Conrad Special was pouring himself a cup of coffee on 27 September 2018 at the BSD contracting office, when the phone rang. Brigadier General Combat, the commanding general at Fort Outpost, had called to say that he was delighted to hear on CNN that Congress had finally passed its first legislation related to the FY19 budget - the FY 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.The General had two questions concerning two of Conrad's contracts.

First, Fort Outpost's installation base support services contract (for security, recreation activities, vehicle maintenance, janitorial services, and the like) with Doall, Inc., was of the utmost concern to the General. He wondered why Conrad had not exercised Doall's options for base support services beginning 1 October 2018 through 30 September 2019.

Second, the General said Mr. Einstein, Director of the U.S. Special Operations Test and Evaluation Command (USSOTEC), a tenant activity on Fort Outpost, had $250,000 of FY 2018 Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) funds available to fund maintenance support for his laboratory equipment for FY19. Doall provides laboratory equipment maintenance to USSOTEC under a services contract. There is an option in the contract for laboratory equipment maintenance services. The General wanted the option exercised and the $250,000 obligated by the next day, September 28th. Of course there could be contractual issues such as whether the services are currently needed, whether they can be obtained more efficiently by competing under a new requirement, and whether advance notice of the option exercise is required. Assuming all of the contractual issues are resolved in favor of exercising the option,Conrad wants to know if using the RDT&E funds to exercise the option is allowable.

Conrad came to me for advice as to whether he could accommodate the General's requests.I told him I thought we could. I'd like to know if I advised him correctly. This is all hypothetical...ofcourse.