Tag: Defense Production Act

The General Services Administration (GSA), The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and IRS raised the micro-purchase threshold (MPT) and the simplified acquisition threshold (SAT) last week, in response to the coronavirus relief effort This allows these agencies to expedite contract award timeframes. (Federal News Network, March 20, 2020)

As required under the 2020 Defense Authorization bill, the Defense Department raised the threshold for sole-source 8(a) contracts up to $100 million as well. The non-emergency threshold for 8(a) contracts is $22 million. (ibid)

GSA and VA have raised their MPT and SAT threshold for purchases both in and outside of the US while the IRS raised theirs for purchases within the US only, to speed up the time it takes to make contract awards.

The MPT is increased to:

• $20,000 for contracts awarded and performed or purchases made within the U.S.
• $30,000 for contracts awarded and performed or purchases made outside the U.S.

The SAT is increased to:

• $750,000 for contracts performed or awarded and purchases made within the U.S.
• $1.5 million for contracts awarded, performed or purchases made outside the U.S.

The SAT supporting contingency operations or major disaster recovery is increased to $13 million.

All thresholds, in place through at least 30 June, give agencies the ability to be nimble and make purchases quickly. They are “specific to only to support the designated National Emergency COVID-19. FAR Part 6 also provides the opportunity to expedite purchases after justifying exceptions to competition. There may also be opportunities to use existing contracts by negotiating a bilateral modification to allow for additional quantities of goods or a surge for services included in concurrent awards,” according to Angela Billups, VA’s executive director in the Office of Acquisition and Logistics and senior procurement executive. (ibid)

To track acquisition costs for the coronavirus response, the Federal Acquisition Regulations Council set up a new code in the Federal Procurement Data System, P20C. (ibid)

Jeff Koses, GSA’s senior procurement executive stated in a recent memo that local set-aside rules are not applicable because this is a national emergency and not a strictly local one. According to Koses, some exceptions that allow agencies to restrict or limit competition are:

• phoning a reasonable number of vendors
• obtaining “on the spot” quotes
• keeping the period of performance brief (ibid)

The changes to the MPT and SAT were made prior to the Defense Production Act being invoked. The Defense Production Act, authorizes certain agencies providing specific products or services with relation to the coronavirus relief efforts, to move to the front of the line. However, GSA strongly advises contracting officers to verify pricing and contractor details on GSA Advantage and GSA eLibrary. (ibid)

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