Friday, September 6, 2013

PSC Responds to Rules Expanding Executive Compensation Cap Coverage

PSC, through the Council of Defense and Space Industry Associations (CODSIA), on August 26, responded to interim and proposed FAR rules to implement the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provision requiring the cap on executive compensation to apply to all employees performing under defense contracts.

The two sets of comments, available here and here raised concerns that the interim and proposed rules improperly applied the expansion to contracts that were forged before the law expanding coverage went into effect on December 31, 2011. Such retroactive applications would cause the government to breach all contracts established before the effective date, CODSIA said. In addition, CODSIA said that, contrary to the rules’ Regulatory Flexibility Act statements, the rules did impose a burden on contractors, particularly small businesses, to maintain more than one billing rate structure for 2012, 2013, and possibly several years into the future. Many systems are not designed or configured to process different rates for the same work, the comments said.