The government fiscal year (1 Oct – 30 Sep) is full of opportunities. However, certain windows of time within each year are better than others for getting funds added to your contract. For example, Oct – Dec (the first quarter) tends to be quieter, while the last two quarters tend to be more active. This is not a hard and fast rule, it’s more of a heuristic based on experience. Some contract actions will be funded in Oct – and some contracts are quiet during Sept. It depends on a lot of factors.

For now, I’ll focus on the end of the Fiscal Year (the 4^th quarter: July to Sept).

As a contracting officer, the requirements continue to flow in throughout the summer. Some are funding actions, some are orders against existing contracts, and some are new contracts, even new competitive contracts. There was usually more to get done than I (or even our team) could manage. So, we would start to do triage and prioritize. Here are some of the steps I took as a contracting officer to manage the onslaught of EOY actions.

BIG IDEA: The big take away here is to remember who has the money. That would be the customer (i.e. the program manager, the COR, the user, the economic decider). Don’t start with the contracting officer. They only execute funds other people give to them. Until the requirement, and the associated funding, are sent to the contracting officer, it is not on their radar (or at least not on their plate to get done), so they are not likely to be responsive to you. Once you confirm the government customer has sent the requirement and funding to the contracting officer, then the options below apply.

1. I set a deadline for incoming current FY funds (Aug 15, Sept 15). This of course did not always work, but it at least set the stage for me to be able to say no if work came in too late. Contractors, if you don’t know your agencies cut-off date, ask them, or at least ask us. It’s important to know that date because if your customer (the PM, the COR, etc.) does not get the work on your contract in by that date, you risk not getting funding. Again, most contracting officers won’t just ignore you after that date, but they sure will appreciate when you are ahead of it (since so many people are not).
2. I prioritized the actions by determining the path of least resistance. Which ones could I award quickly? Which ones required the lowest level of approval? If I changed the acquisition strategy (how I bought it), would that change who has to approve it (and add or subtract time)?
3. Do the funds expire? If not, then this is not an end of fiscal year issue. The funds will be available next fiscal year. I can deal with this then. It drops to the bottom of the pile. (See Episode 019: Colors of Money for explanation of the types of funding that expire at different times).
4. Is this an in-scope funding transfer modification? In other words, is the funding being moved from one part of the contract to another? As long as the funding is on contract already, it may be transferred within scope after it expires. This is not an end of Fiscal Year issue and gets moved lower in the pile.
5. Is it an unfunded requirement that is being added to an existing contract? This is a priority because not only is it being funded with expiring funds (meaning the funds will expire if not added to a contract), but adding within scope work to an existing contract (such as an IDIQ contract) is relatively easy since the terms and conditions, and price, are most likely already set by the overarching IDIQ contract.
6. Is it an unfunded requirement that will go on a new contract? This may be a priority by the fact that the funds will expire…but I would put it behind #5 because it requires a new contract to be put in place to obligate the funds. This means that the Statement of work, the Ts & Cs, the price, and schedule, etc., all need to be negotiated, under the specter of the clock ticking toward 30 Sep. These are the most stressful and least preferred method of obligating end of year money. Unless the buyer can use a government credit card, or a direct award under authority like the 8(a) program, or an abbreviated FAR 13.5 acquisition, and so on…this is the situation with the highest risk of not being awarded in time.

NOTE: All is not lost, if we start early enough, these can be awarded using less traditional approaches like pre-building a contract with a “Subject to Availability of Funds” (SAF) terms so it can awarded at the last minute when the funds come in, or adding contract options to be ready to execute in real time, or even FAR 17 (Special Contracting Methods).

Bottom line: Now is the time to have these conversations.