Sources sought notices and requests for information (RFIs) are market research tools agencies use before writing a solicitation, not the solicitation itself. Responding matters because it gives the contracting officer documented evidence to set the work aside for small businesses and to avoid writing requirements only one company can meet. Skip these notices, and you're showing up after the requirement and the set-aside decision are already locked in.
Hurricane Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, on October 9, 2026, as a Category 2 storm, and recovery is still in the emergency stage. Federal emergency declarations for parts of Florida, Alabama, and Georgia currently fund only emergency protective measures. That means most contractor work right now runs through counties, cities, and established prime contractors. An active SAM.gov registration with a Disaster Response Registry listing is the first step toward getting involved.
In commercial business, overhead is a private number folded into your price, and customers judge only the price. In government contracting, overhead becomes a structured, visible rate: indirect costs are grouped into defined pools, applied through calculated rates, and, on cost-type work, billed provisionally and settled against actuals. The difference shapes how you price, what your accounting system must do, and how buyers judge whether your numbers are realistic.
Government buyers care about incurred cost submissions because on cost-reimbursement and time-and-materials contracts, the government pays a contractor's actual allowable costs, and the annual submission is how those costs get verified and settled. Commercial buyers rarely look inside a supplier's books, while a federal buyer paying actual costs must. The submission is due within six months of the contractor's fiscal year end, and being ready for it signals readiness for cost-type work.
Updated October 9, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. EDT (2:00 p.m. CDT) with the latest National Hurricane Center forecast and emergency declaration status.
If you want to help with recovery work after Hurricane Isaias, confirm your SAM registration is active and join the Disaster Response Registry now. Florida has asked for a federal emergency declaration, but none had been approved as of Friday afternoon, and the federal preference for local businesses only applies once one covers your county. The earliest work moves quickly, so getting ready now makes sure buyers can find you.
The biggest change to procurement forecasting heading into FY2027 is standardization, not full consolidation. In November 2024, OMB directed agencies to standardize forecast data and centralize it on GSA's Forecast of Contracting Opportunities (FCO) tool, with alignment due by the end of Q3 FY2026. That deadline has passed, but adoption remains uneven. Treat the FCO tool as a starting point for FY2027 research, not the only stop.
Building an FY2027 pursuit team means assigning, before the year's opportunities arrive, who covers each part of winning federal work, from finding and qualifying opportunities to writing proposals, keeping compliance current, and delivering after award. For most small contractors, that team blends internal roles, teaming partners, and outside support, and naming who owns each job is what keeps pursuits from stalling against a deadline.
CPARS still uses the five-point adjectival scale. The negative-events-only model that circulated widely in late 2025 was proposed in both chambers of the FY2026 defense authorization but was dropped before the bill was signed on December 18, 2025. What did change is where past performance gets used. Under the FAR overhaul, evaluations on contracts awarded on or after April 1, 2026 can inform decisions across the full contract lifecycle, not just source selection.
NOAA's 2026 Atlantic hurricane outlook calls for a below-normal season, with 7 to 13 named storms, 2 to 6 hurricanes, and 0 to 2 major hurricanes as El Nino conditions strengthen. The outlook measures overall activity, not landfalls, and a single landfall creates the same federal response needs as a busy year. For contractors, readiness decisions belong on their own schedule, ahead of the August-to-October peak, regardless of the seasonal numbers.
FY2027 begins October 1, 2026, and as of September, Congress had not enacted full-year appropriations, so the year will most likely open under a continuing resolution rather than final funding. That typically means slower new-award activity, cautious handling of option years, and continuity purchases moving first. Contractors who confirm their SAM registration, track expiring contracts, and watch the simplified acquisition lane can still compete in this window.
