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How Do I Manage a Contract with Different CLINs Having Their Own POPs?


rios0311

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Question 1: Is it allowable to have a contract with multiple CLINs that all have different POPs in effect? In other words, some CLINs might be in their base POP, while others might be in option 1 or 2? Some CLINs are for severable services, while others are for nonseverable services.

Background: I inherited a GSA order for the purchase and integration of IT software, project management support, and training services. There are six CLINs; some for severable services and some for nonseverable services. Each CLIN has its own stated POP with a base period and 4 options. The geniuses that awarded the contract assumed that everything would go as planned and apparently did not predict that the POPs might eventually get out of sync. Further, they did not realize or did not know that they should not have split up a nonseverable service with options.

Due to a stop-work order we issued some months ago, and due to the October government shutdown, the nonseverable services were not completed during the base POP. I agreed to extend the period of performance of the nonseverable CLINs and I was planning on realligning the POPs of all the other CLINs so they all match. However, some of the other activities (under different CLINs) need to begin as originally scheduled (during the original dates of option 1).

Had I been the awarding CO, I would have awarded an IDIQ and placed the nonseverable services uder separate task orders and the severable services on a single task order. But since our agency uses no-year funds only, I would have simply awarded a contract with a single POP for the base and all options (no POP for each CLIN) and had all the activities take place according to a project plan milestone schedule. Since the core service is nonseverable (installation/integration), I would have extended the base POP until the installation/integration was completed, without affecting the performance of the severable tasks.

Question 2: How can I fix my contract? In other words, can I extend by 2 months the base period of performance on CLINs 0001 and 0002 to allow the contractor to finish the nonseverable tasks, but exercise option 1 on CLINs 0003, 0004 and 0005 since those services are required now?

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It becomes a problem when all the CLINs get out of synch when one or more (nonseverable) CLINs need to be extended, but the remaining CLINs continue as scheduled, including the exercise of their options. So I end up with a contract with several CLINs that are in their base POP, but I have other CLINs that are in their Option 1. If this happens enough times, I can have different CLINs, all within the same contract, but operating under 3 different periods of performance. If these have options, keeping track of them becomes an administrative burden. I didn't know one could structure a contract with multiple CLINs, each with its own period of performance and each with options.

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I have had contracts with CLINs that had different POP, in order for the contract to fit the requirement.

I don't see it as a problem, but you are right there could be some additional administrative effort to track the CLINs and administer the contract.

I know of nothing in regulation or rule that inhibits our ability to have CLINs with differing POP under a contract.

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  • 5 months later...

I am just reading this topic now as a situation recently came up simliar to this. I understand a contract can have CLINs with different periods of performance and we currently have two contracts with 11 and 20 CLIN's respectively with different periods of performance. The complication arose because the end date of the latest CLIN was getting out of sync with the Section F Clause Period of Performance. What the Contracting Offcer did was set up a table summarizing the period fo performance for each CLIN in Section F.

We have a third contract now with a different agency and the contracting officer is issuing a mod to exercise an optional CLIN but the performance period of this CLIN through December 2015 will take it beyond the February 2015 period of performance in the Section F clause. When we try to explain this to him, he keeps saying this mod is only for the CLIN being exercised and does not seem to understand the Section F Period of Perfornance information will be out of sync with this CLIN. In our last communication to him we laid out a table, simliar to what the other contracting officer did in an attempt to make this clear. We are still waiting a reply

Are we being unreasonable in expressing our concern about the period of performance information in Section F being kept up to date?

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