joel hoffman

If you are in DoD, it’s a different story - you would know the policy. Did you encourage discounts in your RFP? If you did , did the proposer discount it’s master contract list prices? Of course, that’s assuming that there are master contract list prices for whatever you are acquiring. If only one proposal received and no discounting offered, it would be an excellent opportunity to call or contact them and ask for s discount - negotiate. Website says something to the effect that you can contact a firm at any time in the process Kind of hard for me to imagine that you could say adequate price competition exists if one firm responded at its maximum allowed pricing or if the delivery order uses non-pre-priced items.

It was 1971. I don’t know. They had assigned duties. They reported their results to me as the P.E. I did not assign them daily duties. They had been there for 8 months before me. I replaced a Captain.

I agree with ji that you ought to discuss this with the KO. Your choice of terms and explanation are somewhat confusing . If you don’t know what the purpose of the mod is, please ask. This might be a method of adding additional funding to an existing CPFF contract scope. It doesn’t look like anything is being de-scoped and re-scoped from the contract, only re-aligned to provide additional funding, unless $200k of the original funding was de-obligated when the new funds were put on the contract.

This looks like a Change to the contract work. In my opinion, whatever authority and documentation is required for a change with the absolute value of $400k*, consisting of both deletions of work and additions of work , is necessary. Yes, it was a negotiated change. The original proposal was $220k and was negotiated to $200k for the new work. My initial opinion is based upon the very limited description of the scope of the modification. *(For the value of a modification, see, for example, PGI 243.204-71 Certification of requests for equitable adjustment and also DFARS 243.204-71.) “PGI 243.204-71 Certification of requests for equitable adjustment. (b) For example, a request for equitable adjustment that involves both an increase of $100,000 and a decrease of $105,000 has an absolute value of $205,000 ($100,000 + $105,000, regardless of whether the amounts are plus or minus), which exceeds the simplified acquisition threshold.” 5/8/2019 EDIT: The more I read your post the more questions I have. I think you said that the contractor identified “a specific task within the existing CLIN (?) that would fit within the $200k” to move(?) to a new CLIN to enable support to be funded with the (new) funds. Is this just a change in funding for an existing CPFF “task” of work and that the actual work is not changing? So, you are carving out a specific “ task” for of work that the contractor estimated will cost $220k and funding it with $200k of separate funding on a separate line item. It might not be a deletion and addition of work. However, it looks like there is a good possibility that the “task” won’t be completed within the $200k made available. Was $200k of the original funding de-obligated from the existing CLIN in this action? Or are the new funds simply being added to fund the same “task” under a new CLIN?

I had forgotten but during my first year on active duty in the Air Force 1971-1972, I was the project engineer on a Military Family Housing construction project at an Air Base in California. My lead inspector was our just retired AF Civil Engineering Squadron deputy base civil engineer (retired civil service) who worked under contract and he had an assistant. They were technically under my supervision. I was a green 2LT. 😃

Absolutely. We sent the winner a copy of their evaluation comments and offered them the opportunity for a debrief, too.

Roger. 10-4. I wanted to stress that there is more than one purpose of a debriefing. There might be a primary purpose and a secondary purpose(s) but there are multiple purposes. Over and out...😋

It isn’t the responsibility of the KO to coach proposers how to win the next competition. But, AS A MINIMUM, in addition to the basis and rationale for the award, the debriefing information SHALL include... “The Government's evaluation of the significant weaknesses or deficiencies in the offeror's proposal, if applicable; ” (In DoD that should include strengths.) The debriefing shall also include debriefed offeror’s past performance information. There has to be a purpose to providing the above information. It is not to compare it to the winning proposal, but to advise the proposer how the government saw its proposal. The contractor should be able to deduce what the proposal lacked and what was considered strong. It is up to the proposer to determine how it can be more competitive in the future. If the quality of past performance is not a strength, then it should realize where it has to focus on higher performance and higher customer satisfaction.

No worries here about losing the ability to use contractors in government inspection (and testing) as needed. Reduces the number of otherwise FTE government employees with cost of full time benefits and retirement costs.

FAR-Flung, the “work” that “shall be conducted under the general direction of the contracting officer” refers to the contract work. The word “work” isn’t referring to “government inspection and test”. ”Definition: Work includes, but is not limited to, materials, workmanship, and manufacture and fabrication of components.” Unfortunately, the government wrote it in the typical “governmenteze” passive tense so that the acting party is unidentified. Translation: => “The contractor shall conduct all of its work under the general direction of the contracting officer.“ Such work includes all contract work, including the construction contractor’s required inspection system. It doesn’t refer one way or the other to how the government may test and inspect other than to say that the contractor’s work is SUBJECT TO government inspection and test... => “The government MAY inspect and test all work at all places and at all reasonable times prior to acceptance.” Thus, this clause doesn’t have anything to do with 46.401 (e) or identifying who will inspect or test on the government’s behalf. The Army Corps of Engineers used to have its own test labs, on-site labs and testing personnel for government testing on civil works projects through the early 80’s but those are almost gone. We have used contracted testing labs for government tests on non-civil works projects since at least the 70’s. I performed government QA soil and compaction testing on my first military construction project for USACE in 1980 because we had an on-site government lab at a nearby civil works project. Plus I had learned how to perform the tests in my College soil mechanics, engineering class 12 years before that, had some hands-on experience as an Air Force pavement engineer and I wanted to refresh my skills. I maintain that government inspection personnel have little knowledge or skill in inspecting soil and compaction or concrete/asphalt paving operations without having familiarity with and on-going hands-on experience with sampling and testing of such construction materials.

I was answering the original question.

formerfed, I agree with you. We, of course, also explained the rationale for the award decision in the actual debriefing. I wasn’t too concerned about protests, as they were extremely rare. In fact, I never had a protest after a debriefing or as a result of furnishing info concerning the proposer’s evaluation with the notice of award, as described above.

ji, When I started managing and leading our District’s non-service contracting source selections around 1992, neither DoD or Army had written their source selection manuals, although there may have been some OFPP or DoD guidance on debriefings. Don’t remember. The Army Materiel Command (AMC) had a good source selection guide which I went by for guidance along with FAR and any other articles and reviews of daily GAO Decisions. I kept up with Court Decisions and sought out references and guidance by Nash and Cibinic, Vern Edwards, Federal Publications, etc. The Army later incorporated the AMC SSG into their SSM. We were doing a lot of MILCON and Civil Works design-build, set-asides, Army and Air Force JOC type contracts, Army MEDCOM, Non-Appropriated Fund and other construction contract source selections to the extent that our District quit using IFB’s for most contracts other than dredging and smaller civil works O&M projects. We also conducted source selections for Installation and Medical Facility O&M service contracts. I wanted to provide as much debriefing type information as allowed to all the competitors how their proposals were evaluated in order to show them how they could improve their chances and better meet our objectives in future competitions, too. My KO’s were very supportive. Both industry and we learned and improved in how they responded and how the District wrote RFP’s and conducted the SS process.

See. 46.401 (e): “Government inspection shall be performed by or under the direction or supervision of Government personnel.” See also agency supplements or implementing regulation/policy. Putting the above in the active tense: ‘Government personnel shall perform or direct or supervise government inspections. My interpretation is that you would have to have hands on supervision or direction of contracted inspection services, not just let them have a free hand. We (USACE) often used (and they still use) outside professional service contracts to augment QA personnel, particularly where specialists are needed.

So wouldn’t the mechanics of a “realignment of funds between CLIN’s” involve revising the estimated quantities of the line items for fully funded, fixed price contracts? Then, if the accounting citation is the same for both CLINs, it should be doable, but check with F&A .

In my experience, the government would identify what is Government furnished equipment, materials, supplies, etc. in solicitations for fixed price contracts.

I’m guessing that they are U-2’s or various variants of those planes at Davis-Monthan AFB in a secure area of the Boneyard. (My daughter flew several C-130E’s on their final flights from Pope AFB to D-M 12 or 13 years ago.)

I suggest reading Chapter 7 “Government Property” in “Administration of Government Contracts” by Nash, et alia. It begins with: “The government’s policy is that contractors are ordinarily required to furnish all property necessary to perform a government contract, FAR 45.102. Nevertheless, government property, such as materials, production facilities, or test equipment, is often used by contractors during the performance of government contracts. Much of this property is in the nature of tooling or facilities furnished to assist contractors in performing in the contractual work. Material to be incorporated into manufactured products is also furnished when the government decides that it’s interests will be served by furnishing the material rather than permitting the contractor to purchase it. When government property is used by a contractor in the performance of a government contract, the process of contract administration is more complex.” This isn’t “government furnished property” in that sense. It is real property or real property installed equipment, remaining in place in a government facility that needs to be repaired or replaced under a construction contract or as a construction operation within some other type of contract (facilities contract for instance) . It isn’t being turned over to the contractor to perform a contract in that sense. If a contractor takes or the government delivers a pump or component off-site to overhaul, repair, etc., that might be considered GFP, while in the contractor’s possession, especially if it is of some significant value that warrants property tracking and accountability. Secondly, this should not normally be contracted for as a commercial item or commercial services contract, unless it pertains to a specific component(s) within a system, such as a valve, control, pump or other standard individual components of a system that are typically purchased and routinely serviced, repaired or replaced by service technicians, etc. Now- if the government provides government owned materials to be incorporated into the repair or replacement of the government’s HVAC system, etc., those components would likely be GFE/GFP. Another example would be government provided aggregates for asphalt concrete or Portland cement concrete to be used on a paving project or a building construction, those would be treated as GFP.

This insomniac agrees with you, Don. How about this from Appendix A to the April 2016 edition of ” DoD Source Selection Procedures”? “A.1 Purpose of Debriefing The PCO should chair any debriefing session upon receipt of an offeror’s timely, written request (see FAR 15.503, 15.505, and 15.506). The debriefing serves to assure offerors that the Government properly evaluated their proposals and made the award determination in accordance with the RFP. Since each offeror puts considerable resources into preparing and submitting a proposal, fairness dictates that the PCO promptly debrief offerors and explain why a proposal was excluded from the competitive range or was successful or unsuccessful. Timely and thorough debriefings increase competition, encourage offerors to continue to invest resources in the Government marketplace, and enhance the Government’s relationship and credibility with Industry. The debriefing also provides feedback to offerors to assist in improving future proposal submissions. An effective debriefing often deters a protest by demonstrating that the Government conducted a thorough, fair evaluation and made a sound decision according to the established source selection methodology. Debriefings may be done orally, in writing, or by any other method acceptable by the contracting officer.”

ji hit the mark on that one. “ On 6/29/2019 at 11:40 AM, ji20874 said: Inasmuch as all source selection information is supposed to be marked with something like “Source Selection Information — See FAR 2.101 and 3.104,” I am guessing there is no Procurement Integrity Act allegation at all; rather, this is just an inartful expression work on the contracting officer’s part or a simple misunderstanding on the original poster’s part of the marking requirement in FAR 3.104-4(c).”

Retread I agree with you.

Do you have access to DFAS or other finance and accounting offices or guides, regs, etc.? To me, it would be a within scope change, not a de-obligation and re-obligation of funds. If original year funding is still available for in-scope changes (usually for several years after the initial one year period of availability for “new” obligations), it would seem to me to be allowable to move same appropriation funds within line items on an existing contract. There might be more machinations necessary, if the funds allocation numbers ( I don’t remember the correct terminology) between line items are different. The F&A folks are the experts and should be consulted as the mod will have to identify the accounting citation won’t it? Do not all KO’s, ACO’s and their CS staff have access to F&A offices for answers to these type questions????? I can’t imagine that KO’s are making up funds citations on their own. Even when I was in the Air Force in the 70’s at base level , I had an F&A office for funding requirements and funding questions.

I think that the reason FCCM is considered in the “profit” or markup is that FCCM has the nature of interest, or financing costs, which generally are not allowable “costs”. However, they are real and often necessary, so can be considered in other than direct and indirect costs. That’s what I was taught many years ago. The Corps of Engineers modified weighted guidelines method considered such capital financing costs in one of the individual factors and I think that our Equipment Guides for monthly and hourly operating costs of owned vehicles and construction equipment also took this into account. It was covered in one or the other or both- I don’t have the guidance available anymore.

“15.404-1 (a) (4) Cost analysis may also be used to evaluate data other than certified cost or price data to determine cost reasonableness or cost realism when a fair and reasonable price cannot be determined through price analysis alone for commercial or non-commercial items.” What price analysis techniques do you have available for these unique tasks? You probably can look at prices of portions or specific activities within a task order but it “sounds” like you don’t have overall comparisons available. I have an example of a situation where cost analysis appeared to show reasonable pricing but price analysis revealed that it just didn’t make sense. We had a user requested change from our Saudi Arabian Army customer to add thousands of deadbolts to doors in the family living quarters that we built at a new Military Academy. Our Korean construction contractor provided a proposal that detailed every single step in the process of drilling and installing the locks. The Koreans had cheap labor rates but the trades used very labor intensive methods and hand tools rather than the latest power tools and methods. For instance, they would use a two man crew to drill the holes in the doors with small hand drills with perhaps 20 drill holes to make a circular 2 1/2” hole and estimated the number of minutes for every drill hole, every screw, every piece of the lock set, etc. i couldn’t argue the reasonableness of each step but it turned out that each crew would take something like three hours to install one deadbolt! My technical and price analyses indicated that we could procure circular hole saws, power drills, power screw drivers, etc. to drastically lower the labor quantity. I suspected that was what they would actually do. But my QA guys told me that no - the labor force actually used the archaic methods when they installed the original hardware, etc. The Korean Site manager confirmed and insisted that the labor force didn’t have the skills that I took for granted... One can get mired in the weeds and miss the big picture when only using cost analysis or price analysis without the other. i followed up after we settled the change and - yes - they were true to their proposed methods. My problem with price analysis alone is that you sometimes can’t tell whether historical or contemporary price comparisons are really reasonable - They only tell you what is being paid or what has been paid in the past. For instance, in Germany, we only had unit price comparisons for construction available, based upon data gathering techniques that were captured and used in the estimating guides. The American Government didn’t know that there was a long running collusion and price fixing/bid rigging conspiracy going on between the German construction companies and at least one regional German Government agency that was awarding most of the DoD construction contracts during the huge Reagan era military buildup in the NATO countries. The contractor’s would have to provide certain G. Government officials at least a three percent kickback on every contract. This was discovered about 2 or 3 years after I left Germany. There were indictments and convictions of numerous contractors and government officials. My assistant chief, who was German, had told me that her boyfriend, who worked at a higher level oversight agency, was aware of the conspiracy, but they were in the investigative stage at the time. I couldn’t do or say anything at the time, due to the investigation. Plus I had no confidence in the competence of our HQ leadership in Frankfurt to detect, see the corruption or doing anything about it and they would have tipped off the perps. As I said, the only way that Europe Division had to perform construction estimates was to collect and rely upon historic unit prices for every contract line item. The German Government used the same parametric estimating methods, so the perps could get away with it for years. I am convinced that the widely used sole reliance on FAR price analysis techniques hides similar schemes. I think that Shay Assad might agree and am certain that the late Admiral Hyman Rickover would have agreed with me.

ji, to furnish the basis for the selection decision is not the sole purpose of the debriefing. The sentence doesn’t state or even imply that. In my opinion it says that “an offeror...shall be debriefed AND [the offeror shall] be furnished the basis of the selection decision and contract award. “ “d) At a minimum, the debriefing information shall include— (1) The Government's evaluation of the significant weaknesses or deficiencies in the offeror's proposal, if applicable; (2) The overall evaluated cost or price (including unit prices), and technical rating, if applicable, of the successful offeror and the debriefed offeror, and past performance information on the debriefed offeror; (3) The overall ranking of all offerors, when any ranking was developed by the agency during the source selection; (4) A summary of the rationale for award; (5) For acquisitions of commercial items, the make and model of the item to be delivered by the successful offeror; and (6) Reasonable responses to relevant questions about whether source selection procedures contained in the solicitation, applicable regulations, and other applicable authorities were followed.” Thats my point. Edit: Providing an offeror it’s evaluation sheet with strengths, weaknesses, deficiencies and other comments is consistent with (d) (1) above. Since the winning design proposal is part of the unclassified contract, it is not protected information and can be shared with other proposers after award, absent some specific justification. Sharing such information can help them become more competitive in the future. Sorry if you don’t understand and/or agree.