I'm born/bred/live in central Ky but I have immediate family living in Cincy, West Alexandria, and Dublin OH.

I'm retired from a federal gov job and I know that from about the last of July to the end of Sept, all departments were advised to finish expenditures so accounts could be balanced before end of federal year. As for bidding out POs, we had federal guidelines to follow on what had to be bidded on. I don't recall all of the guidlines and regulations since most of that was handled by the program accountants but I didn't bid out for anything unless it was over 5 grand. Even then there were instances where multiple agencies would collaborate to make bulk purchases to divide up between the agencies.

I'll say this too for the OP of this thread. There could be a bid process your company has used/taken advantage of without you having direct knowledge of it. The federal gov is doing a lot of contracts now and those aren't always under the same regulations that normal day to day operations might fall under. Depending on how the contract is written the bid process may have already been addressed within the terms of the contract and you wouldn't necessarily know that unless you'd read that specific contract.

So maybe you could do another check on the bid process that was/wasn't used just to alleviate any concerns you might have about the no bid portion discussed in your posts here. I'm a bit curious myself.