joel hoffman

Perhaps a BPA with the several arbitrators , with the proviso that the arbitration procedures would apply to selection of the arbitrator.

That can be tricky. If you decide to conduct discussions and have one or more firms with deficiencies that may be curable, You need to consider pricing and non-price aspects of the proposals in establishing the initial competitive ranges. However, technically, materially deficient proposals aren’t eligible for award unless and until the firms can clear the deficiencies during or after discussions.

Does your contracting system or organization require that the contract or task order be modified for closeout? Unless there are price adjustments or quantity adjustments to unit priced line items, why would you have to modify the contract or task order for closeout? Procedures for the final payment invoice and payment , including a release of claims, would normally suffice back “in the day.”

…for inclusion in conducting discussions. If no discussions, there is no competitive range or competitive range determination. If the firm is initially included but no longer in the competitive range after discussions at the time of a trade off analysis for selection, it’s not included in the trade-off analysis and its price isn’t considered. …of the selected vendor. If the firm is not included in the competitive range for discussions or is no longer competitive (unawardable) due to unacceptable ratings (and/or price) the government doesn’t have to and might be unable to consider its price (per the previous reasoning in this thread ).

Thanks, Jamaal. This ought to be obvious. But apparently isn’t to everyone.

Thanks, Witty. I forgot the citation.

Agree

There is no congressional identification of the vendor or authorization or direction to specifically use this vendor, correct? If so, then the 6.302-5 exemption isn’t applicable. More info is required. Based on the lack of any other information, I’d think that you need to find out if the program is such that no other vendor could take over. Determine status of program and perform market research if it isn’t limited to current provider or isn’t impractical to allow others to compete…

You are only discussing prices, not why B is a better value than A or C, considering both price and non-price factors.

I think that this has been discussed earlier in the WIFCON Forum that the prices for non conforming (thus unacceptable) offers should be excluded from comparisons in a price analysis. But I don’t have time to do the search and still dont know if the Search feature has been fixed. I’m pretty sure that Vern Edwards explained it at least once. But it makes sense that the price may be affected by the proposal weaknesses, non-conformance or other deficiencies **or undesirable aspects, thus exclude it from comparisons of prices for conformance with the solicitation requirements. It may depend upon the basis for the unacceptably of the offer, whether or not the unacceptable **or undesirable aspect or aspects of the proposal or quote are material to the basis of the price. Does that make sense to you ? P.S., in reading the Protest cited above, the basis for the marginal rating very likely would have affected the protestors price. **Edit: added “or undesirable”

I don’t understand your questions. One must not make broad assumptions without understanding and considering the specific context of the referenced protest. Here is a link to the protest: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-405942.4%2Cb-405942.8 Note that the agency stated that the non-price factors were significantly more important than the price, that it intended to award without discussions and that marginal ratings in the evaluation would not be considered for award. There would no need to evaluate price reasonableness in the instant example because award was to be made without discussions, price was least important factor and the marginal rating was clearly unacceptable for award. If the scenario were different and discussions were contemplated, the answers to your questions might be “yes”.

Set it up ahead of time so you can make the call when it occurs. Is it’s matter of on-call availability of a bus? If there is a possibility of non-availability from any one company, how about prearrange with a couple companies for a rental and whoever is available gets the call. Or something like that… it just doesn’t seem to be that complicated. If they are both available for the same price, the tiebreaker would be flipping a coin. Fair enough… Well, good luck.

Don’t know the basis of the initial selection or a protest or the basis of the protest decision. But if it is a one time event can you simply issue a new BPA? Does it need to be a BPA for a single event? Does it necessarily need to be with the existing vendor?

I’ve had to deal with a several Federal contracting initiatives as a member of a Design-Build Institute of America Committee that deals with Federal laws and Regulations as part of its subject matter jurisdiction. As an Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) active employee and and rehired annuitant, I also was involved with those issues, general construction and Architect Engineering contracting legislation, FAR/DFARS/Agency regulations and Policy and Procedures. From those experiences. I can tell you that the Congress members and their staffers know very little about the implications or impacts to contracting or the technical subject matters that they propose legislation for. There are many single issue advocacy groups constantly raising issues (often rightly so) that proposed solutions to them often add complications, additional cost, complexities or other impacts to contracting.

Enjoy your time there. My Pastor has a River barge house boat in Auxerre on the River Yonne. Least it will be in May, it’s in a shed at the moment. They have invited us to visit before the Olympics.

Thank you for your responses here, Vern!.🌹❤️ My phone broke earlier this week - just got it back plus we had company all week. Just catching up now on WICON Forum…

My response is Holy Sh…! …Because you are NEGOTIATING the definitized price of a contract. You aren’t “adjusting the contractor’s profit”, as though it is an entitlement.

Please clarify: Did you receive multiple responses to your “solicitation”? Is the purpose of the BPA for a one time charter or for multiple bus charters? It appears to be below the simplified acquisition threshold and perhaps commercial services. How thorny can that be to simply agree to extend the BPA?

Do you want an attorney or contracting specialist job with the government?

That would have been exceedingly nice to know in the OP!

Sorry folks I completely overlooked that this is CPFF price type arrangement

Deleted . I overlooked the statement that this is a CPFF cost arrangement.

Hey, it was a lowest priced technically acceptable award scenario. The government apparently didn’t want a higher performing contractor if it cost more than that.

Not sure that either Schedule holder can use higher than the schedule rates, assuming that the average rates are higher than one or the other’s individual rates.