Structural teardown · 10 U.S.C. § 2679
The bones of the Sourcewell military IGSA
Strip away the press releases and an IGSA is a short list of load-bearing requirements: what the statute actually mandates, how Sourcewell adapted the language, and the twenty-plus DoD agreements proving the structure is ordinary — not exotic.
Statutory element — fixed by 10 U.S.C. § 2679 Load‑bearing member — TIPS must supply it The element the member hangs from
Section 01 · The structure
Every bone in a lawful IGSA
Ten elements carry the whole structure. Nine come straight out of the statute; the tenth is the absence of a form — which is where indemnity, bonding, and insurance get negotiated in.
Section 02 · Load-bearing structure
What a TIPS duplication cannot do without
Five members carry the load. Remove any one and the agreement either fails the statute or fails the installation.
Section 03 · Side by side
Classic IGSA vs. the Sourcewell adaptation
One statute, two very different builds. Congress wrote § 2679 imagining the city next door. Sourcewell read the same words as a nationwide cooperative-procurement pass-through — and the ceiling on how far that reading can be pushed is the reason a TIPS version would have to look almost identical to it.
Characterizing Sourcewell's arrangement as a nationwide pass-through rather than local service-sharing is an analytical reading of the sourced facts below, not a quotation from any single source. Gordian's own materials describe the mechanism as a way to route work around the Mission and Installation Contracting Command (Gordian); ADC describes it as diversifying procurement "beyond what can be purchased through the General Services Administration" (Defense Communities).
Section 04 · How common this is
IGSAs are not rare. They are the trend.
45 agreements in 2018. More than 200 DoD-wide by 2025. The Army alone reports 185+ IGSAs producing over $105 million in annual savings. Sourcewell did not invent a loophole — it walked through a door the services have been widening for a decade.
2018 figure from GAO-19-4 (45 IGSAs at 33 installations). 2023 and 2025 figures from the ADC 2023 IGSA Report and ADC 2025 report. 2024 Army count of 165 quoted by the Assistant Secretary of the Army (IE&E) at the Pentagon signing (Sourcewell). Army-only and DoD-wide counts are different populations and are labelled as such.
Verified DoD IGSA analogues — the same authority, unremarkable scopes
| Installation | Branch | Public entity (the prime) | Year | Scope | Published savings |
|---|
Additional installations listed in the ADC 2023 report with no individually published savings: . Sources per row: ADC 2023 IGSA Report, GAO-19-4, WRMCA IGSA webinar, Virginia VADA Army Partnerships briefing.
Section 05 · Stress points
Where the structure is known to crack
The oversight is thinner than FAR contracting, but it is not absent. Four documented stress points define how far the language can be adapted.
Section 06 · The read
Replication checklist — and the deviation ceiling
Findings
The structure is duplicable. It is not, however, redesignable: Sourcewell's adaptation already occupies most of the flexibility § 2679 provides, so a TIPS program would be built along the same lines rather than a novel one.