Minnen Posted July 16, 2024 Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 Is it possible on an FFP contract to have the base year as May 1st, 2024- April 29, 2025 and have the Option Year 1 start on May 1st, 2025? This would be skipping 1 day in April of 2025? Any rules against this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joel hoffman Posted July 16, 2024 Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 Is this a hypothetical situation or a current contract? May 1, 2024 has already passed. Is the May 1, 2025 start date a current date for the option? Theoretically, there is not a “rule” against this, to my knowledge. However, this would skip one day in the middle of the workweek in April 2005. If it is the existing term of the contract option, I imagine the contractor would have priced any costs that it would incur that day somewhere in the current contract price. If you want to change the start of the option period to include a one day delay, you can’t unilaterally do that. You wouldn’t be awarding it according to the current terms and conditions. This would require a supplemental agreement, in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minnen Posted July 16, 2024 Author Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 @joel hoffman This is a hypothetical scenario, but one that I just thought about. So technically, not sure anyone would do this, but if you had it the base POP end date as April 25th, 2024 for example and wanted Option Year 1 to begin in June 2024 you could do that as well? Just never seen it done before. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ji20874 Posted July 16, 2024 Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 Certainly, what you are suggesting is doable. There is no rule to prohibit it, and there is no rule to require continuous service with no breaks when exercising options. You can set up the contract to meet your needs. For example, can you easily imagine a janitorial services contract for a school with annual POPs from August to June, with each option period starting in August? Why are you concerned that it might not be possible? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voyager Posted July 16, 2024 Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 ^ This is a great line of thinking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minnen Posted July 16, 2024 Author Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 Yup. Thanks @ji20874 for the breakdown. Great example regarding the school year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C Culham Posted July 16, 2024 Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 2 hours ago, Minnen said: Is it possible on an FFP contract to have the base year as May 1st, 2024- April 29, 2025 and have the Option Year 1 start on May 1st, 2025? This would be skipping 1 day in April of 2025? Any rules against this? Sort of in my view. Others have already opined. Here are my thoughts. First I emphasized your post. Remember the allowance for options is "period" therefore any period you want to specify. Second, and here is where I depart from others just a little. Considering FAR 17.204(b) which says "(b) The contract shall state the period within which the option may be exercised." and the wording of FAR clasue 52.217-9 I would massage the clause (remember it by prescription only has to be substantially the same) to indicate that the option to extend is through April 30 but performance is to April 29. I say this as to me performance and contract "period" are two different things. Or in other words you are exercising the period of the contract with work to take place during certain times within that period. I have offered this thought as I just wonder if the period ends on April 29 is there any contract to exercise on May 1? At least this is the way I did it when it came to staffing contracted look-out towers for the Forest Service. After thought - Also the title of clause 52.217-9 is "Option to Extend Term of Contract"! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
REA'n Maker Posted July 16, 2024 Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 Interesting thought exercise. As long as those terms are unambiguous there seems to be nothing that says you can't. I would be more concerned about obtaining the necessary HCA-level pre-approvals for a PoP longer than 5 years (if it's base + 4). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vern Edwards Posted July 16, 2024 Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 4 hours ago, ji20874 said: Why are you concerned that it might not be possible? You could ask that question about thousands of Wifcon inquiries. It is the question of our time: Why do you think that might not be not possible? One possible response to that question: The Land of the Free is very likely the most heavily rule-bound (measured by page count) society in the history of the world. Throw in the published administrative and judicial interpretive "case law" decisions of administrative agencies and the courts and I do not doubt that we are. I doubt that any society in history has spent as much time and money as we have writing rules and then litigating them. We started out with one big written rule, the Constitution, and we have never since stopped scribbling. For some, it is hard to imagine that there could be any prospective action that is not governed in some way by at least one rule or by some administrative or judicial interpretation of a rule. Instead of "In God We Trust" the real American motto is: There oughta be a rule! ji20874 may be right that "There is no rule to prohibit it, and there is no rule to require continuous service with no breaks when exercising options." But how can we be certain of that? If he's talking about the FAR itself, Title 48 of the CFR, Chapter 1, Parts 1 - 53, then I agree. But what agency does Minnen work for? There are 4,365 pages in the GPO's seven official pamphlet-volumes of Title 48, which contain the FAR and the agency FAR supplements. How can we know that Minnen's agency does not have such a rule? Or two? Or three? Might there be something in some regulation like the Defense Financial Management Regulation? Or some legal office interpretation of some rule that would require continuous service with no breaks? And would "rule" include the proclamations and decisions of the GAO or some other government watchdog office? Remember FAR 1.602-1(b): Quote (b) No contract shall be entered into unless the contracting officer ensures that all requirements of law, executive orders, regulations, and all other applicable procedures, including clearances and approvals, have been met. What would Jonathan Swift think of us? We are right to encourage people to think outside of the box. But how big is the box we're talking about? Our system is ridiculous. We are delusional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJ_Walther Posted July 16, 2024 Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 4 hours ago, C Culham said: I have offered this thought as I just wonder if the period ends on April 29 is there any contract to exercise on May 1? For an extreme example of "is there any contract to exercise": We had some annual software license contracts with a 52.217-7 option for each successive year (e.g. base CLIN is one year software license from 7/16/2024-7/15/2025, option 1 is one year software license from 7/16/2025-7/15/2026, etc.), and a newly-implemented automatic closeout system began closing them early with options remaining because after each license CLIN was invoiced the contract would sit for a year with no unliquidated obligations. So although I believe our contracts were properly structured and didn't violate any rules, we didn't take into account how the various systems were coded to behave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dsmith101abn Posted July 16, 2024 Report Share Posted July 16, 2024 I’m kinda all over the place in my thought. On the one hand I agree with JJ, there may be nothing against doing what you’re wanting to do. On the other hand I’ve operated in some way the way Culham explains it. 12 month base + options with non-work windows. We do this a lot with fish and bird migration, there’s certain times you have work restrictions, which I think could apply in different scenarios. On the third hand I agree with Vern’s thought there may be other areas that may be outside 48 CFR that have some say in it. Consider the 23 U.S.C. 201(b)(6). Our projects are obligated before we even solicit them, or 23 U.S.C. 203(a)(5) (yes it has been interpreted as competitive bidding means sealed bidding). I imagine there are other nuances. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vern Edwards Posted July 17, 2024 Report Share Posted July 17, 2024 I am inclined to agree with ji20874𑁋that there is no rule against what the OP wants to do. However, I don't know that to be true. There may be no express rule against it. I doubt that there is. But there might be some combination of rules that effectively prohibit the kind of gap that the OP asked about. My point is philosophical, not practical. This, after all, is a discussion board. We now have so many rules and interpretations of rules that making confident statements about the propriety of a particular course of action is sometimes very difficult, unless you can find a statement that specifically and expressly permits the action. How do we get that point across to the people who make and manage the rules and report on your compliance with them? How do we make them understand that we need a straightforward, efficient, and prompt system with simple rules for buying what the government needs to do its work, and that their Sargasso Sea of rules and case law has made buying much too complicated and time-consuming? And the attempts to innovate in order to cope with and overcome complexity have actually made things more complex. Mandatory multiple-award task order contracting was supposed to simplify buying. It has done anything but. Other transaction authority has prompted a sea of "guidance". The rules and "case law" about the conduct of discussions during competitive contract formation ("source selection") has effectively eliminated talk between prospective buyers and sellers. We old timers are not going to be around much longer to make these points and call for procedural deregulation and improved workforce education and training. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formerfed Posted July 17, 2024 Report Share Posted July 17, 2024 I’m pessimistic about simplification. Things often start out simple but don’t stay that way from long. Examples include commercial item buying, simplified acquisition, multiple award IDIQ contracts, P Card, OTA, conducting discussions, just to name a few. Vern already mentioned several of these. Even the FAR wasn’t that complicated when it was issued 40 years ago. But that couldn’t be left alone. The DFARS is huge in size. Then there are command policies and procedures. Finally there are individual buying offices, instructions, SOPs, and directives. Civilian agencies aren’t much better. One big problem is management at all levels wants to control. It wants uniformity and often believes more directive is needed than high level regulations. In their defense, many 1102s need that kind of step-by-step instructions. Plus, Congress and each Administration can’t keep their hands off the process. They just mess things up more. One prime example is the widespread push for Low Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) awards. It took years to reverse the momentum of forcing LPTA where it doesn’t fit. In my ideal world, contracting regulations are high level citing general principles. Contracting officers are given wide latitude to achieve those goals. They are rewarded for success. Those that don’t work out are reassigned or dismissed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voyager Posted July 17, 2024 Report Share Posted July 17, 2024 3 hours ago, Vern Edwards said: How do we get that point across to the people who make and manage the rules and report on your compliance with them? How about a name-and-shame tactic? I've done it before and I'll do it again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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