by Larry » Fri Oct 24, 2014 9:28 pm
As far as I know ASEE hasn't been terminated, nor has anyone been hired at NPS to run SMART.
ASEE is a contractor, and as such has to compete to keep their contract (think fair and open competition). Their 5 year contract expired and they are currently on a "bridge contract" until they either a) win the next round, or b) a new contractor takes over.
The last DOD employee associated with SMART was a term SES. Her billet was needed and thus she was invited to leave federal service as of Sept. 30th. Fortunately, we had already decided to bring in a Navy engineer as the Program Manager for SMART. She's on-board and working her way through the backlog of issues and helping plot the way ahead. As part of this I expect that the Services will take a more active role in managing their students (think local control, local decision making with mutually agreed upon TTPS).
As far as payments go SMART no longer has a grant (it expired with the contract but wasn't bridged). Without a grant, the contract has to be used to bill DFAS. This takes longer but allows for "audit-ability" which is a requirement of this administration.
As far as I know ASEE hasn't been terminated, nor has anyone been hired at NPS to run SMART.
ASEE is a contractor, and as such has to compete to keep their contract (think fair and open competition). Their 5 year contract expired and they are currently on a "bridge contract" until they either a) win the next round, or b) a new contractor takes over.
The last DOD employee associated with SMART was a term SES. Her billet was needed and thus she was invited to leave federal service as of Sept. 30th. Fortunately, we had already decided to bring in a Navy engineer as the Program Manager for SMART. She's on-board and working her way through the backlog of issues and helping plot the way ahead. As part of this I expect that the Services will take a more active role in managing their students (think local control, local decision making with mutually agreed upon TTPS).
As far as payments go SMART no longer has a grant (it expired with the contract but wasn't bridged). Without a grant, the contract has to be used to bill DFAS. This takes longer but allows for "audit-ability" which is a requirement of this administration.