My agency has been tasked with transferring a CPFF LOE Term contract from another department. The contract was set up with a base and 9 option periods each with a level of effort and ceiling for a one year period of performance. I have a question concerning whether a restructuring of the future unexercised option periods would be allowed under a bi lateral modification or if adding options would trigger CICA. The rationale for considering such a change is that doing so would allow us to only exercise the amount of effort needed as we add work packages to the contract. In a way, making the contract operate more like an IDIQ.
Under the current structure if we exercise an option that contains 10,000 labor hours for year 3 (how effort is measured), and we only use 5,000 of those hours during that period, the unused 5,000 hours of effort dies with the expiration of the option period. This contract would have been better suited as an IDIQ with task orders rather than a base with options but since we are taking the contract as a transfer, we would be limited to changes we can make by modification.
My real question is this: If we do not exceed the total hours and dollars of the contract, can we redistribute our options by modification? Instead of 9 options, could we divide those options into 20 options? Note that we would be adding options but not adding any additional work or increasing the cost ceiling. It would essentially allow us to shift work to the future if we aren't ready to issue the work packages. Government anticipated issuing work packages earlier than they have. The work would still occur within the contract period of performance but not the original option period of performance. If we don't extend the option period of performance, we stand to run out of hours we can use before the end of the contract.