Glossary term
Contracting Officer (CO / KO)
The only government official with authority to enter into, modify, or terminate a contract.
The contracting officer holds a warrant defining the dollar limits of their authority, and is the sole person who can commit the government contractually. Direction from anyone else — a COR, a program manager, an end user — does not modify the contract, however senior they are. When scope creeps, the question to ask is always whether the contracting officer has issued a modification.
Categories
- contract-admin