Knowing if Your Contract Has Options
Joseph Feibel – January 7, 2018
Request: Please exercise Option Year 4.
Problem: There are no Option Years on this contract.
Answer: Determine contract type by reviewing contract, revised client’s documents accordingly to reflect appropriate action: in this case a new Time and Materials Order needed to be placed against the contract which was within its five-year ordering period.
I was recently asked to prepare an Purchase Requisition by a Contracting Officer’s Representative to exercise the Option Year on the contract. What I found after reviewing a copy of his contract is his contract contained no options but instead consisted of a five-year ordering period in which time and materials orders could be placed against it. I revised the documents he sent for his approval and explained the nature of his contract. Section B of the contract shows the line items; had there been Option Years or Periods in the contract it would have contained Contract Line Items (CLINS) for the Options. Additionally, there would have been contract clauses for Options if there are included.
In this particular case, the COR was trying to exercise and Option that didn’t exist.
The contract the COR had is actually an agreement. The agreement provides the Government with a streamlined process to award orders against it that are within the scope of that agreement. It is not appropriate to include funding on the agreement, as it is not a contract.
The task order is how we acquire work under the Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) and fund it. These are mini-contracts. The award process is streamlined, in hat we tcan order off of the agreement and do not require a Market Research report and Acquisition Plan as part of the acquisition package.
In this case the Task order against the BPA had. Unfortunately, for the COR a new package was required to issue new work against the agreement. The needed to submit a package which included a Purchase Requisition (PR), Statement of Work (SOW) and and Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE).