Defense Department Preference for Fixed-Price Contracts

Section 829 of the 2017 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) directed DoD to establish a preference for fixed-price contracts (including fixed-price incentive contracts) when determining contract types and also to establish a required for "higher-level" approval for certain cost-type contracts.

How did DoD implement this directive? To comply with the fixed-price preference directive, DoD added the following words to its FAR Supplement (DFARS) through its class deviation process:

Contracting officers shall first consider the use of fixed-price contracts, including fixed-price incentive contracts, in the determination of contact type.

There, fixed that. That was easy. What about the higher-level approval requirement? DoD fixed that one as well by stating "heads of contracting activities" must approve cost-reimbursement contracts in excess of $25 million (which many contracting activities require now anyway).

Fixed that one as well.

Some statutes are really easy to implement.