How to Bury $187 million

I start many work days by trolling through upcoming procurements and contract awards on FedBizOpps.gov, a task somewhat akin to looking for needles in a haystack.

Today I found some real interesting needles: Two contract awards for combat radios the Army decided to run through the General Services Administration's Federal Acquisition Service. These are the kinds of awards I might have scrolled by because as they looked rather hum-drum.

But since I once carried a radio on my back in the Marine Corps, I decided to dig a little deeper, not to mention the fact that I was also spurred by curiosity about why GSA would post contract awards without any value. I discovered these contracts were far from hum-drum when it came to the bucks involved.

GSA awarded to Harris Corp. a sole-source contract for 1,962 of its AN/PRC-150 HF/VHF radios used by ground troops for a total value of $146.6 million. It also awarded Boeing a $40 million sole-source contract for 5,201 Combat Survivor Evader Locator radios used by downed pilots to call for help.

There are two wars going on, and I don't begrudge the Army buying the radios it needs, but why such an opaque approach to the expenditure of real money in an era of transparency?

The answer, I have a hunch, is to hide these procurements from Congress. As I reported in October, Congress slashed the service's budget for tactical radios because the Army "has been unable to put a disciplined acquisition process in place to procure the needed equipment in a manner that avoids waste, fosters true competition, [and] moves the Army away from reliance on legacy radio systems."