September Is the Month Nobody Asks You Anything
For four straight fiscal years, the month DoD posted the fewest sources sought notices was September, and the month it posted the most sole source justifications was the same one. Market research runs a third below the yearly rate while justifications run twice above it. Here is what that does to the 177 contracts on our pipeline that come off contract before April.
If you watch sources sought notices to tell you which of your recompetes are waking up, the next thirty days are going to lie to you.
Across the last four complete fiscal years, the month the Department of Defense posted the fewest of them was September. Every time.
The rest of the year runs about 1,163 a month. September runs 790 (chart below).
Over the same four years, the sole source justification count goes the other way in the same month, from a 239 baseline to 463. Also every time.
So the two lines converge in the twelfth month, and they converge because the same people control both.
The Swap
September is execution month. The money that was appropriated for the fiscal year has to be on contract by the 30th or it goes back, and every contracting officer in the building is working a closeout list.
A sources sought notice has no deadline attached to it. It is discretionary work that pays off eighteen months from now, which makes it the first thing off the desk when the desk is full.
A justification is the opposite kind of paperwork. It is what has to exist before an award that skipped competition can be signed, so it moves with the awards.
And the awards do surge. Mean DoD award notices go from 4,304 a month across the year to 6,383 in September, up 48%.
Justifications go up 94%, roughly twice as fast. The year-end pile leans harder on the exceptions than the extra volume alone explains.
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