[kensey]

This is a big reason I became disillusioned very quickly with US federal contracting and have distanced myself firmly from anything to do with it for the past several years. To a contractor the idea of saving the taxpayer money by accomplishing the contract goals early and/or under-budget is ludicrous — I was told in so many words by my management “the contract allows for up to X option years for a total of up to Y dollars, and we intend to get as many of those years and dollars as we can up to the full value, not leave them lying on the table. And our customer wants the same thing, because they need to fully spend their allocated budget.”

Basically large parts of US federal contracting run indistinguishably from a make-work program for contract firms and the COTRs and other contract-management staff working with them. It’s a major reason I’m certain that “modern IT” efforts like 18F or USDS or “groundbreaking” reforms like FITARA will never be allowed to amount to much (absent a Truman-style “integrate the military and I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about it” mandate) — there’s too much money and too many staff wrapped up in the way things currently work, which is how they’ve worked longer than most of the people now in the system have been alive. None of the modernization or reforms will ever be completely terminated or repealed, because they’re too useful to point to as evidence that “see, we are aware of the problem and we are doing something about it”. Just as long as “something” never has any significant long-term impact on anybody’s budget, allocated FTEs, or revenue.