The Past Performance Gap That Isn’t Actually A Gap
Federal evaluators are allowed to credit your state and local work, but they only do it for contractors who document it like a federal record.
We’ll Cover
Bottom Line Up Front
Week in Numbers
Core Intel Report: Why the “no CPARS” problem is smaller than you think, and where it’s real
The Edge: Mentor-Protégé and JVs as a past performance bridge
Competitive Advantage Monitor: The one rule change that favors small primes
Signal vs Noise
The Play of the Week: The reference package structure evaluators can score
Bottom Line Up Front
Federal rules let offerors cite state, local, and private contracts as past performance. The catch is that evaluators decide how relevant those contracts are, and they score what you give them. Build a reference package that looks like a federal evaluation record before your next bid.
Week in Numbers
3 to 5 years. Evaluators typically weigh relevance (similar size, scope, and complexity) and recency, usually within the last 3 to 5 years. A 2019 city contract is already aging out. Pull your most recent work forward.
40%. In a small business mentor-protégé joint venture, the small business partner must perform at least 40% of the work performed by the joint venture. If you plan to borrow a mentor’s past performance, you also have to do real work.
51%. For a separate-entity joint venture, the small business must own at least 51% of the joint venture entity. That is the ownership line that keeps the JV eligible for set-aside work.
Core Intel Report
What the rule says. For negotiated procurements, the solicitation must give offerors the chance to identify past or current contracts, including Federal, State, and local government and private, for efforts similar to the Government requirement. So non-federal work is permitted by design. It isn’t a workaround.
Where the real gap is. CPARS is the government’s primary system for documenting contractor performance on federal contracts. You can’t get a CPARS record for a county contract. That absence is not the problem. The problem is that most contractors submit nothing in its place.
The risk if you submit nothing. An offeror with no relevant past performance may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably. That’s a neutral score. It doesn’t eliminate you, but it puts you behind competitors who have records.
The part that decides outcomes. Relevance is agency discretion. GAO has said that determining the relevance of an offeror’s performance history is a matter of agency discretion, which GAO won’t find improper unless it conflicts with the solicitation’s criteria. You won’t win a protest because an evaluator undervalued your state work. You win it by making the relevance obvious before they score.
One agency’s clause shows what evaluators are looking for. It lists contracts with Federal, State and local governments, and commercial businesses, which are of similar scope, magnitude, relevance, and complexity to the requirement, and tells offerors not to submit general information. The same clause says the government may contact references other than the ones you identify. That is the exact EPA clause, but the pattern is common.
The 11+ years under a GSA prime showed me one thing about evaluation: the proposals that read like the solicitation’s own language get scored faster. Mirror the factors. Don’t tell your story.
Who should pay attention. Contractors who grew on city, county, school district, or state work and are bidding their first federal prime. Also anyone relying on a past performance volume that is two pages of marketing.
What This Signals Next (analysis, not fact)
Rules are moving. The Revolutionary FAR Overhaul restructured Part 15, and the model deviation substantially revises the content previously at section 15.305. I could not confirm how the new text treats non-federal references, so I’m not citing a new section number. Read each solicitation’s evaluation language. Don’t assume the old FAR text.
Next 30 to 90 days: Expect agencies on RFO deviations to use varying evaluation language. Check Section M of every solicitation before you decide what to cite.
Velocity Framework fit: This is the framework working as designed. Local and state contracts build the record. The federal bid then converts that record into evaluation credit, but only if you package it.
The Edge: Mentor-Protégé And JVs As A Past Performance Bridge
Why it matters this quarter. If your own record is thin, a JV can attribute a partner’s record to the offer. Under SBA’s rule, a procuring activity must consider work done and qualifications held individually by each partner to the joint venture, as well as any work done by the joint venture itself.
The 2024 change. The rule was revised so that a procuring activity has discretion on whether to require a protégé or lead small business member to demonstrate some level of past performance, and may rely solely on the mentor’s. That helps the protégé. It also means you can’t assume the evaluator will look at your record, so read the solicitation.
