine inventory system and with
BearingPoint to help our Office of Terrorism
Preparedness and Emergency Response develop
performance measures for assessing our nation's
preparedness and emergency response plans. We've
contracted with Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin
to advance our information technology systems and
are working with Deloitte to assess and improve our
financial management office.
There are many ways that CDC and other federal
agencies can access the skills and expertise of
outside firms. Most people are familiar with the
practice of soliciting bids or proposals in response
to a government request, but given the length and
expense of this process, the Office of Management
and Budget has developed and encourages other
approaches. These other approaches include General
Services Administration contracts, multiple award
contracts, interagency agreements and governmentwide
acquisition contracts — all of which facilitate
faster, cost-effective access to pre-qualified
firms.
CDC strives to ensure it gets the best value for its
investments and takes a number of factors —
including past performance, quality, and price or
cost — into account when determining whether and how
to engage an outside firm.
At CDC, we are ever mindful of our obligation to be
sound stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we take
seriously the need to abide by federal contracting
regulations. When concerns were raised about the
Celerant contract, we promptly sought a review and,
as a result, we strengthened our controls and
training related to the use of interagency
agreements.
CDC's director, Dr. Julie Gerberding, and I are
proud of CDC's long track record of conducting its
business in good faith and with great integrity. We
are committed to making any improvements that will
help us maintain that record.
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