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LM_ABITWT

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Posts posted by LM_ABITWT

  1. Yes, I'm asking from a prime contractor perspective.  Both contracts are CPFF Term.  The existing contract was awarded on a competitive basis.  

    Navy, you touched on what I see as the crux of the issue.  Currently, all of the personnel we're thinking about bidding on the other contract are already supporting their contract on a full-time basis.  We are in the process of developing that coherent/logical story of how it would work if we're awarded the second contract.  Should that be our primary concern (i.e. convincing the customer/technical evaluators our approach can work)?  This approach would not be grounds for an unsuccessful offeror to lodge a protest against the USG's decision to award to us?

    Also, there is not a key personnel clause in the existing (nor the potential) contract that requires the personnel to dedicate a certain % of their time to the contract.

    Thanks again for everyone's input!

  2. I'm looking for some guidance regarding a contractor's ability to bid contractor personnel in a new business proposal and cite them as Key Personnel if they are already performing (full-time) on an existing contract that has plenty of PoP remaining.  If possible, we did not intend on replacing the contractor personnel on the existing contract, but rather scale back their hours and have them split their time between the two contracts.  These are Exempt personnel so they would not be getting paid for hours worked in excess of 40/week.  I had concerns with how the Gov't would view this pricing approach (especially since it's the same customer on both contracts so they'll recognize the names as personnel already supporting our other contract).  Could this pose a threat from a protest perspective, if we are the successful offeror?  Any prior experience with this type of situation would be helpful.

  3. My Contracting Officer issued a RFP to us on an existing contract for some additional items to be procured by us. The contract is FFP and we spent about $5K of labor costs obtaining the necessary quotes and preparing the price proposal for submission to the USG. Those (proposal) costs were included in the FFP price we submitted (to the USG). Shortly after the proposal was submitted, we were notified that the USG has determined they no longer need the additional items to be procured. What are our options for seeking reimbursement of the $5K in proposal costs?

  4. ji, I agree with you about the negative CPAR entry. No doubt we had our share of challenges controlling costs and we expect the next CPAR to reflect that. You're also correct that we (my company) took on the risk of continuing to work even after our funds had been fully exhausted. However, we came to that decision based on the assumption that both the contractor and the USG were acting in good faith to resolve this matter. We did comply with the two clauses you referenced. The USG asked us to submit a revised proposal to demonstrate how much more funding would be necessary to complete the job and run the program until the end of the PoP.

    The decision to work at risk was to avoid a disruption in service (to the USG) where they received a direct benefit from our continued service. That is what we are asking them to reimburse us for. This is a CR contract. My company is not profiting at all from this effort. We simply want to be reimbursed for all of the costs incurred. The CO's response citing that our costs are not fair or reasonable does not make sense to me since they are actuals and we incurred those costs in direct support of the USG's mission. Again, a service was clearly provided and a beneift received by the USG. Why would the CO not see it the same way and simply reimburse us our costs?

    Thanks.

  5. In order to staff the program it was determined that we needed to increase our hourly rates. So we exhausted our funds prior to the PoP end date.

    Yes, the CO used those words in the letter to us. Unfortunately, the letter was provided several months after the fact and we worked at risk to avoid a work stoppage and continued to support the customer's mission. And we submitted a proposal for the difference, but the USG has stated that they won't pay because our increased costs are deemed not fair or reasonable. However, we did not pay our personnel more than we needed to. We negotiated with everyone we recruited/hired, but our originally proposed rates were not sufficient.

  6. I have a cost reimbursement contract that is significantly overspent. We continued working at risk and submitted a REA proposal which the USG denied, stating our costs were not fair and reasonable.

    If my company can prove that these costs were incurred in support of the contract, what grounds would the USG have to deny these costs? The overspending originated from having to pay the workforce more than we originally proposed. If we can demonstrate that those amounts (higher salaries) were actually paid to the employees, shouldn't we have a fairly strong case to be reimbursed?

  7. The requirement is aviation-related. Pilot services, logistical support, maintenance of aircraft.

    The LOE is on total hours, not by LCATs. Though the LCAT mix was provided in the RFP and all offerors were required to bid that exact skill mix for the basis of establishing a ceiling.

    Our problem now is the USG completely disregards the fact that the LOE was mandated and it set the cost ceiling too low. They are constantly reminding us that we must perform the requirements of the PWS and if it costs more then that's an overrun and we're not entitled to any additional fee.

  8. My company was awarded (competitively) a CPFF Term Contract based on a mandated LOE. Award criteria was LPTA. We've been performing for about 6 months and cost control has been a significant challenge for us. Primary reason is, the Govt's LOE excluded several labor categories that are necessary to complete the requirements of the PWS, however the addition of these LCATs is driving our costs up significantly and our burn rate is running very high. So much so, the USG had to exercise the OY early to avoid a work stoppage. I have tried (unsuccessfully) to remind the Contracting Officer that this is a Term type contract and the Contractor is only required to deliver the LOE (provided by the USG) which we were required to bid to. Most recently, the KO has threatened to issue us a cure notice if we don't fulfill a particular requirement within the PWS which will require us to bring on a subcontractor who is quite expensive. This SubK is the only company with the necessary experience to complete this very specialized work, but their performance will only make our cost control problems even worse.

    My question is, how do I get my point across that the Gov't is setting up the Contractor for a cost overrun as they continue to insist we hire additional (and more expensive) personnel to do this work? They continuously disregard the flaws in the LOE and keep telling me LCATs were not incorporated in the contract so they don't want to hear our excuses that the cost ceiling was set too low. In their mind, if the work requires the higher skilled personnel, then we have to provide them and live with the consequences of a significant cost overrun.

    Any help or guidance the group can provide would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks!

  9. The CO is citing this as a "Change" to the contract and telling us to submit an equitable adjustment in accordance with the clause. I do have CPFF task orders which are in excess of $50M so I would think EVM could apply. Our primary issue is how can the CO can expect a contractor to implement EVM reporting in the middle of task order execution and in some cases when the task order will be complete in the next 6 months or less. It doesn't seem like we would be putting Gov't funds to good use.

  10. I'm encountering a problem with one of my Contracting Officers where he is trying to add Earned Value Management System requirements retroactively to our IDIQ (task order-based) contract. I had a brief conversation with him this morning and expressed to him our concerns with EVM being added with an effective date of roughly 3 months ago. His response was that we need to sign the bilateral mod or he would simply execute the mod unilaterally.

    I'm looking for some ideas on how I can approach him so he does not do that and takes a minute to listen to our concerns.

    Thanks!

  11. We have had conversations with teh COR about this problem and he basically told us that he manages several programs and is very busy. He says will try to do a better job and review them in a more timely manner . However, we have yet to see that happen. Understand your point about our invoices must be correct otherwise, we have no room to complain. Historically the invoices have been fine, but the amount of time it is taking him to finally approve is drawing a tremendous amount of attention from our sr. mgmt. They feel we are meeting our part of the contract, but the government is not meeting there's. Our contract contains 52.232-25 and Alt I, but I do not see anything that addresses a COR's untimely review of an invoice other than it states the authorizing representative will review/return within 7 days. We looking at a minimum of 60 days before he even begins to look at it.

    I understand your point of not getting on the wrong side of the COR, but we've tried to be patient with him, but that doesn't seem to be working out for us. Any additional guidance you can provide would be much appreciated.

  12. I have a serious problem with one of my CORs not reviewing vouchers submitted to him for several months and then when he does review he finds a problem with it and we have to re-submit and then another long period of time passes and the COR finds another problem or has another question.

    This goes on for several months and we're not getting paid for 180 days or sometimes longer.

    I understand that it's our job, as the contractor, to ensure our invoices are 100% accurate, but what recourse do I have to get my COR to review the invoices more timely?

  13. I have a situation where an individual has worked before the funds were obligated to the contract. The contract is CPFF and is incrementally funded. The customer is sending us funds, but could those funds be applied for the work already accomplished? Overall, our contract has funding, but those funds are specific to other unrelated efforts. Contract has a broad scope so that's not an issue, but I'm unfamiliar with whether the funds could be applied to cover costs already incurred.

  14. I'm preparing a proposal in response to a CPFF-Term Form RFP and we want to include language in our proposal response which proctects us in the event we expend the entire LOE (and dollars) prior to the end of the PoP. We want to make sure the Gov't understands that the contractor is entitled to add'l LOE/cos$$ and an updward adjustment to our fee pool. In other words, we don't want a request for add'l hours/$ to be miscontstrued as a cost overrun.

    Are we are on solid with this assumption? Does it even need to be caveated in our bid or can we rely on FAR clauses as a basis for this price adjustment?

    Thanks!

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