After canceling its 2013 event in the wake of its conference spending scandal, the General Services Administration is doing the same for the 2014 expo, citing tight budgets and low expected attendance.

The GSA scandal may be fading further into the rearview, but the fallout continues for the organization that sparked the controversy over federal conference spending.

The General Services Administration last week announced that it would be canceling the 2014 edition of its GSA Training and Expo program due to a number of issues, including the current fiscal climate, tight conference and travel spending budgets, and low projected attendance.

And it’s not the first time the conference was shelved. Just 11 months ago, GSA announced it would cancel the 2013 edition for similar reasons. Several of the agency’s other conferences were also canceled last year.

Meanwhile, GSA says that it’s working on alternatives to meet the agency’s training needs.

“GSA remains committed to addressing the need for training and will identify the most effective way to offer Expo 2015 to deliver better value and savings for our government partners, our vendors, and the American people,” the agency said in a statement.

Where the Future May Lie

With face-to-face conferences becoming a challenge for GSA to host, the next step for the agency’s training programs could be to go virtual, according to Federal Times.

The SmartPay Training Forum, one of the events canceled in 2013, will be held this year, but it won’t have a physical presence, according to the SmartPay website. Instead, the agency will organize a teleconference-based event, which it says “will provide the opportunity to attend over 100 training courses, earn CLP [continuous learning point] credit, and interact with the contractor banks, GSA, and other attendees.”

The SmartPay Training Forum, which is still in the planning stages, is expected to take place in the spring or summer.

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