With Federal Fiscal Year End rapidly approaching, government buyers can breathe a sigh of relief that the spending frenzy is almost over. But, you’re probably reading stories and anecdotes in the media about examples of wasteful spending that occurred during the last few weeks of the fiscal year as agencies rushed to spend their “use it or lose it” dollars.

Congress first enacted federal appropriations law in 1809. It’s kept lawyers, contractors, and judges busy ever since. A question arising in many sellers’ minds at this time of year is, what money is available for contracts in more than one fiscal year?

With federal fiscal year-end (FFYE) right around the corner, at DLT we’re committed to making the job of the procurement officer as easy as possible as they scramble to make smart and responsible purchasing decisions with remaining taxpayer dollars.

One thing we know about fiscal 2019: There will be plenty of money to go around. The hyper-partisanship that characterizes the government’s political class means that for the second year in a row, there’s more money for guns and butter.

Autodesk introduced its Autodesk Collections a couple of years ago and there’s never been a better time to make the switch from individual product subscriptions to a collection. Thanks to a limited time offer from Autodesk, your agency can save 20% on the remaining months of your existing term if you switch by October 25, 2018.

But what’s the buzz about collections and why make the move?

Why Make the Move to Autodesk Collections?

It’s that time again, when agencies rush to spend their remaining year-end budget before the September 30^th “use it or lose it” deadline. One-third of federal budget dollars are spent in the last quarter of the year, often in a wasteful manner. But for those in the field of digital design – there are many opportunities to make value-based investments using taxpayer dollars before it’s too late.

1. Training

This week we sat down with DLT Senior Director of Program Management, Steve Wells, to discuss how DLT's contract expertise can be beneficial to its technology company clients and public sector customers, particularly as we approach the end of the Federal Fiscal Year. We also discussed Steve's military career, of which he just celebrated a major milestone.

Interviewer: Hi Steve, thanks for sitting down with us today. To start, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you do at DLT.

An irony of late appropriations – as the federal government experienced for the umpteenth time in fiscal 2018 – is that rather than rush to spend, your federal customers are actually spending at rates below what they’re authorized to spend. That makes it harder to maximize the year-end spending blitz.

It takes some doing, but if you’ve got the fortitude to plow through reports from the Bureau of the Fiscal Services and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it’s possible to discern that agencies simply might not have the time and manpower to execute on every program.

The 2018 federal busy season, or FFYE, is upon us. With almost one-third of agency dollars being awarded during the last quarter of the fiscal year, this is peak buying season and the busiest time of year for federal procurement officers.

If you’re wondering where to spend your federal fiscal year-end dollars, no doubt cybersecurity is top of mind. With threats increasing and constantly evolving, protecting federal systems, networks, and data has never been more important.

But this year, there’s a new imperative for federal CIOs – the Presidential Executive Order on Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure.