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Congressional Notification of Awards?


stephgoe

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I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs currently but have worked at other various federal agencies, both DoD and Civilian,

I am aware of, and have done, congressional notifications over $X.0M ($10.0M?) but I can only find reference of this type of notification for cancellations of multiyear over $12.5 (17.1) and release of information congress (5.4). I also did a search in the VAAR (nothing) and DFARS (for a sanity check only).

Where is it mandatory to provide a congressional notification of multi-million dollar awards?

Thanks!!!

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I looked at the VAAR, and it is silent on FAR Subpart 5.3. For your information, here is what my Agriculture Acquisition Regulation (AGAR) says--

405.303 Announcement of contract awards.

Contracting officers shall make information available on any contract award with an estimated total value over $1 million (including options) to their agency congressional liaison office in sufficient time for the agency to announce it by 5:00 p.m. Washington, DC time on the day of award. The agency congressional liaison office shall, concurrent with the public announcement, provide the award announcement information to the USDA Congressional Relations Office.

How do you comply with FAR 5.303( a ) when your own VAAR is silent? All you have to do as the contracting officer is to make the information available -- whether anyone in your agency ever makes an announcement isn't your problem. When I arrived in my current position, no one here had ever tried to comply with 5.303( a ). For my first one, I sent the information to our public affairs staff, and she admitted she didn't know what to do with it. I shared the AGAR language with her and then I proceeded with my contract award a few days later.

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Department of State DOSAR:

Subpart 605.3 - Synopses of Contract Awards

605.303 Announcement of contract awards.

(a) Contracting officers shall make information available on awards over $10 million to the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, upon request, in sufficient time for an announcement by 5:00 p.m. Washington, DC time on the day of the award. This requirement applies only to awards made by domestic contracting activities where performance will take place within the United States or its possessions.

However, most are done a few days after award. We have Aquisitions admin staff that watch FPDS and make us provide a synopsis of the award to them. They format the info into letters to the congressman/Senators of the district of the awarded contractor and present them to the liasion office.

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