The Color of Money

Fiscal law shows up as schedule risk

To industry, fiscal law can look like a matter internal to the government. Its effects arrive anyway: a comptroller who will not certify a purchase request because the work description fits two appropriations, a contracting officer who cannot exercise an option until apportionment arrives, a September renewal that has to be rewritten because the need belongs to next year.

Many of those problems start with the contractor. Proposal and white paper language migrates into government funding documents, and a line item that blends development with sustainment can hold up an award for weeks. Contract type does not fix it, and neither does the award instrument: a FAR contract, an other transaction and a commercial solutions opening award all draw on the same appropriations under the same rules.

What the paper answers

• Where does the line fall between RDT&E and Procurement for pilot lines, hard tooling, LRIP test articles and modification kits?
• How do the software acquisition pathway and the Budget Activity 8 pilot differ in what they change about funding?
• What can still be charged to an expired account, and what happens once it closes?
• When may a severable service cross the fiscal-year line, and when must non-severable work be fully funded at award?
• Why can a warfare center keep working during a continuing resolution while a program office cannot start new work?
• Which appropriation pays for production after a prototype other transaction or a commercial solutions opening succeeds?
• What line-item rules in DFARS govern work that needs different funds?

What's inside

• The constitutional and statutory foundation, with the Purpose, Time and Amount triad explained as auditors apply it.
• A side-by-side comparison of RDT&E, Procurement and O&M covering purpose, outputs, availability, bona fide need, authorized and prohibited uses, and regulatory references.
• How money moves from Congress to the contracting officer, including the two funding paths from a program office: direct contracting and laboratory or warfare center execution.
• Working capital funds, mission-funded accounts, MRTFB, NISE, FMS, CRADAs and other local spending authorities, and how each behaves during a continuing resolution.
• Five illustrative violation scenarios, a quick-reference appendix of fiscal law authorities, an appropriation availability timeline and a glossary.

Where award authorities meet the money

Section 8 connects the award routes companies pursue to the appropriations that must pay for them:

• Prototype other transactions and commercial solutions openings, and why production usually needs Procurement funds programmed well before the award
• Rapid acquisition authority and Section 229 determinations, and the limits on their funding sources
• Facility other transactions under 10 U.S.C. 2808a
• Economy Act orders, which do not extend the life of the money
• APFIT and other programs that supply money but are not award authorities

Who it's for

• Capture teams and proposal writers who shape the work descriptions that end up in government funding documents.
• Program managers and contract administrators managing options, modifications and incremental funding.
• Engineers and business leads supporting warfare centers, laboratories and depots under working capital funds.
• Financial analysts who need to forecast award timing and cash flow across fiscal-year boundaries.

About the author

Chris A. Grable is founder and CEO of Up Doppler Consulting LLC, a Veteran-Owned Small Business in Leonardtown, Maryland. A Navy veteran with more than 45 years in DOW operations and acquisition, he retired from federal service as Senior Experiment Designer at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division. UDC helps technology companies find, shape and win DOW work.