It's actually a two-fold situation involving antecedent liability and I attempted to tie the two elements together. First, we are currently working on an Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA) violation where the wrong year funds were used to fund changes because of failure to recognize antecedent liability. Since the funds have expired, we have to report the violation to Congress and the President. In order to do this, we must identify who is responsible for the antecedent liability violation. While it is true that no contract shall be entered into unless the contracting officer ensures that all requirements of law and so forth have been met. It is also true that contracting officers rely on lawyers, PMs and fiscal folks to do their due diligence within their own respective fields. To the best of my knowledge, the FAR does not stipulate that the contracting officer is responsible for the accuracy of the accounting data. The FAR does state that the contracting officer must ensure that sufficient funds are available for obligation. Fiscal law is not a required class for contracting folks and antecedent liability is not something understood by many of them. There is a drive here to make the contracting officer responsible for the accuracy of the line of accounting and therefore this ADA violation. So, I was curious if anyone had dealt with this in the past and had any recommendations in terms of who is responsible for the accuracy of the accounting data. I am of the opinion that all the key stakeholders: legal, fiscal, PM and the contracting officer who had knowledge of/approved these changes share responsibility for the violation in this situation.
The second part of this question deals with estimating antecedent liability funding. The Red Book concludes that the contracting officer must estimate the expected net additional obligations to ensure that available appropriations are not committed to other purposes. Based on that cite in the Red Book, our Financial Manual has been revised to state that the contracting officer must provide an estimate for all future ECP changes. I do not believe this is realistic or appropriate. Again, in my mind changes are driven by the PM based on technical and funding considerations. Some contracting officers here have refused to provide these antecedent liability estimates. I was wondering how other agencies have dealt with estimating antecedent liability for major programs. In my mind, it's a task that needs to be performed by the PM but unfortunately the folks here point to the Red Book as their authority for making the contracting officer responsible.