threshold | The Contracting Education Academy

April 1, 2020 By cs

Academy launches webpage containing Coronavirus information for contracting officers and contractors

The Contracting Education Academy, a Georgia Tech unit dedicated to supporting the professional education needs of the government’s contracting workforce, has launched a special webpage devoted to providing information and guidance dealing with the impact of COVID-19 on federal contracts.

**Click on image above to visit the webpage.**

The webpage, located here, presents helpful information to both contracting officials and contractors who are navigating the current contracting environment.

Numerous topics are addressed on the webpage. For Contracting Officers and other members of the federal acquisition workforce, topics include:

Teleworking by contractor employees
Quarantine restrictions and excusable delays
Equitable adjustments
Extending performance periods
Contract modifications
Maintaining a contractor state of readiness
Application of the Stafford Act
Communication and transparency in contract administration
DoD emergency acquisition and preparedness
Tracking COVID-19 contract spending
The Defense Production Act
The Defense Priorities and Allocations System
GSA Schedule purchasing
Fraud and price gouging

For the contractor community, the following topics are addressed on the webpage:

Preventing workplace exposure and risks
Identifying critical infrastructure industries
The System for Award Management (SAM)
Excusable delay contract provisions
Changes clauses
Obligation to perform
The Defense Priorities and Allocations System
DoD progress payments
Sales through GSA Schedules
Advice for small businesses
Economic disaster loans
The Families First Coronavirus Response Act

Additional information and updates will be added as often as daily to the site. We suggest you bookmark the site now and check back frequently for the latest news involving the impact of coronavirus on federal contracts.

March 24, 2020 By cs

Agencies initiate emergency acquisition authorities

The Defense Department raised its threshold for 8(a) sole source contracts to $100 million as required by the 2020 Defense authorization bill. While not related to coronavirus outbreak, the timing is important.

At least four agencies have implemented emergency acquisition authorities to make it easier to award contracts to support coronavirus relief efforts.

The General Services Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the IRS raised the micro-purchase threshold (MPT) and the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) in the last week.

The Defense Department on March 17 raised the threshold for sole source 8(a) contracts to $100 million as required under the 2020 Defense authorization bill.

This is a huge increase, given typically the threshold for 8(a) contracts at DoD has been $22 million. Congress increased the threshold for the first time since 2015.

For the rest of the government, the 8(a) sole source threshold is $7 million for manufacturing requirements or $4 million for all other requirements.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition-policy/2020/03/agencies-initiate-emergency-acquisition-authorities/

The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech has established a webpage where all contract-related developments related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) are summarized. Find the page at: https://contractingacademy.gatech.edu/coronavirus-information-for-contracting-officers-and-contractors/

November 19, 2018 By AMK

How contracting officers want to use the new micropurchase threshold

Steve Kelman’s recent talk with feds reinforced his view that a $10,000 micropurchase limit opens up vast new acquisition possibilities.

Recently I did a webinar at the request of the General Services Administration’s Acquisition Gateway for professional services, as part of their Spotlight training series, on the new micropurchase threshold. As I have blogged before, the threshold has been raised to $10,000 for civilian agencies and, through a strange anomaly that hopefully will be corrected soon, to $6,000 for the Department of Defense.

This change will allow agencies to make procurements of up to $10,000 without (if they choose) competitively soliciting or evaluating proposals, though some of the agencies that have started using the authority have chosen to develop one-page requirements statements and solicit one-page competitive proposal. Regulations implementing this change are unfortunately not out yet, but a number of agencies — including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security and GSA itself — have received class deviations to introduce the change now. However, the GSA class deviation applies only to GSA’s own purchases, not more broadly for any purchases using GSA vehicles.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/blogs/lectern/2018/11/kelman-micropurchase-ideas.aspx

September 10, 2018 By AMK

DoD’s micropurchase threshold just increased to $10,000

The Department of Defense has issued a class deviation raising the micro-purchase threshold to $10,000, effective immediately.

The increase implements Section 821 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law last month.

The memo explains that there are a few exceptions to the standard $10,000 threshold.

Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/statutes-and-regulations/dod-increases-micro-purchase-threshold-to-10000-effective-immediately/

To see a handy table of current purchasing thresholds, click here: Purchasing Thresholds – September 2018

July 26, 2018 By AMK

The rise of the microconsultants

One of the first — and even more than two decades later, still one of the most important — changes during the procurement reform era of the 1990s was the introduction of a “micropurchase” authority in the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1995.

In the background was the desire to allow program customers the ability to use a government credit card to make very small purchases directly, without the significant extra time (think of the purchase order request landing at the bottom of the contracting person’s in-box) and administrative cost that come with working through the contracting office.

An interesting backstory to this statutory change was the role of a young contract specialist at the Department of Health and Human Services named Michelle Craddock in helping develop the administration’s legislative proposal on this. Even before the 1995 law, the government could make purchases under $2,500 without going through a competition. Having just arrived in Washington in 1993 to become administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, I was tasked with trying to find out if there were any statutory barriers to using a credit card for under-$2,500 purchases. On a learning tour of contracting offices to prepare me for my job as a Washington outsider awaiting Senate confirmation, Craddock was one of the contracting people I met in a visit set up by the HHS senior procurement executive.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/blogs/lectern/2018/07/kelman-microconsulting.aspx

The Contracting Education Academy, a Georgia Tech unit dedicated to supporting the professional education needs of the government’s contracting workforce, has launched a special webpage devoted to providing information and guidance dealing with the impact of COVID-19 on federal contracts.

The Defense Department raised its threshold for 8(a) sole source contracts to $100 million as required by the 2020 Defense authorization bill. While not related to coronavirus outbreak, the timing is important.

Steve Kelman’s recent talk with feds reinforced his view that a $10,000 micropurchase limit opens up vast new acquisition possibilities.

The Department of Defense has issued a class deviation raising the micro-purchase threshold to $10,000, effective immediately.

One of the first — and even more than two decades later, still one of the most important — changes during the procurement reform era of the 1990s was the introduction of a “micropurchase” authority in the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1995.

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