I freely admit that most of the time while I was a CO, I really didn’t pay much attention to CPARS ratings.  While doing operational contracting work, the dollar value rarely exceeded the threshold to require a performance rating.  And if they did, the contractors always accepted a satisfactory rating and we moved on.

But during the last two years before I retired, things changed.  I started working as a procurement analyst and one of my tasks was taking over as the CPARS monitor for the base.  Initially I thought “Well, this will be easy.”  Man was I wrong!

I was now working with very large, technically complex service contracts that were in the billions of dollars.  All the source selections required review of the CPARS as part of the past performance evaluation.  Even some of the supply contracts exceeded the threshold required to need CPARS.  And I learned that contractors live or die by those CPARS ratings.

That leads me to the tale of two CPARS I want to share with you.  The first one was one of our clients that had a service that filled a very specific niche.  For many years, their contracts had been awarded as sole source using the “only one responsible” source exception.  However, laws and regulations changed and COs were directed to compete to the maximum extent possible and this contractor was faced with competing for contracts for the first time.

So, in the final year of the current contract, they received several “satisfactory” ratings in their CPARS.  They had always received higher ratings and when they asked the contracting officer, he said “Well, it’s the final year of a sole source contract so it really doesn’t matter.”

The contractor contacted us about challenging the CPARS.  They felt that they needed high ratings since they would be competing for contracts in the future and I agreed with them.  We crafted a thoughtful response that addressed each category with specific examples where they clearly exceeded the satisfactory rating and sent it off to the CO and Approving Official.  And guess what?  The Approving Official agreed that the rating needed to be changed and they ended up with higher ratings in every category.

The second tale involves a contractor that had taken over a five-year contract where the incumbent had the contract for many, many years.  The Contracting Office Representative (COR) loved the incumbent contractor and how they handled things and decided he did not like this new contractor taking over.  This is common in service contracts where a new contractor takes over and the program folks were used to the former contractor and how they did things.  When I was a CO and they came to me to complain about the new contractor, I’d always tell them to wait 6 months and then come back and talk to me.  More often than not, they would say that the new contractor was so much more efficient than the prior contractor had such good cost and time saving ideas.

At any rate, it came time for the first CPARS and it was really bad.  Below satisfactory in every category!  The contractor was devastated and angry and rightly so.  The COR had prepared the CPARS and it had just been pencil whipped through the system without much review and most of it was outright lies.  The contractor had documentation and reports that clearly showed that they had performed the required tasks and had, in fact, gone over and above to satisfy the program office requirements.

So when they came to us and I read the CPARS, I was shocked.  Because just by reading it, I knew it was done by someone who wanted to make the contractor look bad.  We discussed it and again prepared a thoughtful response (it’s never a good idea to go in angry) and the contractor started running it up his management chain for approval.

When it got to the top, the CEO said “We don’t want to aggravate the government folks.  Let’s just let it stand.  We have 4 more years to win over the COR.”

Both the contracts guy for the contractor and I were devastated because we really thought that the CPARS needed to be challenged.  We even scheduled a telecom with the contractor’s upper management, and they held fast that they’d prefer to leave it alone than have the government see them in a bad light.  I told them that this rating would follow them forever.  It would be used for their past performance reviews in source selections and could be the difference between a pass or fail.

So, they left it as it was and continued performance.  Then they were told that the government had decided not to exercise the option.  So, no additional 4 years to improve their ratings and a very bad rating that would keep them from getting future contracts.

So, what’s the moral of the story?  First, it is your right to challenge a CPARS.  It does not necessarily need to be a bad CPARS for you to decide to challenge it.  It is important that the CPARS is accurate in all areas.  Challenging a CPARS will not give you a “black mark”.  In fact, my suggestion is to ask the COR or program office for a draft CPARS before it’s entered into the system.  Then if you have questions, you may be able to work them out.  And if you say you are going to challenge the CPARS once it published, they may change it because a challenge goes to an Approving Official at least one level higher than the CO (usually the director of contracts) and the don’t want that to happen.

Finally, never, NEVER leave an inaccurate or untrue CPARS stand.  That will haunt you forever.