Think your contract win means guaranteed income? Not so fast.

To say the government’s money is tight is to understate the obvious.

What's also obvious is that if programs get no funding, then the money intended for contracts supporting those programs will dry up too.

That's likely to happen to more contracts in 2012, Larry Allen, president of Allen Federal Business Partners, wrote Jan. 30 in his “The Week Ahead” newsletter. Winning a contract and assuming officials have funding approved for it doesn’t work anymore.

“Tougher decisions have to be made on what ‘approved’ projects actually reach the level of ‘funded,’” he wrote.

In these trying days, contractors need to ask agency officials several questions early on in the procurement process:

1.) Will this project be funded?

2.) Will it be funded in an amount close to the estimate the acquisition office gave in its proposal?

Allen said agency officials may not have the answers right away, but it’s to your company’s advantage to ask.

Without knowing, you could be wasting time -- time is usually money -- on a project that isn't going to generate the real green paper. That means you may have lost out twice on one bid.

Allen’s lesson is clear:

“Make sure you know that the project you’re spending time on is something the government will spend money on.”

Posted by Matthew Weigelt on Jan 30, 2012 at 11:55 AM