A Stimulating Timetable
The debate over the economic stimulus package has come and gone. I remain on the fence, but this recent article reminded me of how long it takes for your average “shovel ready” project to begin. Here’s the steps:
- Congress passes the law and the president signs it.
- The federal government distributes the money down to the organizational level where contracts are executed, or the money is distributed to the states. Two weeks (at least).
- The executing agency prepared the work package and the solicitation. Assume that the project is “shovel ready” meaning that the work is already identified and defined, and a specification was written up beforehand. Two weeks.
- These are major projects, so you’re going to have to synopsize the work package for 15 days on FedBizOpps (if this is a federal procurement). This informs potential offerers of the general scope of what you will be contracting out. Following synopsis, you will issue the solicitation. The bids are due prior to the bid opening, which will occur 30 days after the solicitation is issued.
- If this is a negotiated procurement — a request for proposal (RFP) instead of an invitation for bid (IFB) — then give at least two weeks for negotiations. Most high dollar projects are RFPs.
- Once the agency decides who they want to award the contract to, give at least two weeks for legal review, congressional notification, and other administrative tasks.
- The agency awards the contract. Two months after award, work begins (this gives the contractor time to plan their production schedule, hire workers, and purchase material).
- Two to four weeks after the start of performance, the contractor begins receiving progress payments.
In other words, about six months after the president signs the law the first check from the federal government gets mailed out (actually, payment is distributed via EFT). This, of course, is for the most shovel ready projects. Projects where the work scope isn’t entirely defined, where there are technical or political issues to be worked out, or that require an environmental impact survey, will all take much longer. Your average recession from 1854-2001 lasted 17 months.