apsofacto

15 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

P.S. The name of GSA's procedure was not "highest rated technical offer" (HRTO). It was "highest technically rated [offerors] with a fair and reasonable price." The award was not based on the technical rating alone. Price was a consideration.

Very useful to explain how this is different from the Qualifications-based engineering style procurements.  Prices come in with the proposals, they are actual offers.  Appreciate that distinction very much . . .

There appears to be a tradition in supply chain world of evaluating firms in this fashion:

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Tr-Z/Vendor-Rating.html

It's not what Lwall describes but his question made me think of it.  It's not feasible in out legal environment, but interesting to see how the other half lives . . .

On ‎12‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 10:49 AM, bob7947 said:

(A)for which the price agreed upon is based on—

(i)

adequate price competition competition that results in at least two or more responsive and viable competing bids; or

Isn't it better to just say "at least two responsive and viable competing bids"?  ('m ignoring "viable" and "bids" for the moment)

Why say "or more"?  "At least two" is "two or more" right?  Sounds redundant . . .  

If you put the sentence together in one place it looks like this:

Quote

Submission of certified cost or pricing data shall not be required under subsection (a) in the case of a contract, a subcontract, or modification of a contract or subcontract for which the price agreed upon is based on 

competition that results in at least two or more responsive and viable competing bids.

 

Does the green section apply to each element in the red?  Or just subcontracts?  How about the purple?  If the purple reaches back and affects all the elements in the red section that certainly helps.  I hate this sentence.  They obviously want the green to apply to each element in the red, but it seems ambiguous.  Someone should run a contest to rewrite it . . . (Pepe?)

Hi, REA'n Maker,

I'm admittedly a little naïve, but I think that spending in an egalitarian and non-prejudicial manner results in lower prices.  Not for every single transaction, but overall.

However, the "spread the wealth" virus has spread far and wide- I think it is the opposite of egalitarian and non-prejudicial.  It is explicitly prejudicial and anti-incumbent.  At least the strain which infects my environment. That phrase just makes my teeth grind.

You too, Bob!  Happy Holidays!

I'm on team Drabkin for now.

Seems foolish to argue against prof. Schooner, but (hypothetically) is it legal to include this clause in a contract?

Quote

No party to this lease shall pursue any elected office of the Government of the United States.

If the clause means what Prof. Schooner says, is it enforceable?  Could that rapidly become bribing someone to not run for office? 

Feels like a bigger problem for GSA than Trump, and I hope they can resolve it *prior* to the swearing-in ceremony, when they are still two different parties! 

42 minutes ago, Jamaal Valentine said:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has held that the federal government is not permitted to disclose line item pricing information in a government contract in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Canadian Commercial Corp. v. Department of the Air Force, 514 F.3d 37 (D.C. Cir. 2008).

Wow!  I'm subject to the Texas Public Information Act at the moment and we may as well put the Contract File in the parking lot after the contract is awarded.

2 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

Does anyone believe that?

No, I don't think the $600 hammer controversy fixed anything either, but it was before my time.

Apologies for wandering: Can prices paid really be redacted from a FOIA request?  

Made a few notes by heading below.  Overall it couldn't overcome my pessimistic nature, despite how much I like him.  Others will find the gems, apparently I can only throw mud:

1. Develop More Information about Contract Performance

A lot of discussion about disclosing prices here, seems like a mismatch with the heading.  Pricing transparency is pretty far down the list in terms of both cost and benefit.  The discussion about actual contract performance amounts to publicizing things the Government should already be tracking.

2. Pivot to Post-Award

CORs should be better!  What's not to love!  I think they have the same workforce issues we do- it takes years to make a good project officer.  It takes years to make a great craftsman of any profession.  Making people better is very hard, and will probably not happen.

3. Expand Forms of Contracting that Pay for Success

Grab bag of  procurement techniques which will not help the day-to-day contracts person.  It's great to know they exist but I will never use them.  Will not have the occasion to use any of these.  I'm not even sure if "Contests" should be run through the contracts group. 

It is here.  There is a brief discussion of chicken parts.

The comment section from that article makes me appreciate *this* comment section all the more . . . 

12 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

I think people should say what they mean. I say if by "firm offer" a person means "irrevocable offer," then they should say what they mean--"irrevocable offer." But I accept that people like to say "firm offer," and while I don't think it makes sense, I do not object to it as improper.

"Irrevocable" seems more descriptive, and does not have the passing resemblance to "firm fixed price" which could confuse a reader. 

A quick internet search finds a number of school nutrition program solicitations requesting "firm offers" which are "cost reimbursable".  I don't think this is improper either, but those solicitations would be a little clearer if they use "irrevocable". 

I'm not so sure it is ambiguous on its own (though I do not follow Prezmill's point very well).  However, if other instructions in the solicitation conflict, cannot be read together as a whole, and cannot be resolved through order of precedence, then yes.  Ambiguous.  Hopefully not missing any steps in there.

I would guess it is a patent conflict in that circumstance, but no way to tell in this context-free alternate universe.  We may be able to invent circumstances either way. 

OK- Here are the results:

PANTHEON OF GLORY

Vern Edwards

PepetheFrog

Baierle

Jason Lent

Navy_Contracting_4

Todd Davis

Parthenon of Esteem

Prezmil2020- revised the sentence to fix the problem, but dissents from my diagnosis.

Vern provided a great explanation of the problem via PM, which I assume he won't mind me reproducing here:

Quote

I presume that the author meant to say that the engines to be removed and rebuilt are the ones that are marked with a red tag. If so, he should have used a restrictive clause, and the sentence should have been written:

     The Contractor shall remove and rebuild all engines that are marked with a red tag.

Instead, the author used a nonrestrictive clause, as follows:

     "The Contractor shall remove and rebuild all engines, which are marked with a red tag."

That sentence says that all engines are marked with red tag. The clause that begins with "which" merely provides more information about "all engines."

The author does not understand the proper uses of that and which.

Jason Lent observed that this error could lead to a disastrous interpretation (emphasis added):

8 hours ago, Jason Lent said:

The sentence would lead me to believe that all engines are to be removed and rebuilt and that all engines are marked with a red tag. The inclusion of the dependent clause "which are marked with a red tag" does not sufficiently describe the intended purpose (looking to see which engines have a red tag and removing and rebuilding only those that have a red tag). Simply removing the comma would be an improvement.

Prezmil2020 dissented somewhat with the diagnosis, but rewrote the sentence fixing the problem, so I gave him honorable mention.  Prezmil, please feel free to post your POV if you feel the urge.

Thanks as always folks!  It was fun.  I nominate PepetheFrog to do the next one.  Probably a better writer than yours truly . . .

I read it as an assertion that procurement rules were responsible for the Civil Rights Movement, various worker protections, dramatically reducing the transaction costs of small businesses selling goods/services to the Government, and a cry for help.  If that is the case, my response is "false", "false", "does the opposite", and "I'm here for you brother" respectively.

Hi, Don,

Just to clarify, were you referring to the President or the figurative devil?

Here is another contest! 

Please send a personal message to me to tell me what is wrong with this sentence (you may also rewrite it if you wish):

Quote

The Contractor shall remove and rebuild all engines, which are marked with a red tag.

Note:  The intent of the author is to instruct a Contractor to review a set of car engines and discern which have a red tags.  Then remove only the engines with red tags and rebuild them.

Please do not reply directly to the post.  I'll post the results of who made it into the Pantheon of Glory tomorrow!  There will be no Hall of Eternal Shame this time.

Hint: The answer is grammatical.

7 hours ago, Sascha Kemper said:

The problem is we have a small pool of offerors that our CORs know well, so we're trying to remove favoritism or preferences for certain offerors.

If the problem is internal, I think the effort should be spent internally, not on extra solicitation provisions which place a burden on you, not the evaluators.

Can you contest the technical evaluation during source selection if your CO suspects there is bad faith on that side of the fence? 

How does one check the references of an anonymous proposal?  I'm skeptical of this approach- seems like it is not worth the heartache.

Sascha, what problem is the CO trying to solve?  Trying to defuse accusations of favoritism towards a particular firm?  Some problems may not be solvable . . .

Vern or anyone else:

Has is been your experience that agencies acquire a reputation in this area?  I have only worked for two employers in this field: One federal agency which seemed biased to the more highly rated and more expensive proposal (at the margin) and a local transit authority which is biased to the lower priced proposal (at the margin).  I think many of our proposers had us figured out and acted accordingly.

Underlying question: Can proposers be trained to not to do this via positive reinforcement (awarding to higher rated higher priced proposals)?   

Follow-up questions: Is this problem dwarfed by incumbency bias?  That is the more common complaint I receive from proposers . . .

This sounds like you are worried about the trade-off process, but could you require the instructor be key personnel and heavily consider key personnels' qualifications?  Are there objective measures (certifications, confirmed enemy kills, amount of taxidermy in residence) which correspond with a good shooting instructor?

On ‎9‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 8:31 PM, Vern Edwards said:

Are you recommending that the government just pay the bill whenever someone makes an unauthorized commitment? Or are you recommending a different ratification process? Or a different process manager?

FAR 1.602-3(d) states non-ratifiable procurements could be resolved by the GAO, and is therefore very scary to the wayward PM since his chain of command cannot help him. 

Should all unauthorized commitments (ratifiable or not) be referred be referred to the agency OIG? I don't expect the OIG to retroactively approve the commitment, of course, but . . . we were talking punishment, too . . .

Quote

apsofacto,

Which laws would you like to see repealed?  Which regulations would you like to see removed?

Hello, Navy,

How about 25 USC 1544?  Seems like a scam.  Subchapter D looks like a target rich environment.

6 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

Repeal of laws is hard. How about amendment?

Yes, all of those are more practical that my earlier rainforest torching thought. 

It may be worth indexing all of those dollar thresholds to inflation so they would self-adjust over the years? 

Issues as in issues which are controversial, or are we talking about how the Constitution affects our daily work?

As contrast, sometimes I imagine what a procurement job in North Korea might be like . . .