Iowa Department Of Public Defense

Iowa Department Of Public Defense, a U.S. state government entity and child unit of the Iowa Department of Agriculture, operates as a prime recipient of federal cooperative agreements and lodging service contracts supporting military training and National Guard operations. The department competes exclusively full-and-open (no set-asides used across its footprint) and is structured to provide temporary housing accommodations and facilities management for the Department of the Army, the Department of the Air Force, and the Navy Reserve.

The department's federal footprint is heavily concentrated in National Guard cooperative agreements and lodging services. The top customer by award count is the Department of the Army National Guard with 200 awards, followed by the Department of the Army Iowa Army National Guard with 94 awards; the Department of the Air Force and the Department of the Air Force Air National Guard combine for 57 awards. These five customer entities account for 83% of all awards. The Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons North Central Regional Office represents a secondary customer with 5 awards, including a $12.5 thousand purchase order for a lease of Camp Dodge facilities for crisis management training in August 2023. By combined potential value, the Air National Guard leads at $350 thousand across 20 awards, but the department's obligated-dollars profile ($1.13 billion) substantially exceeds the combined potential value ($782 thousand) across 427 awards—a signal that the department is executing and invoicing against large standing cooperative agreements rather than individual high-value transactions. Recent cooperative agreements issued October 1, 2025, include a $42.6 million Army National Guard Facilities Program award (CFDA 12.401), a $5.1 million Air Force facilities operations and maintenance agreement, a $3.8 million Air National Guard fire protection activities award, and multiple smaller agreements covering Army National Guard electronic security systems, anti-terrorism programs, and distributed learning programs, all running through March 31, 2027.

The department holds two Blanket Purchase Agreements as IDV vehicles: a $250 thousand Air National Guard BPA for lodging at Camp Dodge in Johnston, Iowa (awarded June 12, 2023, through June 7, 2028) with nine task orders totaling approximately $91.3 thousand issued since award, and a $100 thousand Navy Reserve BPA for lodging accommodations for Naval Reservists residing more than 50 miles from their Naval Reserve Center (awarded October 1, 2022, through September 30, 2026). Task orders under the Air National Guard BPA are issued quarterly or semi-annually, ranging from $6.2 thousand to $15.5 thousand per call, and cover single and double occupancy rooms for drill weekends, unit training assemblies, and base lodging operations at Johnston and Des Moines locations. The Navy Reserve BPA supports Inactive Duty for Training drills for geographically dispersed reservists and carries an estimated individual task-order ceiling of $25 thousand.

Activity has remained relatively flat, with 17 awards in 2022, 20 awards in 2023, 20 awards in 2024, and 18 awards in 2025; two awards are recorded for 2026 through mid-October. Thirty awards face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and therefore represent recompete exposure. The department's award portfolio clusters heavily into two service categories: National Guard facilities operations and maintenance (primarily military construction and facilities management cooperative agreements under CFDA 12.400 and 12.401) and temporary military lodging (BPA calls for single and double occupancy hotel rooms at Camp Dodge). Recent military construction awards with completion dates extending into the 2040s include an Army National Guard Camp Dodge microgrid project (cooperative agreement dated March 28, 2024, completing March 26, 2049) and an Air National Guard runway and aircraft parking ramp project at Sioux City (cooperative agreement dated April 17, 2024, completing April 17, 2049). A sub-grant award from the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department on February 12, 2026, indicates the department also acts as a sub-recipient on federal emergency management programming. Place of performance spans Iowa, with concentration at Johnston (Camp Dodge), Des Moines, Waterloo, and Sioux City.