Marilyn Clark

Thanks so much Don Acquisition and Navy_Contracting_4. I think I picked the wrong "subject" when I went looking and got no where. You guys are awesome!

a written document that states an 1102 cannot be supervised by a non-1102? I think it may have been something written by Eleanor Spector before she left government service. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Thank you Don Acquisition...I feel like an idiot now, but thanks!

SITUATION: One of my Contracting Chiefs is responsible for 34 Janitorial Services Contracts for small Recruiting Stations. All of these Recruiting Station Contracts were actually POs with options. The periods of performance ended on 31 December. On or about 27 December, the Contracting Chief identified that some of the Contractors had never registered in SAM and asked me how he should proceed. I advised that the class deviation to make award without SAM registration had been rescinded and that they could not make award of the option year unless they were registered in SAM. As of 31 December, there were still four Contractors with seven purchase orders that were not registered in SAM. The Contracting Chief decided that in order to keep the contract active and allow for the options to be properly exercised, he “restructured” the option periods that were not yet exercised to allow time for the Contractors to register in SAM. The Option Clause 52.217-9 states: Option to Extend the Term of the Contract (Mar 2000) (a) The Government may extend the term of this contract by written notice to the Contractor within _____ [insert the period of time within which the Contracting Officer may exercise the option]; provided that the Government gives the Contractor a preliminary written notice of its intent to extend at least ___ days [60 days unless a different number of days is inserted] before the contract expires. The preliminary notice does not commit the Government to an extension. ( B ) If the Government exercises this option, the extended contract shall be considered to include this option clause. © The total duration of this contract, including the exercise of any options under this clause, shall not exceed ___________ (months)(years). Because the option must be exercised BEFORE the Contract EXPIRES, we needed to keep the contract ACTIVE until such time as the contractor could be registered in SAM. FAR Part 13, Simplified Acquisition Procedures, does not specifically address the use of options or breaks in purchase order periods of performance. Based on the lack of specific guidance in the FAR, the Contracting Chief used FAR 1.102 "Statement of guiding principles for the Federal Acquisition System": (d) The role of each member of the Acquisition Team is to exercise personal initiative and sound business judgment in providing the best value product or service to meet the customer's needs. In exercising initiative, Government members of the Acquisition Team may assume if a specific strategy, practice, policy or procedure is in the best interests of the Government and is not addressed in the FAR, nor prohibited by law (statute or case law), Executive order or other regulation, that the strategy, practice, policy or procedure is a permissible exercise of authority. Because the above circumstance is not addressed in the FAR, the Contracting Chief who is a Contracting Officer, determined that it was in the best interest of the government to delay the upcoming option’s period of performance by one month to allow the contractor time to get registered in SAM. His full intention, understanding, and determination was that this would keep the purchase order ACTIVE and available for exercising the option once the contractor was registered in SAM. Both the government and the contractors had a meeting of the minds and understanding of the effect of this modification and this was captured in a bi-lateral modification. The specific language used in each modification was: Modification P00003 is hereby issued to modify the Period of Performance for CLINs 0003-0005 to allow the contractor time to register in SAM so the option can be properly exercised. The new period of performances will run from 01FEB-31JAN each option year remaining” He did this for all seven purchase orders on 31 December, before the current period of performance lapsed…while the Contract was still active. The periods were all adjusted by bi-lateral contract modification using the authority of the Changes Clause, 52.243-1 to start on 01 February vice 01 January. The services were paid for under GCPC for the month of January. Options cannot be exercised after a Contract has lapsed, these contracts were not lapsed since these modifications were performed extending the period for which the option could be exercised. So even though there was not an active Performance Period ongoing, the Contract vehicle remained available for future option exercise. QUESTION: Since these POs were compteted originally, is there a CICA violation?