Industry group objects to several Mulvaney directives in new letter

The Professional Services Council is pushing back on several actions recently directed by Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney as part of his effort to streamline the executive branch.

In a June 22 letter to Mulvaney, PSC's Executive Vice President and Counsel Alan Chvotkin notes his organization "strongly supports removing outdated and unnecessary regulatory and administrative burdens" and the OMB director's initiative to "eliminate, modify or pause most of the 59 OMB documents addressed" in his June 15 memo, "Reducing Burden for Federal Agencies by Rescinding and Modifying OMB Memoranda."

"However, we have concerns with three actions covered in your memo and request that you revise these actions accordingly," Chvotkin wrote in the letter, which was provided to Inside Defense. PSC represents more than 400 government technology and professional services business, according to its website.

PSC takes issue with Mulvaney's recent direction to eliminate quarterly reporting accelerated payments to small business and small business subcontractors. While PSC agrees quarterly reporting is "onerous," Mulvaney's June 15 memo creates confusion because it only "encourages" agencies to continue the accelerated payments, according to Chvotkin's letter.

"We strongly recommend that you fully rescind all prior OMB memos on this topic and issue a new memo that provides only the policy direction to the agencies to continue to accelerate payments to small business and small business subcontractors without imposing any reporting requirement on the agencies," the letter states.

The group also notes its opposition to Mulvaney's direction to "pause" entity-level internal control reviews of the acquisition function and then integrate their assessment efforts with existing agency internal control processes and practices.

"In our view, requiring agencies to continue to perform their review of internal controls of their acquisition functions should remain an essential element of agency management, even during their internal reorganizational assessments," the letter states.

Finally, PSC criticizes Mulvaney's direction to discontinue reporting on all individual agency and cross-agency performance goals, which could be tracked during the Obama administration on performance.gov. The letter notes the quarterly progress reports associated with the goals provided "valuable insight into agency activities," such as cross-agency goals for security clearance processing.

"We strongly recommend that OMB promptly identify those current agency-specific and cross-agency goals that align with the Administration’s priorities and direct responsible parties to continue to provide quarterly updates to the performance.gov site," Chvotkin wrote. "As new goals are added, they should be promptly added to the site and reported on quarterly."