I recently transferred from a large agency, to a small, independent agency. I've encountered several instances of contracts structured with optional periods of performance, but the options were not exercised on time and now the contracts are "dead". A lot of effort went into awarding these contracts, even if some of them were relatively small. I've explained to the program offices that the contract has ended and since none of the terms and conditions of the contract are in effect, there is no provision or authority for me to exercise an option or extend the contract.
So the result is that although a contract term of up to 5 yeas was contemplated, the contract is lost after one year of performance because someone wasn't paying attention (contractor, COR, contract specialist, CO, etc.). I understand that the contract is expired, but is there anything that I can do short of recompeting the requirement? Let's assume that these are not 8(a) contractors and the services are not so unique that they couldn't be provided by any other contractor. Is there any legitimate way of extending the contract or issuing a new contract to the contractor without having to compete it? Would the original contemplation of time (5 years) be sufficient to justify a direct award?