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DOECPA

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  1. Task Order for effort in location with Post Hardship Allowance. PWS does not address contractor reimbursement for Leave or Travel when employee goes on R&R. Does employee use vacation or is time a billable hour. Is travel TDY or is employee responsible for cost. Thank You
  2. Can anyone tell me if the "Minimum Earned Premium" for DBA Insurance is an allowable cost on a Cost Contract. Example - Policy based on Estimated Payroll of $20 Million. Premium of $2M based on 10% DBA Rate. Minimum Earned Premium based on 50% or $1 Million. Actual Payroll $7.5M. Can Contractor Invoice for DBA coverage on the $2.5M Shortfall or adjust the DBA Rate to make up the difference. Does anyone know where this is explained in DCAA Audit Manual or elsewhere Thank You
  3. This was CPFF and evaluated at the Total Taxable Compensation amount not including PTO which is in Fringe. Offerors provided a labor buildup in their own format including any locality allowance, non-discretionary incentive bonuses, and any subsistence allowance. Offerors were advised that none of these items were in Other Direct Cost.
  4. What I'm trying to do is make sure that my potential contractors won't have an issue when they invoice for Post Hardship Differential Allowance and Danger Allowance. Do I have to put something, somewhere, in the solicitation that authorized the contractor to bill up to the maximum of the DSSR Allowance. Is there sample language anywhere or a clause that is pertinent. I'm also concerned if my potential contractors may be entitled to any of the other DSSR Allowance for COLA, Living Quarters, and Education. Do contractors get reimbursed for meals when they are already getting their wages and are not on TDY. These assignments are for one year or more and are not travel but rather overseas assignments.
  5. Maybe I am not asking the question correctly. Do the Department of State Allowances automatically apply? The Department of State Website states that contractors are not directly covered by the DSSR. How then, do they become applicable.
  6. How are authorizations put into a Contract for various types of allowances (meals, living Quarters, Post Hardship Differential, Danger, Education) for Contractor US Hires working OCONUS Assignments (Multiple Year Contracts). I guess what I am asking is how any Department of State Allowances get into a Government Contract. I see that USAID has a Clause. Does Air Force or Army have a similar clause. Does the RFP authorize in Section H.
  7. Hi

    You wrote a comment about DSSR being in the Contract.

    I would appreciate if you could tell me how the various DSSR Allowances get on Contract.  Is it assumed or is it a Section H Special Instruction

    hank You

     

  8. Thank you everyone By accrual I was assuming that a worker may have earned personal time that they had not used by the date the contract with the predecessor ends. Do they automatically get paid for accrued personal time or may it be transferred to the new contractor so the employee can use it when his new employer approves it. Money gets transferred from predecessor contractor to the new contractor. Seems crummy that you might not get your vacation from old contractor and instead get cash. Then you have no earned vacation on the books with the new company, assuming you get hired. On another note. Is a Journeyman Electrician and Master Electrician the same as a Maintenance Electrician listed in a Wage Determination?
  9. Does the Incumbent transfer the accrual or pay off the employee being transferred.
  10. The FAR Clause 52.222-41 states that "Not less than 10 days prior to completion of any contract being performed at a Federal facility where service employees may be retained in the performance of the succeeding contract and subject to a wage determination which contains vacation or other benefit provisions based upon length of service with a Contractor (predecessor) or successor (29 CFR 4.173), the incumbent Prime Contractor shall furnish the Contracting Officer a certified list of the names of all service employees on the Contractor’s or subcontractor’s payroll during the last month of contract performance. Such list shall also contain anniversary dates of employment on the contract either with the current or predecessor Contractors of each such service employee. The Contracting Officer shall turn over such list to the successor Contractor at the commencement of the succeeding contract." If the old and new contractors are located within commuting distance of the Federal facility are the SCA covered labor categories working at the contractor facilities covered by the Seniority language. Example - Would the Clerk Typist working at ABC Company have first right of refusal (FAR Clause 52.222-17) and transfer of seniority (FAR Clause 52.222-41) XYZ Company.
  11. I use an OCONUS Effective Labor Rate based on all productive hours and whether backfilled or not. We evaluate Total Taxable Compensation and also look at Total Comp. I totally concur with what Vern is proposing and am thankful that others continue to improve the system. In the meantime I will make it work in support of our Warriors here and OCONUS. Thanks for the insight. Quote this
  12. I'm developing a pricing model for contractor to use for a CPFF solicitation and would appreciate input from the discussion board about the treatment of Department of State (DSSR) Standardized Regulations (DSSR) Allowances and also Defense Base Act (DBA) Insurance. Currently, I have offerors collect all estimated taxable salary related recruitment and retention incentives and combine them with base salary to form an OCONUS Effective Labor Rate. Offerors then add their OCONUS Indirect Expenses and Fee to the OCONUS Effective Labor Rate. I provide an Other Direct Cost (ODC) Plug Number that includes DSSR Cost of Living, Quarters, and Other Allowances that are not taxable salary related expenses. I get pushback from contractors because they want the DSSR taxable salary related recruitment and retention incentives (Post Hardship and Danger) included in the ODC Plug Number. Is there accounting guidance anywhere for the treatment of these DSSR Incentives? Many Offerors do not choose to use the DSSR Allowances and instead use a Multiplier Factor on base salary to estimate enough compensation in order to recruit and retain. Relative to contractor and subcontractor acquired DBA Insurance, I have offerors use the pricing model labor buildup tab to demonstrate how the DBA expense is calculated. Would I be better off just including an ODC CLIN for DBA Insurance? I assume subcontractors have their DBA in their loaded labor rate to the Prime., Thanks
  13. Yes, The primes did perform their own Price Reasonableness determination and most of the subcontracts were competed and have negotiated rates. The subcontractors have provided "other than cost and pricing" data directly to the Government and this was used to verify that the loaded rates were correctly calculated. Each subcontractor has certified that these are firm fixed price rates that may not be exceeded. We assume the Prime will use a tripwire to make sure it is not billed by the subcontractor for more than the ceiling amount.
  14. I would like guidance on a Cost Plus Fixed Fee Proposal. We requested the labor buildup for each labor category so we could evaluate cost realism. A Prime offeror proposes subcontractor Fully Burdened Firm Fixed Price Ceiling Labor Rates for half the proposed effort. We do not anticipate any privity of contract with the subcontractor(s). Assuming that many smaller subcontractors have lower overhead this would allow the Prime to lower its proposed cost. The likely cost of performance however is going to be higher since the effort may not get subcontracted out by the Prime. It seems it would make more sense to evaluate at the Prime’s labor buildup amount which might result in an inflated fee pool. Alternatively, if after award, the Prime gets permission to subcontract out part of the effort, it would probably result in a cost underrun and a better cost performance rating. How are Firm Fixed Price LOE Subcontracts typically evaluated on Cost Plus Fixed Fee Efforts
  15. Please - One More Question. I doubt that an Incumbent Contractor or Incumbent Contractors would be very happy about the Average CY 2016 Exempt Direct Labor Rate getting published in a solicitation. Is this rate proprietary? We would not be giving out specific labor rates for single labor classifications. - perhaps an average Engineering/Scientific Rate and an average Computer Engineering/Computer Scientist Rate. Thank You
  16. I'm not certain I understand the impermissible part of your answer but it sounds like your opinion is that its permissible for the Government to request that Offerors address a percentage of professionals they intend to retain and is also permissible for the Government to include the average labor rate of the incumbent professional workforce (taken from incumbent contractor's most recent invoice submittal) i.e Average Incumbent Exempt Workforce at $43.17 per hour. Assuming that Offeror propose 75% Incumbent Capture and 25 % New Employee Hires may I ask them to reconcile in the Cost Narrative the proposed rates with the Incumbent Rate and New Hire Rate blended together. I further assume they would use a salary survey data like the BLS SOC to get the new hire rate. Thanks All
  17. I was reviewing Decision B-277849.2 B-277849.3 and I noticed that the Government provided the incumbent contractors Exempt average labor rate for the use of Offeror's in developing their Cost Proposals and Transition Plans. I'm assuming this was a competition for a follow on cost type professional support services contract. In order to insure continuity in a program is it permissible to have Offerors cite a percentage of Incumbent Employees they will hire and reconcile their proposed rates (Mix of new and hired incumbents) with the Government provided incumbent Exempt average labor rate. Of course, I expect the proposed rates would fall within the Offeror's Total Compensation Plan. Thank You
  18. Our organization has several multi-year knowledge based service contracts where continuity of service and retention of professional personnel is a concern. How do we solicit for a follow-on contractor in a very competitive marketplace and encourage potential offerors to begin recruiting incumbent personnel during the evaluation period. We mostly use Cost Type and award based on Best Value. Are we permitted to score the staffing plan based on a % retention of incumbent personnel. How would this get verified? I don't think it would be right to justify not competing these, but we continue to see new contractors that propose lower wages than the incumbents are earning. I read the responses on the Topic - "Are we encouraging the Poaching of Employees", and I am curious how other organizations encourage potential offerors to hire incumbent exempt personnel. In the old days company's used to open offices in the locality and accept resume's - now with internet I'm sure this is done a lot Thank You
  19. Thank You for your responses. I'll take each under consideration and do the best I can.
  20. The contract will define the FTE as 1,920 hours, based on the calculation in my original post. We don't require a specific person, but also don't anticipate that a contractor would have someone on standby to fill in if/when the person performing the tasks took vacation. Since we are defining an FTE to account for vacation and holiday (this is a new position, so there is no previous experience for the SCA position and the WD defines it as two weeks), the level of effort for the full year is 1,920 hours. Although the contract could be set so that the contractor isn't paid until the full LOE is expended, that doesn't seem like a reasonable approach. It might be possible for this action with a single FTE, but if the LOE was for a larger number of hours, then contractors may not be williing to complete the full LOE before receipt of some of the amount. The contract is term, so there is only a requirement to provide the 1,920 hrs. The plan at this point is to allow billing for the level of effort expended for a month, but to include language that the contractor is in breach of contract if less than 1,920 hrs of effort are provided in the period of performance. So, if the contractor does work less than 1,920 hrs then we are at risk for the payments made before the full level of effort is complete. For this action, the risk seems reasonable.
  21. We have a requirement for one FTE each year for a base and several option years. If we anticipate that an employee would get 80 hours Federal Holidays and 80 hours for vacation then our LOE is 1,920 hours in each year. Does anyone have a good way to divide the 1,920 hours so that the contractor can bill for a completed level of effort that is less than a year? If we just divide evenly into monthly or other periods then are we forcing vacation on the employee. For example, if person wants to take one week off at some point or carry a week forward assuming its a new employee. Maybe this is purely a billing issue?
  22. At first glance, I thought perhaps the person who wrote this was a member of the happy-hour shoe at Morton’s playing stump the government. I believe this related to how the percentage of subcontract dollars is calculated (Subcontract Cost/Total Contract Cost = Subcontract Percentage). What Prime Costs are included in the Subcontract Base, i.e. G&A; Profit? Then I read further into this and found this. (13 CFR 125.3(a)(1)(iii)): Exclude from the subcontract base - Internally generated costs such as salaries and wages; Employee insurance; Other employee benefits; Payments for petty cash; Depreciation; Interest; Income taxes; Property taxes; Lease payments; Bank fees; Fines, claims, and dues; Original Equipment Manufacturer relationships during warranty periods (negotiated up front with product); Utilities such as electricity, water, sewer, and other services purchased from a municipality or solely authorized by the municipality to provide those services in a particular geographical region; Philanthropic contributions. What kind of Government Gobbledygook is this – I have no ideal what this means. Happy Independence Day Everyone
  23. here_2_help Thanks for responding In performing Cost Realism Analysis would we just accept the proposed indirect rates as realistic
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