CFPB Source Details ‘Wholesale termination’ of important contracts
‘In contrast to all I have ever seen’
“The events of the past few weeks are different from everything I have ever seen at every desk during a change in administration (or at any other time),” the officer said. “The instructions for contractors did not reflect the policy direction, but rather a wholesaler termination of the contracts needed to run the CFPB.”
Doe claim that on 11 February all CFPB contractors received an e -mail in which they are instructed to “log in and start ending the vast majority of the CFPB contracts” in various functional areas of the agency.
The contractors were ordered to terminate 102 enforcement contracts – including 33 with regard to the office of the director, 20 with regard to the answers of the consumer, 16 with regard to supervision and three with regard to external matters. With the exception of two contracts with regard to ‘FD Online Licenses and Process Data’, the Legal Division of the Bureau was also ordered to terminate its contracts, said in the sworn statement.
Termination reports had to be sent immediately and contract officers were competent for overtime to fulfill the directive, he said.
Between 11 February and 14 February, notifications of termination were issued for more than 100 contracts, including “almost all contracts it had with suppliers, including all contracts with regard to enforcement, supervision, external affairs and consumer response,” the statement stated. “After many other things, these contracts include contracts for storing, maintaining and transferring data.”
Functionality
Many of these contracts were aimed at the functionality of CFPB’s complaint database of consumers, a repository of information about complaints established by the consumer at the agency and the nature of each follow-up correspondence.
The termination of the affected contracts include that with regard to the maintenance of the database, privatizing consumer information that has been submitted and making database information possible for sharing with the public, states, places and federal agencies.
Contracts aimed at strengthening the cyber security attitude of the database were also terminated, the officer said.
“All expert contracts, including contracts with experts in current lawsuits, were canceled,” said the statement. “Contracts for training -examiners who supervise banks and for managing the test that employees must do to be canceled examiners. Contracts to ensure that the website of the CFPB and the publicly available information is accessible as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“Contracts with regard to” Tools needed for CFPB employees to do their work were canceled, “did Doe.
Prior to the termination messages, the agency told its employees to assess which contracts were the most crucial to allow the CFPB to continue to perform legally required functions, but this feedback was ignored, according to the officer.
Although “a very small number of contracts has been restored” – including one that would effectively cancel the consumer’s complaints hotel – a contract that retains the database is not recovered. This leads the database to relegate “quickly” in addition to a backlog of complaints that have not been sent to financial institutions, according to the statement.
Not easy to undo
But even with some contract restorations, the cancellation process does not allow an easy termination of termination.
“Federal acquisition regulations rule that the process agencies must continue to request goods or services, and once a contract has been fully terminated, purchasing must go through that process,” said the statement. “Unless the agency can justify the grant of the contract without having a competitive bid process, it must go through that entire process again.”
This can take between six months and a year, he explained. Moreover, the agency has not made any efforts to keep CFPB data possessed by suppliers whose contracts are terminated. Earlier, if I would issue a final termination, I would include a data retention notification to ensure that office data were not deleted. “
The officer claims that the termination of the wholesale contract does not help to prevent ‘waste, fraud and abuse’. On the contrary, he said, it ensures that the government will “do or have incurred substantial costs, because the government has to pay contractors their costs to terminate a contract and then pay the costs again to restart that contract.”
Leadership Disputes of plans to close
For his part, the agency has reduced claims that the White house Try to close the office according to an earlier court application. The “new leadership of the CFPB will lead a considerably streamlined and more efficient agency” Federal Reservewho assigns the operational budget of the agency.
In one subsequent submission On Sunday, CFPB Chief Operating Officer Adam Martinez repeated these claims. He said that Vought and the Chief Legal Officer of the Agency “have focused on running a considerably streamlined and efficient agency, re -concentrating his priorities and the ‘right’ of the agency ‘. This is an indication that current leaders believe that” there are significantly more employees than suitable for a “right” “according to” “CFPPB,” “
Just like the earlier submission, Martinez also quotes the appointment of the president of Jonathan McKernan to serve as the new director of the agency as proof that the agency will continue to function. This goes against claims from employees that he will facilitate its closure.
