A schedule of values that allocates more value to early line items than the work actually justifies is sometimes called "front-loading." From the owner's perspective, the risk of front-loading is that:

Explanation

Front-loading shifts contract value into early line items so the contractor draws more cash than the completed work justifies, and the owner is left holding too little of the price against the work that remains - exactly the security retention is supposed to preserve. Option (a) names a real side effect and mistakes it for the risk: a front-loaded schedule of values does make the job report as further along than it is, because percent complete is computed from billed value, but the harm is the money, not the report. Retention is a percentage of each payment and does not fall because the line items were reshuffled. And overhead sits inside the line items either way.