[systems_glitch]

Article sez the gov't gets to collect $9 on a $10 entry for tickets that are awarded. Booz Allen keeps $10 entry on all tickets that aren't awarded. Apparently the award rate is around 3%.

Booz Allen wouldn't have offered to design and run the whole thing "for free" if it wasn't immensely popular! They and others like them are not called "beltway bandits" for nothing.

[refurb]

Booz Allen keeps $10 entry on all tickets that aren't awarded.

But how do we know that's true. Has the author seen the contract between the government and Booz Allen?

[jcrawfordor]

BAH keeps all fees not imposed by NPS - that means the actual reservation fee goes to NPS, but all other fees go to BAH. All fees besides the actual reservation fee are not government fees at all, they are imposed only by BAH based on their own policy and analysis, which the contract gives them the right to do with no obligation to share with anyone. The NPS fee is set through an administrative process and does not change very frequently. Everything else is BAH revenue... booking fees, lottery fees, and some upcharges related to popular sites... and it's not at all unusual for those to be more than the actual reservation fee.

On top of that, NPS seems to have been evasive about the situation and has been resistant to releasing supervision data on how much money is actually involved.

This situation has been widely reported on, not only in this article but by Matt Stoler (https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/why-is-booz-allen-renting...) and in the NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/29/travel/nps-recreation-gov...). There has been a class-action lawsuit over it but I don't think it got anywhere, it's not at all clear that there's any legal problem with this situation despite appearing to be a massive grift on the public. Originally, the structure of the contract (where BAH funds the project by imposing their own fees) was hailed as innovative since it meant there was "no taxpayer money" committed.

BAH recreation.gov contract: https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2023-03/AG-3187-...

NPS fee order: https://www.nps.gov/policy/DOrders/DO_22.pdf

[93po]

From their own website:

https://www.boozallen.com/s/insight/thought-leadership/reinv...

> Recreation.gov was an investment for Booz Allen, designed collaboratively with participating agencies, but at no cost to the federal government. Instead of a traditional cost structure, the unique contractual agreement is a transaction-based fee model that lets the government and Booz Allen share in risk, reward, results, and impact. This is a true public-private partnership—it uses no government money.

Of course they word this in a slimy, dishonest way. Boggles my mind that immediately after saying "no cost" they describe an "alternative cost structure", completely contradicting itself.

[refurb]

Ok, but the question still stands. The government doesn't pay anything, but it does it get a cut? Usually contracts are written in some way like "vendor will keep first $10M of fees, thereafter sharing 50% of fees"

[0xffff2]

Oh come on. I don't know enough to have a real opinion on the overall situation, but surely you can see the difference between "no cost" and "no cost to the federal government".

[MereInterest]

Oh come on. I don't know enough to have a real opinion on the overall situation, but surely you can see the difference between "no cost to the federal government" and "no up-front monetary cost to the federal government".

[0xffff2]

Do you have some evidence there is an actual cost to the Federal government? It seems to me the cost is entirely born by the users of the system.

[93po]

Yes, instead of revenue going to the government, it's going to Booz. Just because it doesn't go through the government first doesn't mean it's not a cost. This is proven because Booz wouldn't make and run this site if not for this aspect of the relationship.