The Defense Department is finalizing a proposal for how to spend more than $1 billion lawmakers appropriated for fiscal year 2023 for "revised economic assumptions" related to specific contracts beset by historic inflation, according to Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord.
The FY-23 National Defense Authorization Act contained a provision that, “subject to specified appropriations,” would provide “temporary authority” until Dec. 31, 2023 to modify fixed-price contracts to give economic price adjustments to contractors squeezed by inflation.
McCord, who spoke with reporters at the annual McAleese & Associates conference in Washington, said congressional appropriators, however, chose not to fund the provision after DOD was unable to provide clear, contract-by-contract data on cost impacts.
“That’s where we didn’t get the dots connected,” he said. “We didn’t present them a very clear bill. We presented them a conceptual bill.”
But the lawmakers, he said, did add $1.05 billion to the FY-23 omnibus for “revised economic assumptions, which I interpret as inflation.”
To that end, he said, DOD is almost ready to submit a “prioritized” spending plan to Congress.
“The list is ready,” he said, but added that some work remained on the explanatory justifications required by appropriators as his team was busy crafting the recently released FY-24 budget request.