Photograph by Rich Clement/Bloomberg

People walk through a newly-renovated corridor at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

The Pentagon announced on Dec. 5 that C.R. Bard Inc. won a maximum $4.67 billion, one-year deal to deliver surgical products to the military.

The award would have been a coup for Bard, representing almost twice the company’s $2.9 billion in sales in 2011.

Unfortunately, it was a typo.

The Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency plans to correct its announcement, said Michelle McCaskill, an agency spokeswoman. The actual value of the deal is as much as $46.7 million, she said.

“We’d love to have all of it, but that’s not the case,” Scott Lowry, a spokesman for Murray Hill, New Jersey-based C.R. Bard, said in a telephone interview. “We do have a relationship, but it’s on a much smaller scale.”

The company received less than $1 million through an existing agreement in the past year, Lowry said.

Original post is Pentagon Off (Oops) by Billions by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Marine One, with U.S. President Barack Obama on board, passes the Washington Monument in Washington.

Let’s try this again:

The U.S. Navy last week announced plans for a competition to develop and build a new fleet of presidential helicopters.

The draft notice came three years after the service canceled a contract with Lockheed Martin Corp. for a similar program after costs more than doubled to $13 billion from $6 billion. The increases were driven partly by changing specifications for the aircraft.

As part of the new program, known as VXX, the Navy plans to buy about two dozen helicopters to replace aging VH-3D Sea King and VH-60N WhiteHawk aircraft made by United Technologies Corp.’s Sikorsky unit. The Nov. 23 announcement makes it clear the Navy is looking for a proven design.

“Offerors will be highly encouraged to propose an existing, in-production helicopter platform from which the VXX will be derived,” it states.

Four companies have responded to the notice so far, including Sikorsky. The subsidiary of Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies has partnered with Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed to compete for the program.

While the Navy buys the helicopters, the Marine Corps flies them.

And when the president is aboard, the call-sign of the chopper is “Marine One.”

Original post is `Marine One’ Contractors Bid Anew by Political Capital.

A veterans job fair in Naperville, Illinois. Photograph by Tim Boyle/Bloomberg

Vets come first under a 2006 law designed to give small business owners who served in the military first dibs on contracts with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

That is, unless they’re up against a few other preferred groups, according to the V.A.

The veterans agency violated the “Veterans First” act at least 18 times in the past year, the Government Accountability Office, a federal agency that arbitrates contracting disputes, said in a letter to Congress today. In each case, the V.A. gave contracting preference to non-veteran owned companies, typically so-called “supply schedule” firms, which are pre-selected vendors that often give the agency discounts for buying in bulk.

Eighteen times, the GAO directed the V.A. to determine whether there were at least two qualified veteran-owned small businesses that could perform the work at a reasonable price before turning to other vendors. And 18 times, the V.A. refused.

“In each instance, the VA has declined to implement our recommendation,” Lynn Gibson, general counsel for the GAO, said in the letter.

Aside from these incidents, agencies have refused to follow GAO guidance no more than five times during the past decade, Ralph White, the GAO’s managing associate general counsel for procurement law, has told Congress. V.A. leaders have argued the agency is meeting its goals for contracting with veterans and can prioritize spending with certain groups before turning to veteran firms.

If the agency followed the GAO’s guidance, it may steer as much as $3 billion more to small companies owned by veterans each year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Jo Schuda, a V.A. spokeswoman, didn’t provide immediate comment.

Original post is Veteran Hiring Preferences: Not Always — 18 Times No, GAO Says of V.A. by Political Capital.