Federal non-defense COVID-19 contract dollars saw a rapid increase during the month of March to an average of over $300 million obligated each day (Figure 1). While there is an apparent drop-off in April, the figures are subject to revision as more transactions get reported. Cumulatively, over $7 billion in non-defense contracts were reported for COVID-19 as of April 21. For comparison, non-defense agencies normally obligate about $500 million each day with defense adding more than $1 billion…
Federal Supply Schedules: Of COVID-19 contract obligations, $527 million used government-wide contracts. Indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts made up another $787 million. Together, they represent 18 percent of all COVID-19 contract obligations…
Commercial Items: FAR 12.102(f), however, allows “any acquisition of supplies and services” to use commercial item processes for contracts up to $19 million if purchased for recovery from an “attack.” The first transactions to invoke FAR 12.102(f) for COVID-19 were signed on March 3 and total $1 billion through April 19.
… 60 percent of COVID-19 non-defense contract obligations to date have used commercial items or emergency commercial item authorities. This stands in contrast to the pre-COVID period, where only about one-third of all non-defense contracts between January and March used commercial items procedures…
Simplified Acquisition: While over one-quarter of all non-defense transactions in response to COVID-19 used simplified acquisition procedures, they amounted to only $186 million (3 percent) of total obligations…
Letter Contracts: More than 39 non-defense actions for COVID-19 reported using letter contracts or other undefinitized actions as of April 21. The obligations totaled $158 million, but this figure does not capture eventual pricing. One contract from the Department of Veterans Affairs to Abbot Molecular has zero money obligated, but a potential award of $100 million for COVID-19 test kits.
That was from our April 22 update on federal contracting in response to Covid-19 from Mason GovCon, “Contracting with Speed.” There’s a lot more in the report about rapid contract approaches, emergency authorities, and how they’re being used to respond to Covid-19.
Department of Defense contract obligations are not included due to a standard 90-day lag in reporting. But for non-defense agencies, something like $250 to $300 million obligated each day represents a 50 to 60 percent increase in obligations going out. Most of that came from Health and Human Services.
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