The General Services Administration is working to transform its Multiple Award Schedules Program to reduce regulatory burdens and increase its flexibility, according to the agency.

The agency has already taken a number of steps to start the process, including a proposed rule to capture transaction data across all GSA contract vehicles, according to Jeffrey Koses, the senior procurement executive for the Office of Governmentwide Policy at GSA.

The rule would require vendors to electronically report the price the federal government paid for an item or service bought through GSA contracts, which would produce market intelligence for GSA and other agencies to help save taxpayer dollars, Koses wrote in a blog posted April 13.

For the MAS program, GSA would introduce a pilot to require the prices paid reporting across certain products and services in order to minimize the new burden on the private sector.

"As a part of this pilot, GSA would remove burdensome tracking and reporting requirements from the price reduction clause to evaluate the impact of providing such relief on a more permanent basis. GSA would more than offset the new reporting requirement with the removal of these more burdensome reporting requirements," Koses said.

GSA is also working to eliminate barriers for agencies negotiating user agreements, according to Koses. Agencies have had a difficult time with the user agreements because many software agreements have automated renewal language that are inconsistent with federal appropriations law.

But GSA is planning to issue a deviation from the existing rules to help agencies navigate the process, Koses said.

GSA will also expand a Defense Department and NASA initiative to establish fair and reasonable pricing for goods and services to include all agencies under current federal acquisition regulations, Koses said.

"For the past 60 years, the MAS Program's success and growth over time have dramatically increased the variety and volume of choices available to federal buyers. The $33 billion program now demands transformation in order to maintain its status as a best acquisition solution in a fast-changing marketplace," Koses said.

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