OMB Designates GSA, Treasury as QSMOs

The Office of Budget and Management has designated the General Services Administration and the Department of the Treasury as part of the Quality Service Management Office effort.

OMB announced that GSA would lead the human services QSMO and that the Department of the Treasury would lead the financial management QSMO, Nextgov reported Monday.

“By designating GSA and Treasury as QSMO, the federal government is able to really leverage shared services across multiple mission-critical services benefiting all agencies," Federal Information Officer Suzette Kent said in a statement.

The QSMO program was created in April 2019 to reform how the government works with shared services. Though the program, single agencies would serve as the leaders in providing their specific service to other government agencies and programs.

GSA and the Treasury had been envisioned to lead their respective QSMOs since the program's launch, but OMB's June 30 announcement made it official.

The two agencies had needed to complete their marketplace implementation plans before they could receive their designations. According to OMB's backgrounder, the implementation plans had to "include information on proposed service offerings, acquisition strategy, governance, financial infrastructure and organization.”

GSA's implementation plan revolved around its NewPay program, which modernized its payroll and work schedule system.

“With our QSMO designation, the GSA NewPay team and our partner agencies will be able to modernize the way the federal government processes payroll and time and attendance by aligning policy, processes, data standards and technology,” GSA Administrator Emily Murphy, a past Potomac Officers Club event speaker and a 2020 Wash100 winner. 

David Lebryk, the Department od the Treasury's fiscal assistant secretary, said the QSMO will let the department develop a customer-centric marketplace for modern information technology solutions for phasing out outdated IT systems.