This proposal seeks to bring uniformity to procurement thresholds following the increase of the micro-purchase threshold from $3,000 to $10,000 in the NDAA for FY 2018.
A procurement threshold is the lowest level at which you can award a contract as a sole source to one particular company rather than opening it up for competition. This applies when a job is so small that trying to find enough companies to compete for the work would be too costly for the government.
So this new proposal increases that threshold to also apply to multiple-award contracts, not just single. What this means is if I, as a federal contractor, already have a multiple award IDIQ contract with a government agency, they can issue these micro-purchase orders without competition, as long as they do not exceed $10,000 in value. This makes it more fair to all contractors whether they’re in single or multiple award contracts.
There’s always a risk that the contracting officers will break the jobs up into smaller increments, particularly in DoD where the micro-threshold level is higher. That we will see only with practice, as it were.
At TAPE we’re always interested in more opportunities for sole sourcing, because that allows a customer relationship to flourish. Hopefully this proposal will have that effect.
