Max'd Out SLIN #

[Nick Rusch]

I'm from industry.  The company I work for executes a Navy IDIQ contract which is services based.  One of the specific task orders has three CLINs - labor, travel and ODC.  The TO has a large number of funding sources and the customer has, for various reasons, funded in small increments.  Each incremental funding mod has used new SLINs for each new funding line.  To date we are up to SLIN 84.  Apparently the max number of SLINs we can have is 99 based upon a limitation of systems utilized by our Navy customer.  There is still a significant amount of ceiling remaining within the labor CLIN.  I'm researching what the easiest option might be to resolve this issue short of issuing another task order.  I was told by one person no longer associated with the Gov't contracts office that a sub CLIN could be created capturing the remaining ceiling.  I've also heard that the existing CLIN ceiling would need to be decremented by the amount remaining and utilized by creating a new CLIN within the TO.  This later approach sounds like almost as much work as creating a new TO.  Was curious if anyone else has encountered this issue of running out of available SLIN #'s within a CLIN and what the solution was.

[Vern Edwards]

10 minutes ago, Nick Rusch said:

I'm researching what the easiest option might be to resolve this issue short of issuing another task order. 

Murder or suicide. You are captive to a lunatic organization.

[Nick Rusch]

36 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

Murder or suicide. You are captive to a lunatic organization.

LOL yep I am captive, every day... I try to bring sanity, but it is a bit like beating my head against a wall.  So I guess I'm going for suicide.

[General.Zhukov]

50 minutes ago, Nick Rusch said:

  I've also heard that the existing CLIN ceiling would need to be decremented by the amount remaining and utilized by creating a new CLIN within the TO.  This later approach sounds like almost as much work as creating a new TO. 

I have had to do something like what you are describing.  Basically, for system reasons, I couldn't add funding to a CLIN that needed more funds.  Do not recommend except as last resort.  We created a new CLIN just for funding.  Its description was something like 'CLIN 2 replaces CLIN 1 as of date.  No change except for funding.'     It was actually quite complicated to do this, since we had to transfer over the incomplete work to the new CLIN, close out the funding for the old CLIN, update a bunch of stuff since CLIN 2 didn't exist nor was anticipated at time of award, etc.  We tried to clearly and repeatedly describe what was going (for invoicing/payment, auditors, new people on the project), but that didn't work.  Everyone else was confused forever, up to and including contract close out.  

That said, I think creating a new contract/order would be worse.  Maybe, technically, a starting over would be less key strokes.  But it would be a review/approval/audit nightmare, covered in red-flags, and attracting interest of people you want to stay away - legal, IG, irate competitors who see something sketchy on FPDS-NG, etc.

[joel hoffman]

Sheesh. The tail is again wagging the dog. 

[formerfed]

Or the government can meet with their finance/comptroller office and come up with a suitable solution.  I’ve had similar things and the comptroller created one pot of money to use.  They did a behind the scene chargeback to various offices funding the work.  
 

It sounds like people are letting systems run the show.

[Nick Rusch]

20 hours ago, General.Zhukov said:

I have had to do something like what you are describing.  Basically, for system reasons, I couldn't add funding to a CLIN that needed more funds.  Do not recommend except as last resort.  We created a new CLIN just for funding.  Its description was something like 'CLIN 2 replaces CLIN 1 as of date.  No change except for funding.'     It was actually quite complicated to do this, since we had to transfer over the incomplete work to the new CLIN, close out the funding for the old CLIN, update a bunch of stuff since CLIN 2 didn't exist nor was anticipated at time of award, etc.  We tried to clearly and repeatedly describe what was going (for invoicing/payment, auditors, new people on the project), but that didn't work.  Everyone else was confused forever, up to and including contract close out.  

That said, I think creating a new contract/order would be worse.  Maybe, technically, a starting over would be less key strokes.  But it would be a review/approval/audit nightmare, covered in red-flags, and attracting interest of people you want to stay away - legal, IG, irate competitors who see something sketchy on FPDS-NG, etc.

Your "last resort" description is similar to what the current KO and COR are recommending.  The fallout you describe is my concern, especially DCAA audits years down the road when key personnel have moved on and those remaining have a difficult time remembering why things were done the way they were.

Appreciate the input and the associated concerns.  If this is what we end up doing I'll ensure we have lots of documentation for the record to go with it.

[Nick Rusch]

14 hours ago, formerfed said:

Or the government can meet with their finance/comptroller office and come up with a suitable solution.  I’ve had similar things and the comptroller created one pot of money to use.  They did a behind the scene chargeback to various offices funding the work.  
 

It sounds like people are letting systems run the show.

This is an interesting idea.  It may be of partial help if the comptroller would be amenable.  Thank you!

[Nick Rusch]

On 4/9/2021 at 1:30 PM, General.Zhukov said:

I have had to do something like what you are describing.  Basically, for system reasons, I couldn't add funding to a CLIN that needed more funds.  Do not recommend except as last resort.  We created a new CLIN just for funding.  Its description was something like 'CLIN 2 replaces CLIN 1 as of date.  No change except for funding.'     It was actually quite complicated to do this, since we had to transfer over the incomplete work to the new CLIN, close out the funding for the old CLIN, update a bunch of stuff since CLIN 2 didn't exist nor was anticipated at time of award, etc.  We tried to clearly and repeatedly describe what was going (for invoicing/payment, auditors, new people on the project), but that didn't work.  Everyone else was confused forever, up to and including contract close out.  

That said, I think creating a new contract/order would be worse.  Maybe, technically, a starting over would be less key strokes.  But it would be a review/approval/audit nightmare, covered in red-flags, and attracting interest of people you want to stay away - legal, IG, irate competitors who see something sketchy on FPDS-NG, etc.

Closing this post out with what the COR and KO decided to do - they are implementing the method described above creating a new CLIN and realigning remaining TO labor hours and cost ceiling to the new CLIN.  Then they will deobligate remaining funds from the old CLIN and reobligate in the new CLIN and then assign new incremental funding. A lot of contract actions and associated work...