The General Services Administration is speeding up the timetable to award contracts to companies that issue cards to federal employees.
Contracts for the three current vendors - American Express Co., First Bank System, and MultiService Corp. - will expire in November 1998. Normally, new contracts to pick up then would be solicited in July of that year.
But Donna Bennett, deputy commissioner of the federal supply service for the GSA, said Thursday that those solicitations will be made more than a year earlier, next May. The contracts will be awarded six months later, she said.
The new timetable allows for a one-year transition rather than four months.
Since the 1980s, the GSA has awarded single-vendor contracts for travel and entertainment, purchasing, and fleet card programs. Last month it proposed that contracts be awarded agency by agency, to multiple vendors.
It held an industry forum Wednesday in Washington to discuss the proposal.
Once contracts are awarded, under the proposal, the more than 100 federal agencies will be looking at those contractors to see which one they want to use, Ms. Bennett said. Then the agencies will issue "task requests" specifying particular needs. Vendors will respond, and each agency will chose the one that best fills its needs.
The GSA is proposing that contracts be awarded to vendors for five years, with the option of renewing for another five. Currently, contracts are awarded for one year with a four-year renewal option.
Built into the contracts will be the evolution to smart cards as they become commercially accepted, Ms. Bennett said.
Some 220 people signed up to attend Wednesday's daylong forum, Ms. Bennett said.
