M. Wright

Thank you for the input. This has me tracking some research paths I had not considered, so this should be a producive day.

Sir, it is MILCON

Our station's finance Office is billing contractors for the utilities they use, specifically billing a construction contractor for utilities used at their administrative trailers kept at the job site. Authority of the DoD to bill private parties for utility fees ahead of their actual use is in DoD FMR Vol 11A, para. 040201. However, I told the Comptroller that our contract grants free use of utilities to the contractor per the FAR clause we included, 52.236-14. i told our Finance Ddepartment to stop billing contractors for advance utility payments when the contract states those Ktors get free utilities. Why is this a big deal? Because the Ktor ends up paying advance utilities to one base department (Comptroller), then ends up submitting a monthly invoice to another base department (Construction Office) to get reimbursed for costs they are suposed to get free under the contract - and of course there is a fee tacked on top for processing this. So if the Ktor is billed for $100 in utilities, they submit an invoice for $115 to be repaid those utility costs and the fee for proessing it. Arghhh. Our finance office doesn't believe me that the utility costs associated with the trailers are still utility fees "arising under the contract" per the FAR clause above; their next argument is that free utility costs are not "reasonable" as defined in the FAR clause. Of couse I said "Show me", but they are stuck in "this is the way we always do it"; so I am looking for more specific ammo. Anyone seen recent caselaw of GAO or COFC where Ktors successfully proved associated utility fees for a trailer are still arising under the contract - that is probably too specific, but there is probably some caselaw about associated costs that are covered under a more general contract clause?