Foreword

Foreword

This handbook provides a pocket-sized guide that is designed to serve as a quick reference functional guide during your assignment. It is not designed to be all encompassing, or to replace governing instructions, regulations, or directives.

You are the COR

The Department of Defense awards contingency contracts for supplies and services (including construction projects). In fiscal year 2009 alone, the value of those contracts topped $5B.¹ The contracting officer's representative (COR) has a key role in monitoring the contracts to ensure that our nation's Armed Forces receive the supplies and services they need to accomplish their assigned mission. The COR also is a crucial link between the contractor and the contracting officer.

Failure to monitor contracts effectively can result in critical supplies and support services being late, deficient, or not within the scope of contract requirements. A competent and dedicated COR can ensure success. The COR serves as the eyes and ears of the contracting officer to make sure that the government receives high-quality supplies and services on time, within the agreed-upon price, and that the supplies and services meet all contract requirements.

This handbook addresses contract support in a contingency operational environment. The handbook is large in order to provide the most thorough, comprehensive resource possible for both first-time and experienced CORs who may not have access to the Internet or other such tools. It presents the following key lessons:

• Contracting is not the action of a single entity. Effective and cost-efficient support of contingency contracts is a team effort of the requiring unit, contractor, resource manager, contracting officer, COR, and other entities as needed.
• The COR plays an important role in monitoring the contract, overseeing the contractor, reporting on performance, developing performance remedies if necessary,² reviewing contract changes, and accepting (or rejecting) contract deliverables.
• Several issues can get CORs into trouble. Those issues include having inadequate protection in high-threat areas, crossing lines of authority, making unauthorized commitments, and accepting, but not reporting, gifts.

A working group—consisting of representatives from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy), Defense Acquisition University, Program Support, Joint Staff, Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Defense Contract Management Agency— developed this handbook. It is based on Deployed COR Handbook (No 08-47), published in September 2008 by the US Army Combined Arms Center (via the Center for Army Lessons Learned). The working group supplemented the Army handbook with additional information to make it appropriate as a Joint resource.

Notes

0. The Defense Manpower Data Center calculated $5,004,808,517 in spending on 32,536 contingency contracting actions. These numbers reflect contract dollars and actions awarded by the Joint Contracting Command–Iraq/Afghanistan. Top
0. The COR cannot direct the contractor to perform work outside the scope of the contract without administrative contracting officer or procuring contracting officer direction. Top

Mr Shay Assad
Director of Defense Procurement
and Acquisition Policy