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New IAS Controls to Enforce January 21, 2025, Moratorium
A memorandum issued by the Acting Secretary on January 21, 2025, titled “Hiring, Regulatory and Obligation of Funding Moratoriums” included the following:
In order to ensure that grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts entered into on January 21, 2025, and thereafter conform to all applicable laws and policies of the new Administration, a short-term moratorium on the execution of such documents is effective immediately. In addition, no action shall be taken to issue new requests for proposals and no notices of funding availability shall be issued.
To comply with this memorandum, the Integrated Acquisition System (IAS) has added a new validation that requires an additional approval on all IAS requisitions, solicitations and awards. Starting immediately, all requisitions, solicitations and awards will require the selection of a user with the MORATORIUM012125 Route Role in IAS. Individuals with the MORATORIUM012125 route role can approve transactions. IAS Agency Leads will be assigned the MORATORIUM012125 route role, but additional individuals may be assigned this role as time progresses and Mission Areas define their processes for reviewing and approving transactions."
Existing requisitions, solicitations and awards that were pending approval (in a “Pending” status in PRISM) have had their routes canceled to comply with this memorandum. These documents will need to be resubmitted with user with the MORATORIUM012125 Route Role included in the approval.
Additional details about this change by document type (requisition, solicitation and award) can be found below.
Requisition Details
The memorandum states that no action shall be taken to issue notices of funding availability. To enforce this, requisitioners will now be required to select a user with the Budget Approver route role and a user with the MORATORIUM012125 Route Role when creating or amending a requisition.
Failure to select an individual with the MORATORIUM012125 role will result in an error message when attempting to route the requisition for approval.
Requisitioners can search for users that have the MORATORIUM012125 route role by changing the search criteria to only return results for those with that route role:
After selecting the individual, update the Route Role to be MORATORIUM012125:
The order in which the requisition is routed to the Budget Approver or MORATORIUM012125 approver does not matter provided both are on the route.
Solicitation Details
The memorandum states that no action shall be taken to issue new requests for proposals. To enforce this, Buyers/Contracting Officers (COs) will now be required to select a user with the MORATORIUM012125 Route Role when creating or amending a solicitation.
Buyers/COs that had self-approval privileges on solicitations will no longer have this privilege and will not see the “Approve” icon.
When creating or amending a solicitation, Failure to select an individual with the MORATORIUM012125 role will result in an error message when attempting to route the solicitation for approval.
 Buyers/COs can search for users that have the MORATORIUM012125 route role by changing the search criteria to only return results for those with that route role:
After selecting the individual, update the Route Role to be MORATORIUM012125:
 Award Details
The memorandum requires a short-term moratorium on the execution of contracts. To enforce this, Buyers/Contracting Officers (COs) will now be required to select a user with the MORATORIUM012125 Route Role when creating or modifying an award.
Buyers/COs that had self-approval privileges on awards will no longer have this privilege and will not see the “Approve” icon.
Failure to select an individual with the MORATORIUM012125 role will result in an error message when attempting to route the solicitation for approval.
 Buyers/COs can search for users that have the MORATORIUM012125 route role by changing the search criteria to only return results for those with that route role:
After selecting the individual, update the Route Role to be MORATORIUM012125:
Agencies that have electronic signature functionality enabled will also require the Contracting Officer to be on the route. Failure to include the Contracting Officer on the route will result in a warning message:
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