The Warrant Bottleneck: How Restricting Contracting Officers Slows Down Procurement

I would almost swear that the DOGE is looking at old playbooks of mine and one by one destroying methods I used that allowed me to be super-responsive to my customers (pronounced “efficient and effective”).? The latest EO "Implementing the President's 'Department of Government Efficiency' Cost Efficiency Initiative" that has me rolling my eyes is the restriction of warrants. We’ll see how this one gets DOGE’d-up.

For those who don’t know, a warrant is the official authority granted to a Contracting Officer to bind the U.S. Government in contracts.? You don’t typically go to classes for a few weeks and then be trusted to write a $100M contract, ya know.? It takes study and on-the-job training, culminating in an intense tribunal. I sat on many, many “warrant boards” and could see a huge difference in candidates with over 5 years of experience, and many smart ones cracked and failed under the pressure that simulated the decision-making process as a Contracting Officer.

When I got my first unlimited warrant (meaning I could contract on the Govt’s behalf for an unlimited amount of money), I had 3 years as a COPPER CAP (GS 5/7/9/11) intern and 1 year (barely) as a measly GS-11. Nobody worried about restricting warrants bc there were plenty of qualified people with a decade of experience as a contract specialist, so at 4 years, in 1991, that was unusual at my location.? ?Fresh out of our 3-year internships, we competed fiercely for the responsibility.

Fast forward to 2011 and a leadership mindset to keep warrants precious by having only so many per buying office and at a time when there were fewer qualified employees due to an influx of interns and an outflux of old-timers.? I took over a branch of 25-30 personnel that had had 4 warrants, including my position.? We weren’t able to hire more Contracting Officers and I wasn’t allowed to borrow from other offices.? That meant that about 70% of my office’s workload had to flow through me in addition to my branch chief and supervisory responsibilities, and if I wasn’t working insane overtime (free and a violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act), then I was the bottleneck and my SOF guys weren’t getting what they needed in the field. I was able to bring in employees from other bases who’d had warrants but couldn’t be warranted at my base until they stood the dreaded warrant board because our warrants were the gold standard (AFMC, if you’re wondering). They were so rigorous in fact, that some candidates who were qualified refused to go through that kind of stress to be appointed.?

I was desperate.? We couldn’t get the work done fast enough, so I was told I had to “grow your own,” which meant that it would take at least a year to get my best interns trained and boarded.? I fought the idea that we could have only X number of warrants in a busy office because of some arbitrary need to keep them precious.? I was working with a DARPA office at the time where pretty much everyone in their office had a warrant and they were super-efficient.

So I came up with a compromise:? “limited” Contracting Officers.? Those non-interns who were trained enough to take care of the contracts under $5M.? I handled everything above that.? Some limiteds went on to the board later; some chose not to.? But that was what was absolutely necessary to get the work done and support our warfighters.

It's not like everyone can pass the test or even wants to, so having more people with warrants was not a bad idea anywhere I ever worked.? When you start to restrict the number of Contracting Officers, you have fewer people who can negotiate, award, or terminate those contracts.? That slows down your lead times.? And that slows down the time it takes for contractors to provide the supply or service needed in the field to people who may DIE without it.

#Contracting #ContractingOfficers #procurement #acquisition #Efficiency