At around 9pm last Friday, July 31, the General Services Administration, on behalf of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, released the contract for Recovery.gov's redesign. The contract with Smartronix, a Maryland-based firm, initially stirred some criticism for its large price tag, $18 million over several years. This caused some groups, such as OMB Watch, to call for the publication of the contract (see our letter to the Recovery Board here).

Originally due out at the beginning of this month, the three memoranda released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) today are a substantive step by the Obama administration in its attempt to reform government contracting. OMB issued the memos in response to a directive in a March 4 presidential memorandum on contracting reform. The three memos provide guidance to agency heads on performing reviews of current contracts, developing plans to reduce the amount of money spent on future outsourcing, managing the multi-sector workforce, and improving the use of contractor performance information. These memos are precursors to more detailed guidance on competition, contract types, acquisition workforce, and outsourcing due out by September 30 of this year.

Here's a shock: state budgets are not doing so good. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) released a report today cataloging the gory details.