Redstone Government Consulting Blog | Proposal Cost Volume Development & Pricing (6)

With the House of Representatives having passed its version of the FY 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), as well as a federal budget agreement, both of which establish new guidelines and annual ceilings on allowable government contractor executive salaries, the question is what will the Senate do with both agreements when they address those specific revised caps. Moreover, because the House-passed federal budget and the NDAA have different annual compensation caps and contractor personnel to which these caps would be applicable, will these differences be reconciled in final versions of both budget and NDAA agreement?

The National Defense Industrial Association’s (NDIA) September Procurement Division Committee meeting provided insights and information that we believe is of  interest to our readers.  These comments are our own interpretations and opinions based upon our presence at the meeting.

Government contractors who are required to submit certified cost and pricing data as part of a bid proposal face increasingly greater risks of government rejection or award disqualification during pre-award review or even worse, defective pricing allegations after award causing government mandated downward negotiated price adjustments. In today’s government procurement environment where procurement commands and their auditors hold contractors to solicitation and cost analysis provisions with such rigidity, equating to a zero error tolerance during proposal evaluations, contractors must not fail to meet the “certified cost or pricing data” submission or disclosure expectations in the pre-award proposal preparation process as intended within the Truth-in-Negotiations Act (TINA).

All one has to do is read a recent article written by David Cox, President of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), to derive the answer to this question, and the answer is that contractor employee compensation should be brought in line with the salaries that public sector employees (e.g., federal civilian personnel) are paid.

The initial reductions in force and furloughs will likely focus on general and administrative functions that support programs directly impacted by sequestration. The Government leaves our customers no choice other than to take this approach.  Yes, there will be job losses and yes there will be loss of legacy corporate knowledge and intangible value that may never return to our customer base.  This is highly unfortunate and yet another outcome of the politics of sequestration and declining Federal budgets.  Reduction in force of Accounting, Compliance, Internal Audit, Procurement, Pricing and other administrative functions with legacy corporate knowledge cannot and will not be replaced with the same corporate value or knowledge and ability to maintain compliance.

The Defense Department on February 21 revoked a relatively new payment process that was designed to get cash in the hands of contractors and subcontractors quicker. This revocation of the “Quick Pay” initiative is due to sequestration activities and will cause payments to be delayed by at least 10 days but conceivably even more. Prior to the Quick Pay initiative, which began in 2011, DoD would hold a bill for 30 days to minimize the amount of cash it pays out. The Quick Pay initiative was instituted as a way to get payments to small businesses faster by assuring that small businesses were paid as soon as a bill was verified. The initiative was then expanded in July 2012 to prime contractors as a way to assist those companies’ small business subcontractors. Under the initiative, defense contractors were paid in about 15 to 18 days.