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dcsnarkington t1_j0aj3c0 wrote

Reply to comment by cefromnova in For You Feds and Those That Follow OPM by ChubsBronco

This is just delayed start which is essentially optional. I have never heard of a delayed start impacting contractor pay or invoicing.

If it were a full closure, on a T&M basis or a Cost+ in a very strict contract where the govt is not approving work except on site then the government would not pay the firm for those hours. Typically however the contractor would try to justify work offsite when the govt is closed, perhaps doing planning or training.

This generally would never apply on a firm fixed price basis, which is probably around half of the projects these days.

That said for most any white color work t&m, cost+, or ffp even when the govt closes unexpectedly they would have their employees bill to overhead or g&a and doing company training or other corporate function work. They would be very unlikely to not pay their employees as most of the time people are salaried anyways.

Now if you were an hourly employee, and your company was annoyingly tough on the bottom line. I could see the employee not getting paid during a closure. I have never personally seen that happen, but I dont do any facilities work (cleaning, landscaping etc.)

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MarkinDC24 t1_j0b5e5l wrote

I can smell your FAR certification ☺️.

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cefromnova t1_j0bknel wrote

Our contract states plain as day that if the government is not there, we cannot be there and we cannot bill hours. I've worked on many contracts yet this is the first one I've ever seen written like this. People can continue to downvote the hell out of me but it doesn't make what I'm saying any less true.

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veloharris t1_j0blode wrote

Sounds like you need a new contract.

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FancyRatFridays t1_j0bsgw6 wrote

Or a new government office. I used to have a contract like this, but none of the feds ever took advantage of the late start (unless the weather was truly unreasonable) so for me, both work and pay carried on as normal. No big deal.

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dcsnarkington t1_j0brs1a wrote

I believe it. I've never heard of that applying during a delay though.

For today's 2 hour delay are you guys not authorized to bill for the 2 hours?

If not are you authorized to bill direct to contract, are you going to bill to another charge line g&a or ovr?

...and if you dont mind me asking, are you not getting paid?

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cefromnova t1_j0dhvmk wrote

We were fortunate today and had a govie come in at the normal start time. If that didn't happen, we were told by contract program management that we would have to take PTO for the 2 hours as the government denied allowing us the ability to make up the hours by either adding them to the end of a work day or working a weekend day.

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dcsnarkington t1_j0dnvjz wrote

Yikes man, forcing your employees to take PTO is not great. I'd have my folks do training on overhead or g&a in this circumstance. I'd be unhappy about that.

You know the funny thing about all of this is that the govt doesn't get unspent money back. Once the money is sent over to the KO, and if it's not executed during the contract year the customer agency doesn't get to use that money for anything else. It goes back to the treasury.

Even if we're talking about 100 contractors, 2 hours of unspent labor is at most maybe $30k. This is budget dust to most any agency, however you are doing material damage to the personal finances of your contractors.

Some organizations are dicks. I have folks who had literally no accomodations during COVID from the beginning pre-vax. Nothing. Just keep coming in... while the govt all changed to telework. Irresponsible disregard for health and safety

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cefromnova t1_j0dzc6o wrote

Yep, I was on a contract like that during COVID. I worked in the office the entire pandemic, no telework allowed. We were even forced to do shift work because COVID protocols would not allow for all of us to be present in the office at the same time.

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