THE LURE OF URGENCY
• If procuring services, identify the unique and essential perfor- mance requirements of those services and how we determined those performance requirements will meet the government’s minimum, urgent need.
• Identify the date when the items or services must be provided and why no other date will suffice.
• Describe how the government will be seriously injured if we don’t procure the items or services from one or a limited number of sources.
• Discuss why only one or a limited number of sources can satisfy the government’s urgent need.
• Discuss the capability of sources to deliver the required items or services.
• Identify the estimated cost of the items or services and how that cost was calculated.
We have a regulatory requirement to separate our wants from our needs when it comes to procuring goods and services. Te government’s procurement requirements must be written to the extent necessary to satisfy the needs of the agency or as autho- rized by law and not its ambitious desires.
WAITING UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE
The FAR intends procurement planning to be conducted well in advance, not momentarily or spontaneously. When procurement planning is not conducted in advance or timely, such planning may not be seen as reasonable. (Photo by Getty Images)
For more information on unusual and compelling urgency and other exceptions to the Competition in Contracting Act, go to the Compe- tition in Army Contracting training on the
procurement.army.mil LearningCenter at
https://go.usa.gov/xMaAg.
military operations or personnel safety. Here are some elements that should be addressed in a justification limiting competition based on unusual and compelling urgency:
• Explain why the requirement is urgent and how it compels the government to take the unusual approach to pursue a sole- source action and exclude all other sources from competing for the requirement.
• Identify the serious injury the government will sustain if the action to limit competition is delayed, including risk to person- nel safety or risk to mission failure.
• Discuss the circumstances of the urgency and how it occurred. • Identify when we were first made aware of the urgent need. • Characterize the urgency by explaining why we are taking action now to limit competition.
• If procuring items, identify the quantity of those items and how we determined that the stated quantity meets the govern- ment’s minimum, urgent need.
DENNIS P. LONGO retired from Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Maryland, on July 31 after 39 years in public service. He was advocate for competition, task and delivery order ombudsman and senior procurement analyst at the Army Contracting Command at APG. A member of the Army Acquisition Corps, he holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Baltimore, is Level III certified in contracting and acquisition, and his assignments included acquisition specialist at the Program Manager for Chemical Demilitarization and procurement analyst at the U.S. Army Legal Services Agency. He served in the military from 1971 to 1973 at the Southern European Task Force – Italy, and deployed to Iraq as a civilian in 2003. He authored the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) Continuous Learning DOD Purchase Card Tutorial in 2002, the DASA (P) Competition in Army Contracting course in 2019 and the DAU CON 0160 Competition in Contracting course in 2020. He taught courses on competition in contracting since 2004. Te first of the author's On Contracting articles appeared in the Winter 2020 edition of Army AL&T.
78
Army AL&T Magazine
Fall 2021
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