6 ms·

Federal vendor with $50M in contracts leaves portal broken for a month

101 points by ams1 1mo ago

deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
arionhardison 1mo ago
When this administration is gone I think we need to have a new class of systems that do not allow this type of incompetence. I have been working on this https://opm.dev/programs https://opm.dev/programs - its obviously not something that can get funding or will be a huge popular thing but it has been incredibly fun and i have gotten to learn a lot about Gov., agents EVAL's etc.. Note: This is one of 5 portals, same codebase mostly but the others are more developed and a few have some programs that have a 90+ % success rate. Note: Here https://big-sandy-usp.bop.doj.dev/program/66366-sick-call https://big-sandy-usp.bop.doj.dev/program/66366-sick-call is a much more developed example program that has been completed 6 times by inmates at Big Sandy. Super proud of this since I was locked up w/ 2 of the guys and dont know the other 4.
- cuuupid 1mo ago
  This sort of thing was only worse in the past and IMO this admin has actually made the largest inroads to resolving this issue which tbh lies primarily in procurement (RFO, FR20x, PA, mandates for automation, shift to COTS, etc). With any luck this will get recompeted Project 20x looks pretty cool, we're in a similar space and there's probably a ~2y horizon to fix things before the bureaucracy falls to consultocracy. FWIW if you or anyone else building in gov need funding to get stuff off the ground there are plenty of DC-based VCs that are phenomenal, mission oriented and take big swings like this all the time.
  - arionhardison 1mo ago
    I made a mistake, i assumed that this admin was the crux of the issue and I was wrong. I looked into what you said here and I want to thank you. Moving forward I will not make this mistake. TY for taking a look, right now I am digitizing all of the federal gov programs and all of the state gov programs, I would really love to connect with anyone just to talk, learn, show them what i'm doing etc... Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to take a look and comment. It really means a lot. Gov Tech is not "sexy" part of tech where people flock and love to engage.
- jimt1234 1mo ago
  President Clinton tried to improve government contracting through various legislation and executive orders. One of the first things President W Bush did when he got into office was to sign an executive order that effectively negated most of the changes, particularly the one regarding "black listing" contractors who have a history of ripping off the government. The administration's response: the "black listed" contractors have improved; they promise not to rip off the government anymore. Then the Iraq War started and government contractors made billions with basically no oversight. And we all know how that went.
  - arionhardison 1mo ago
    It seems like there has been a real back and forth that really does not benefit anybody. My approach is probably not going to work but I have been able to see real results e.g.: Getting people housed, helping with medical cases etc.. and I think thats because I did it as a true total outsider. I really think the fix here has to come from a group of people that just want to see things get better for everyone and I am not sure if that is something that the "frontier labs" or FANG's really embrace. Medicare, DHS, DOJ - these systems are not actually that complex; taking a first principals approach; they are really just complex multi party workflows that need to follow policy based on jurisdiction etc... All of the back and forth you describe above is a distraction that has stopped people from just doing the thing but I have found that it is possible to just do the thing. Especially since its all documented so well, you can use AI to translate legislation into specs fairly easily.
- soco 1mo ago
  The portals of all Romanian authorities are built under the same corruption.fueled incompetence. The national land register is already down for ONE MONTH without identifiable recoveries and backups because of a hacker attack, so the US is not that bad (yet).
- beanjuiceII 1mo ago
  having worked in govt tech for 15+ years...incompetence is and always has been a huge thing...its not always the vendors that are at fault, many times there are poorly written contacts, or ineffective employees and managers that stop vendors from doing their jobs, I've seen it go all sorts of ways over and over. I wish there was one singular administration to blame..but its a systemic issue
TZubiri 1mo ago
I don't know how it is in the US, but in Argentina, if anyone thinks they can do better, they can compete in the public tender when this contract renews. And potentially, you can impugn the incumbent's offer alleging they have failed to comply with the contract and therefore they have demonstrated they don't have the capacity to comply with the requirements in the future. Fwiw, the US public tender process is probably 10 times better and more mature than the Argentina process, so I don't doubt this avenue and many more are available to compete.
- BowBun 1mo ago
  Unfortunately tons of US gov contracts a) are lowest bid and b) only have one applicant
  - TZubiri 1mo ago
    B) is easy to fix, apply for it, if you don't you have little recourse. A) Are you sure? In my country I see a lot that are merit based. Where the evaluation takes into account the total value provided. So for example a SaaS solution that costs 10K per month may be ranked lower than a HW based solution that costs 15K per month but provides permanent licenses and hardware. In any case, if you can argue the lower bid doesn't or cannot comply with ANY of the requirements, you may be able to impugn their bid.
    - buildsjets 1mo ago
      B is absolutely not easy to fix, if the government does not offer the bid for public application, and pre-selects the one bidder that they plan to award the contact to, and only invites that one contractor to submit a bid. I think that you have a naive view of the level of corruption at play in this country. This is how you end up with an incompetent swimming pool contractor destroying a national monument for profit. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/company-trump-donor-cafaro-reflecting-pool-no-bid-contract/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/company-trump-donor-cafaro-refl...
      - 1mo ago
TheJoeMan 1mo ago
The author was involved and knowledgeable in the FOIA processes that existed, and had an understanding of navigating a quagmire of redundant government employees. A cost-reducing restructuring has been going on that seems to funnel all requests to a single place, the "Federal FOIA Portal". Once they submitted to the portal, their request was confirmed as entered. They also had an issue with the new portal, submitted the error, and it was escalated and fixed. This article could just as well been written as "New FOIA Portal: Streamlined, but Still a Few Bumps".
- anon7725 1mo ago
  > At the end of the 2025 fiscal year, over 1,600 FOIA requests were still in OPM’s backlog, seven times more than at the end of fiscal year 2024. The average processing time for a simple request at the agency slipped to over 84 days — twice as long as the year before. Efficiency manifest.
- epistasis 1mo ago
  No, it could not have been titled that. There's no streamlining, there's only bumps. Not a "few" bumps. This is just pure mismanagement, a massive reduction in following of the law, for no apparent cost savings at all. Firing people, paying their severance, and replacing them with more expensive options is actually a cost increase.

101 points by ams1 1mo ago

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

When this administration is gone I think we need to have a new class of systems that do not allow this type of incompetence. I have been working on this https://opm.dev/programs https://opm.dev/programs - its obviously not something that can get funding or will be a huge popular thing but it has been incredibly fun and i have gotten to learn a lot about Gov., agents EVAL's etc.. Note: This is one of 5 portals, same codebase mostly but the others are more developed and a few have some programs that have a 90+ % success rate. Note: Here https://big-sandy-usp.bop.doj.dev/program/66366-sick-call https://big-sandy-usp.bop.doj.dev/program/66366-sick-call is a much more developed example program that has been completed 6 times by inmates at Big Sandy. Super proud of this since I was locked up w/ 2 of the guys and dont know the other 4.

cuuupid 1mo ago
This sort of thing was only worse in the past and IMO this admin has actually made the largest inroads to resolving this issue which tbh lies primarily in procurement (RFO, FR20x, PA, mandates for automation, shift to COTS, etc). With any luck this will get recompeted Project 20x looks pretty cool, we're in a similar space and there's probably a ~2y horizon to fix things before the bureaucracy falls to consultocracy. FWIW if you or anyone else building in gov need funding to get stuff off the ground there are plenty of DC-based VCs that are phenomenal, mission oriented and take big swings like this all the time.
- arionhardison 1mo ago
  I made a mistake, i assumed that this admin was the crux of the issue and I was wrong. I looked into what you said here and I want to thank you. Moving forward I will not make this mistake. TY for taking a look, right now I am digitizing all of the federal gov programs and all of the state gov programs, I would really love to connect with anyone just to talk, learn, show them what i'm doing etc... Again, I really appreciate you taking the time to take a look and comment. It really means a lot. Gov Tech is not "sexy" part of tech where people flock and love to engage.
jimt1234 1mo ago
President Clinton tried to improve government contracting through various legislation and executive orders. One of the first things President W Bush did when he got into office was to sign an executive order that effectively negated most of the changes, particularly the one regarding "black listing" contractors who have a history of ripping off the government. The administration's response: the "black listed" contractors have improved; they promise not to rip off the government anymore. Then the Iraq War started and government contractors made billions with basically no oversight. And we all know how that went.
- arionhardison 1mo ago
  It seems like there has been a real back and forth that really does not benefit anybody. My approach is probably not going to work but I have been able to see real results e.g.: Getting people housed, helping with medical cases etc.. and I think thats because I did it as a true total outsider. I really think the fix here has to come from a group of people that just want to see things get better for everyone and I am not sure if that is something that the "frontier labs" or FANG's really embrace. Medicare, DHS, DOJ - these systems are not actually that complex; taking a first principals approach; they are really just complex multi party workflows that need to follow policy based on jurisdiction etc... All of the back and forth you describe above is a distraction that has stopped people from just doing the thing but I have found that it is possible to just do the thing. Especially since its all documented so well, you can use AI to translate legislation into specs fairly easily.
soco 1mo ago
The portals of all Romanian authorities are built under the same corruption.fueled incompetence. The national land register is already down for ONE MONTH without identifiable recoveries and backups because of a hacker attack, so the US is not that bad (yet).
beanjuiceII 1mo ago
having worked in govt tech for 15+ years...incompetence is and always has been a huge thing...its not always the vendors that are at fault, many times there are poorly written contacts, or ineffective employees and managers that stop vendors from doing their jobs, I've seen it go all sorts of ways over and over. I wish there was one singular administration to blame..but its a systemic issue

TZubiri 1mo ago

I don't know how it is in the US, but in Argentina, if anyone thinks they can do better, they can compete in the public tender when this contract renews. And potentially, you can impugn the incumbent's offer alleging they have failed to comply with the contract and therefore they have demonstrated they don't have the capacity to comply with the requirements in the future. Fwiw, the US public tender process is probably 10 times better and more mature than the Argentina process, so I don't doubt this avenue and many more are available to compete.

BowBun 1mo ago
Unfortunately tons of US gov contracts a) are lowest bid and b) only have one applicant
- TZubiri 1mo ago
  B) is easy to fix, apply for it, if you don't you have little recourse. A) Are you sure? In my country I see a lot that are merit based. Where the evaluation takes into account the total value provided. So for example a SaaS solution that costs 10K per month may be ranked lower than a HW based solution that costs 15K per month but provides permanent licenses and hardware. In any case, if you can argue the lower bid doesn't or cannot comply with ANY of the requirements, you may be able to impugn their bid.
  - buildsjets 1mo ago
    B is absolutely not easy to fix, if the government does not offer the bid for public application, and pre-selects the one bidder that they plan to award the contact to, and only invites that one contractor to submit a bid. I think that you have a naive view of the level of corruption at play in this country. This is how you end up with an incompetent swimming pool contractor destroying a national monument for profit. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/company-trump-donor-cafaro-reflecting-pool-no-bid-contract/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/company-trump-donor-cafaro-refl...
    - 1mo ago

TheJoeMan 1mo ago

The author was involved and knowledgeable in the FOIA processes that existed, and had an understanding of navigating a quagmire of redundant government employees. A cost-reducing restructuring has been going on that seems to funnel all requests to a single place, the "Federal FOIA Portal". Once they submitted to the portal, their request was confirmed as entered. They also had an issue with the new portal, submitted the error, and it was escalated and fixed. This article could just as well been written as "New FOIA Portal: Streamlined, but Still a Few Bumps".

anon7725 1mo ago
> At the end of the 2025 fiscal year, over 1,600 FOIA requests were still in OPM’s backlog, seven times more than at the end of fiscal year 2024. The average processing time for a simple request at the agency slipped to over 84 days — twice as long as the year before. Efficiency manifest.
epistasis 1mo ago
No, it could not have been titled that. There's no streamlining, there's only bumps. Not a "few" bumps. This is just pure mismanagement, a massive reduction in following of the law, for no apparent cost savings at all. Firing people, paying their severance, and replacing them with more expensive options is actually a cost increase.