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joel hoffman

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Everything posted by joel hoffman

  1. @GABEIt would be nice for everyone to know what you are referring to (See rule 16, for instance). Thank you in advance.
  2. The technical answer to her specific question is - maybe. Depends upon the context of the specific circumstances.
  3. Thanks for changing the title of the topic, Bob. I clarified my references to various acronyms.
  4. Retreaded and Carl are correct. The FAR directly addresses Engineer Manual 385-1-1. The EM 385-1-1 is a specific contract requirement when contract clause 52.236-13 Accident Prevention is in the contract. The clause directly addresses the EM. The Accident Prevention clause is required for ALL DoD agency and component fixed price construction contracts, certain service contracts and certain other contracts, as prescribed in FAR 36.513. @bodenlok should be familiar with his/her contract requirements, including the contract clauses and what they require. EDIT: A GOOGLE Search for "FAR EM 385-1-1 includes this reference to FAR 52.236-13, including EM 385-1-1: "52.236-13 Accident Prevention. Acquisition.GOV (.gov) https://www.acquisition.gov › far ... EM 385-1-1, in effect on the date of the solicitation. (d) Whenever the Contracting Officer becomes aware of any noncompliance with these requirements or ..."
  5. @bodenlokWhat edition of the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineer Manual: EM 385-1-1 “Safety and Health Requirements” are you supposedly (partially) quoting? The November 2014 version reads: (01.A.17) “a. The SSHO [Site Safety and Health Officer] shall: (1) Be a full-time responsibility. The SSHO shall be present at the project site, located so they have full mobility and reasonable access to all major work operations during the shift. (2) Be an employee other than the supervisor, unless specified differently in the contract and coordinated with the local SOH [Safety and Occupational Health] Office, and (3) Report to a senior project (or corporate) official.” Note: underlining in the 2014 edition denotes edits from the previous, 2008 edition. EDIT: Therefore, EM 385-1-1 doesn't conflict with specifications allowing collateral duties. "Full-time responsibility" means that the contractor has full-time, not part-time responsibility for the site safety function. The SSHO or approved designated alternate must be on-site during each shift of construction operations. If the contract allows collateral SSHO duties for a person in another position, the person must perform the specified SSHO duties in addition to their other duties.
  6. Please clarify. You apparently said that you have a contract but that you have to “bid on travel each year” and that you must “provide the methodology [you] use to bid on the travel.” I don’t understand what you meant by the term “bid”. A bid or bidding are specific terms used for one type of competitive acquisition to win a new (usually single award contract) - with no negotiations involved. It is called “competitive bidding”. Is this an existing single award contract, such as a Task Order ( e.g., Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity) contract with only pre-priced labor line items? If so, you seem to be proposing and negotiating a line item for travel, right? When you say it is FFP NTE, you seem to indicate that there is a plugged NTE line item and the KO wants another number. If it is still going to be an NTE, what’s the reason for revising it?? Regardless, if you are NEGOTIATING the line item, you should be discussing it together in depth, until there is mutual understanding of how it works and come to an agreement on the method and the pricing. That’s my suggestion on how to handle the situation.
  7. Why would you do that, especially if the appropriate funding for each extension isn’t available at the time of a single act of extension across fiscal years? There are numerous problems associated with attempting that scenario. It’s not exercising outyear options in strict accordance with the terms of the options, wage rate adjustment problems, obligating the government without the assurance of future funding, eliminating a contractual incentive for continued performance to ensure very high satisfaction, etc., etc.
  8. What is “rumble”??? Who is the “rumbler”? To me that is a questionable (actually ridiculous looking/sounding) statement that I would challenge the “rumbler” to explain and prove. Did you do that? Im assuming that this concerns contracts in the United States… See, of course, also the applicability and non-SCA employee exemptions in Part 22…
  9. FAR Subpart 22.10 - Service Contract Labor Standards “22.1000 Scope of subpart. This subpart prescribes policies and procedures implementing the provisions of 41 U.S.C.chapter 67, Service Contract Labor Standards (formerly known as the Service Contract Act of 1965), the applicable provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended ( 29 U.S.C.201, etseq.), and related Secretary of Labor regulations and instructions (29 CFR parts 4, 6, 8, and 1925)….” FAR 22.1002 Statutory and Executive order requirements. “22.1002-1 General. Service contracts over $2,500 shall contain mandatory provisions regarding minimum wages and fringe benefits, safe and sanitary working conditions, notification to employees of the minimum allowable compensation, and equivalent Federal employee classifications and wage rates. Under 41 U.S.C.6707(d), service contracts maynot exceed 5 years. 22.1002-2 Wage determinations based on prevailing rates. Contractors performing on service contracts in excess of $2,500 to which no predecessor contractor’s collective bargaining agreement applies shall pay their employees at least the wages and fringe benefits found by the Department of Labor to prevail in the locality or, in the absence of a wage determination, the minimum wage set forth in the Fair Labor Standards Act.” Read on in FAR Subpart 22.10…
  10. Bottom line is, read the contract and BPA, read the task order and ask the applicable government KO(s).
  11. The production orders for the KC-46 will be separately priced. LPTA was used to win the FPIF base contract. With the award at risk do you think for a minute that the proposal was “realistically” priced? I have no idea what the government price analysis team did.
  12. What are the differences between key contract personnel and non-key personnel duties and job responsibilities ? What do they do that non-key personnel can’t or don’t do???
  13. The statement that “Normally effective price competition results in realistic pricing…” isn’t necessarily true. Witness the convoluted, politically driven Air Force Tanker replacement debacle where the public was told that the contract would be fixed price with Lowest priced technically acceptable offer as the basis of award. What they didn’t say was that the initial award was going to be Fixed Price Incentive and that the winner significantly lowballed its pricing. I think that CPIF would have been equally or more ineffective. See, for instance, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1676-1.html The competition itself was cutthroat…
  14. Depends upon the nature and type of work, contract pricing methodology (e.g.,Cost,FFP, FPI, etc), size, complexity, extent of specialization vs. routine employees and supervision, etc. Do you have a representative sample scenario? You said Level of effort - Cost plus fixed fee. Can many different persons qualify for the various technical or management positions? What are you evaluating regarding key personnel for and why? What is the purpose for designating and evaluating key personnel? Are they discriminators between firms? Etc.
  15. I agree that an out of scope mod could use whatever funds are appropriate. Yes it matters where the funds come from. The Tzarina was asking whether they could use the leftover funding. Maybe, maybe not, depending upon the type of funds left over from the completed efforts for a new effort in a new fiscal year..
  16. But if the bonafide need for the existing funds has been satisfied, are the surplus funds still available for a new purpose in a new fiscal year? It would seem that the next year funding, which would be available for the new year’s efforts, should be used if there is a delay in awarding the new contract for the same work that an extension of the existing contract will accomplish?? EDIT: As the Tzarina eventually explained , she wants to use leftover funding for work that was completed in the past fiscal year to fund a bridge effort in the next FY until a delayed new contract can be awarded.
  17. But if the bonafide need for the existing funds has been satisfied, are the surplus funds still available for a new purpose in a new fiscal year?
  18. Depends upon the circumstances. Recommend reading, for instance, the WIFCON Legal pages for the Bonafide Needs Rule. Also appears that you are saying that this will be a bridge for period prior to award of or start of a follow on T&M services contract for similar efforts.
  19. Of course not! Reread the clause; “…total extension of performance hereunder shall not exceed six months” means just that.
  20. In a conflict of interest law suit? Sure it would. That’s not conflict of interest. And the contractor should be raising every issue of incorrect interpretation of contract requirements to the appropriate government personnel (e.g., the QA rep’s supervisors). If a contractor sued one of our QA reps without doing that, I can guarantee they would likely never again win a best value contract award. it could possibly become a responsibility issue and would also likely be reflected in the performance rating.
  21. The contractor’s site safety and health position generally doesn’t encompass the quality assurance duties of the government QA position or (usually) the corresponding quality control duties of the contractor. However, all QA personnel in the USACE (Corps of Engineers), as well as any other USACE site personnel have the duty to enforce the contract safety requirements. If the QA person has knowledge of unsafe contractor practices, they can and should act accordingly. I don’t see any “conflict of interest” here, unless the QA person is treating the contractor unfairly, acting in bad faith, arbitrarily or capriciously, etc. (e.g., an obvious vendetta). If Boomer believes that the QA person is wrongly interpreting the contract requirements, Boomer should raise that and any other behavioral issues to the appropriate government representatives and/or the KO.
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