“Documents from the departments of Defense and Health and Human Services shed new light on last week’s sudden suspension of a host of work-life programs for DoD’s civilian workforce, while also highlighting the fact that the fissure between the departments affects much more than the Employee Assistance Program.”
“Last Friday, HHS officials sent DoD a formal notification that they would be ending the interagency agreement the Pentagon uses to provide EAP and other services within the next 60 days. That was several days after HHS suddenly suspended the programs before later agreeing to temporarily reinstate them.”
“In exercising the cancellation clause in its agreement with DoD, HHS said its Federal Occupational Health division “does not have the policies and procedures necessary” to keep providing shared services to DoD in fiscal year 2020.”
“Specifically, FOH cited a 2008 law that it said precluded it from procuring services for DoD…”
“On Friday, Kim Herrington, DoD’s acting director of pricing and contracting issued a separate memo listing the programs that would soon be cut off. In addition to the Employee Assistance Program, the list includes 17 other services, ranging from cloud computing to staffing support and other work-life services…” Read the full article here.
Source: DoD-HHS contracting turmoil extends beyond Employee Assistance Program – By Jared Serbu, September 10, 2019. Federal News Network.
