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B-317636 1 (2009-04-21)

handle is hein.gao/gaobadavg0001 and id is 1 raw text is: £ Accountability * Integrity * Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 B-317636 April 21, 2009 The Honorable Joseph I. Lieberman Chairman, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs United States Senate The Honorable Susan M. Collins Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs United States Senate Subject: Severable Services Contracts This responds to your request for our legal opinion on whether 10 U.S.C. § 2410a and 41 U.S.C. § 2531restrict a federal agency using multiple year or no-year appropriations to contracts for periods of performance no longer than 1 year. Both of these provisions permit agencies to enter into severable services contracts that cross fiscal years for up to 1 year and obligate the appropriations current at the time the agencies enter into the contract. In our opinion, these statutory provisions do not restrict to 1 year the contract periods of severable services contracts funded by no- year appropriations or by multiple year appropriations. BACKGROUND The two statutes at issue in this opinion authorize agencies to enter into severable services contracts that begin in one fiscal year and end no more than 12 months later, in the next fiscal year. The first, 10 U.S.C. § 2410a (hereafter section 2410a) applies to severable services contracts entered into by the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and the Coast Guard in certain circumstances. Section 2410a originated as a permanent provision in the General Provisions section of the 1986 Department of Defense Appropriations Act. Pub. L. No. 99-190, § 8005, 99 Stat. 1185, 'Our general practice when issuing opinions is to obtain the views of the relevant agency to establish a factual record and the agency's legal position on the subject of the request. GAO, Procedures and Practices for Legal Decisions and Opinions, GAO-06-1064SP (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 2006), available at www.gao.gov/legal/resources.html. In this case, we did not solicit any agency's views because the request involves the interpretation of two statutory provisions that have general applicability, not particular applicability or relevance to any one agency.

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