One of my earliest accomplishments as a Contracting Officer occurred in Afghanistan, about a month after arriving in-theater for a year-long deployment. I was a junior Major in the Army, and had been in the Acquisition Corps for about 18 months. At that time, I was DAWIA Level One certified in Contracting and had been through one end-of-fiscal-year closeout process. The sum of my acquisition experience included the Defense Acquisition University courses required for Level One and about a dozen Simplified Acquisition Purchase (SAP) awards at my home station in Germany. In Afghanistan, I held a contingency warrant for $250,000, the contingency threshold for SAP awards at that time (it is currently $300,000 for contingency operations.) At any rate, I had just enough knowledge and experience to be dangerous, but not enough to speak intelligently about much of anything. In truth, I was still much more of an Army officer than a Contracting Officer.
So the story begins when I was assigned to supervise the procurement, construction, and establishment of a new firebase (an artillery base, especially one set up quickly to support advancing troops or to forestall enemy advances) in a Taliban-controlled sector. Basically, the US strategy for the area was to move in a company of paratroopers, establish an operating base, and clear that valley of the bad guys. The Army unit requested the funds and Resource Management gave them a bulk-funded Purchase Request & Commitment (PR&C) for $500,000, in order to provision, procure, build, and occupy this new firebase. That doesn’t sound like much money, but in a country where $60 per month is a living wage, it was plenty.
So I worked with the young Captain in charge of the project, and we developed a list of requirements: clearing and leveling the ground; hundreds of cubic yards of gravel to be laid, smoothed and compacted; construction of a number of B-huts for living quarters and the Operations Center; construction of a perimeter made up of assembled Hesco bastions (wire-mesh baskets filled with dirt and rocks to protect against explosions and fragmentation); and so on.
I began soliciting and awarding the requirements on an individual basis for a couple of reasons. First, I figured that I would get the best prices and fastest response by treating each aspect of the project as a separate requirement. Second, from a socioeconomic standpoint, I wanted to provide as much business to as many vendors as possible (one of the pillars of the US strategy was to ‘buy hearts and minds,’ so awarding contracts to Afghan vendors supported that strategy.) And last, I simply didn’t have enough experience to make a better assessment. The Captain said he needed lots of gravel, some B-huts, and 500 yards of Hesco bastions, so I prepared RFQs for those requirements.
About halfway into the project, after contract award and while work was underway, a more experienced, seasoned Air Force contracting officer inquired about my efforts so far. When I told him my status, he gave me a shocked look and blurted out, “But you split the requirements… That’s against the law!” In fact, he took exception with the whole bulk fund idea. In his opinion, I should have made the requiring activity submit separate PR&Cs for each requirement: $100,000 for the gravel, $100,000 for the B-huts, $50,000 for the Hesco bastions, etc. (NOTE: if you are not aware of this fact, the US Air Force C.O.s are the Jedi Knights of military contracting, whereas the US Army contracting personnel are more like the Bad News Bears – we get it done, but it’s rude, ugly, and arguably illegal, even if it is pretty fun to watch.)
So, being told I had broken the law got my attention. But nothing came of it; the Army unit got their firebase, I got an “Attaboy” from the Chief of Contracting (another Army Major, albeit far more experienced), and the Air Force officer rotated home. If I had broken the law, apparently justice was not too interested in holding me accountable.
But that gets to the question at hand: did I split requirements? Was the requirement for one firebase in its entirety? Or was it for a lot of gravel, several B-huts, and 500 yards of Hesco bastions that combine to make a firebase? And what about bulk funds for use in procuring goods and services? If bulk funds enable the splitting of requirements, then why are they used? In writing this article, I researched bulk funds (a little late, considering, but still….) I found that FAR Part 13 – Simplified Acquisition Procedures, addresses bulk funds and appears to encourage their use. Specifically, 13.101(b) states the following:
“(b) In making purchases, contracting officers should –
(4) Use bulk funding to the maximum extent practicable. Bulk funding is a system whereby the contracting officer receives authorization from a fiscal and accounting officer to obligate funds on purchase documents against a specified lump sum of funds reserved for the purpose for a specified period of time rather than obtaining individual obligational authority on each purchase document. Bulk funding is particularly appropriate if numerous purchases using the same type of funds are to be made during a given period.”
So, I’m starting to think that maybe I’m in the clear, legally speaking. I’m sure I could have documented my decision better, including the standard CO determination about Simplified Acquisition Procedures, etc. But basically, while I see that other officer’s point about splitting requirements, I think the decision to put several contractors to work simultaneously not only provided a greater positive economic impact to the industrial base of the community, but it also sped the completion of the project. And in a combat zone, fast is important. I can sleep comfortably with my decision.