Posts Tagged ‘Federal’

DC Announces Joint and Married Filing Separately Options for Domestic Partners and Same-sex Spouses

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

On January 12, 2010 the District of Columbia’s Office of Tax and Revenue (DC OTR) announced that individuals who are registered domestic partners in the District or are in similar relationships from other jurisdictions or will be able to file jointly, or married filing separately, on a combined return for the tax year 2009. Further, subject to approval by the U.S. Congress, expected by March 2, 2010, same-sex individuals who were married in other jurisdictions will be able to file jointly, or married filing separately, on a combined form for the tax year 2009. To avoid having to file amended returns later, same-sex spouses are advised to defer filing their DC personal income returns until after March 2, 2010 . (more…)

2009 Government IT M&A Conference – Oct 20, 2009

Monday, October 12th, 2009

Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 7:30-10:00 am – Stay ahead of the competition by hearing directly from the region’s preeminent dealmakers in the Federal IT space. Keynote speaker and leading analyst Bill Loomis of Stifel, Nicolaus & Company will present his assessment of recent public and private market trends affecting government contractors. Stan Soloway, President and CEO of the Professional Services Council, will provide an update on significant legislative and political activity concerning the sector. A panel of executives and advisors will discuss in detail their strategies and plans to grow their businesses notwithstanding difficult market conditions. The panel will include Larry A. Davis, Managing Partner of Aronson Capital Partners, LLC.

This program is free of charge, but registration is required by Thursday, October 15, 2009.

For more information, please contact Jamie Graham

Tuesday, October 20, 2009
7:30-10:00 am
The Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner
1700 Tysons Blvd.
McLean, VA 22102
7:30-8:00 am
Registration & Networking
8:00-10:00 am
Program

IT Dashboard Is Now Fully Populated

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

The Federal Government’s IT Dashboard is now fully populated with performance metrics for each of the 781 Federal IT projects currently underway.  The dashboard consists of cost and schedule status for each project along with the agency CIO’s assessment.  Each project is then assigned a color coded rating of green, (normal)  yellow, (needs attention) or red (significant concerns).

Any contractor in the business of selling information technology services to the Federal Government needs to be aware of the IT Dashboard.  The website is available to the public and at a minimum, any project rated as “red” and even possibly “yellow” is sure to result in unfavorable publicity for the contractor.  Even more dramatically the VA, in a highly publicized move, recently suspended performance on 45 IT projects in response to their dashboard ratings.  It is thought that other agencies with under performing projects will feel pressure to react in the same manner.

VA Halts 45 IT Projects Based On Information Revealed By New “Federal IT Dashboard”

Friday, July 17th, 2009

The Federal “IT Dashboard” (http://it.usaspending.gov) provides the public a new window into the U.S. Federal IT Investments Portfolio. This new tool is already having a multi-million dollar impact on agency spending, as shown in this quote published 7/17/09 on the Federal IT Dashboard blog:

“Today, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), under the leadership of Secretary Shinseki and VA CIO Roger Baker, announced that it will temporarily halt 45 IT projects which are either behind schedule or over budget and work to determine whether these programs should be continued. We’re not talking about a trivial sum here-the Fiscal Year 2009 combined budget for the 45 projects is approximately $200 million. The worst offender of the bunch was 110% over budget and 17 months behind schedule. We were able to catch these contracts, in part, thanks to our new tool, the “IT Dashboard” which helped shed light on the performance of projects across the federal government.”

So what is the IT Dashboard? It is a new, one-stop clearinghouse of information that allows anyone with a web browser to track federal IT initiatives and hold the government accountable for progress and results. A part of USASpending.gov, the dashboard allows the public to see what IT projects are working and on-schedule (and which are not), offer alternative approaches, and provide direct feedback to the chief information officers (CIOs) at federal agencies – in effect, keeping tabs on the people who are responsible for taxpayer dollars for technology. Until July 31, CIOs can submit investment evaluations and update other investment data. During this time, the site will continue to be in “beta” as additional key features are added.  For a tutorial click here – the 8 minute screencast demonstrates how to use the analysis tools of USASpending.gov’s IT Dashboard.

The Data Oracle that Uncle Sam Is…More on Federal Agency Spending

Friday, June 5th, 2009

Tracking procurement dollars by agency is an area of common interest to both federal contractors and federal agencies.  The Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS-NG) is the source most agencies and contractors rely upon to obtain government procurement information.  Agencies need this data for standard internal reporting purposes; industry needs it to understand federal agency buying habits.  

Agencies such as the Census Bureau, Education, Labor, and GSA (to name a few), produce copious amounts of data every year so citizens and congressional lawmakers can get up to date information on important statistics such as employment figures, economic data, population demographics and more.  Agencies, however track their own procurement data much more easily than the data of other agencies.  FPDS-NG gathers all of this data into a central location.

We took some of the FPDS-NG data and constructed top level market views consisting of the most popular categories.  Two such reports are provided for our readers here: (more…)