Most people on both sides of government contracts are reasonable and want to be successful in contract relationships; however…

Once long ago and in a place far away the additional duty of article 32 officer landed on my desk a couple of times. My take-away from those experiences was that accountability exists, penalties increase with increasing dollar amounts involved, and penalties increase with increasing harm against others. Times have not changed that much on the issue of accountability.

The Federal Acquisitions Regulation provides a framework by which government contracts are executed. A special agent such as a contracting officer has limited authority, is only authorized to conduct a single type of transaction (i.e. they have a warrant for construction contracts), and fully understand the types of contracts (the USG uses express contracts which are further broken down into different subtypes such as fixed-price, time & material, etc.) and elements of a contract.

A Contracting Officer may designate (in writing) a technical specialist as a contracting officers technical representative (COTR). This person is tasked with writing a statement of work which details the work to be done (task, condition, and standard is an easy way to think about it), developing an independent government cost estimate (using cost data from a variety of sources), assisting the contracting officer with the technical parts of the negotiation as needed, and managing the technical portions of the project. Usually a separate Inspector will also be designated for the project (this is where a good quality assurance/control/surveillance plan comes into it’s own). Problems with the contract may have to be resolved by modifications, and only contracting officers working within the scope of their warrant are authorized to execute modifications to the contract.

Bottom line: the JAG, the Comptroller, and the Contracting Officer are earning the big bucks and losing their hair for a reason. If you have a question about a contract these are the folks to see.