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  1. We are a small business sub to a large prime on a large, long running contract with a broad SOW. The government customer would like to award a subset of this SOW to us, under a separate contract vehicle (which we have). How much latitude does a CO have to go directly to a sub, when the work could be interpreted to be included under the broad SOW of a competitively awarded prime contract? Can the CO interpret this subset as distinct from the prime’s SOW and award it under different contract vehicle, even though the prime’s SOW is written broadly enough that such distinction is a bit of grey zone? Any advice on how the CO could define this requirement that would help the distinction? Pitfalls to avoid? Thank you in advance for any feedback.
  2. Question regarding recent SBA Final Rule A section from a publication summarizing a recent SBA Final Ruling has concerned management in my company: PUBLICATION segment: “From Kostos & Lamer, P.C. Government Contracts Update June 2016 SBA issues Final Rule reinterpreting limitations on subcontracting requirements… …Another aspect of the Final Rule involves interpreting when two companies are affiliated for size purposes. There is now established a rebuttable presumption that if, over a three year period, one firm derives over 70% of its revenues from another firm, the two firms are presumed to be affiliated. The burden in such cases would be on the challenged firm to rebut the presumption.” QUESTION: Here is our concern: According to FAR 16.601 the hourly rates for services transferred between affiliates (A) shall include no profit, (B) May include profit for the prime contractor. Below is an example to show how we are interpreting this as it applies to us (we are “Company A”): COMPANY A Revenue (all numbers are revenue from subcontracts) Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Total % Subk#1 6.00 7.00 9.00 22.00 71.0% Subk#2 2.00 2.00 2.00 6.00 19.4% Subk#3 1.00 1.00 1.00 3.00 9.7% Total = 31.00 Given this example, would Company A be considered an “affiliate” of Subk#1? And as such, Company A would NOT be allowed to put profit on its rates and would have to perform the Subk#1 work “at cost”? Are we interpreting this ruling correctly?
  3. Adding to this old topic as this is related - Just received a bulletin from Deltek claiming that DCAA is now looking for contractors to have a comparison of at least three different airlines for a similar seat, as part of it's travel expense voucher support. It references FAR 31.201-2(d) at the top of this bulletin. Reading that clause I don't see anything specifically requiring 3 airline quotes, it just talks about "adequate support". We just went through a 4 year ICS audit (passed with no findings) and this (3 airfare quotes) didn't come up during that audit. Is this something new? We do have in our travel policies that employees are to shop around to find the lowest fare possible, but nothing requiring them to provide 3 quotes as proof that they did so. Wondering if we need to take this bulletin's advice seriously or if our current travel policies & procedures (which recently passed audit) are sufficient as they stand.
  4. As contractor we have to provide detailed travel receipts - our prime has rejected one based on a $29 charge to an employee who requested an aisle seat. This (an aisle seat request) seems a reasonable one to us - we were surprised that they were charged for it, and now surprised that the prime is having an issue with it. Obviously we know significant upgrades (to first class for example) are unallowable. But this seems over the top. Any thoughts on this from the group? Is there any discussion on this kind of charge in some clause you could point us to?
  5. We are bidding on a CPFF GSA contract as a subcontractor, the ultimate customer is the Army. For the pricing volume we need to show rates per labor category loaded through cost, then fee = CPFF rate x hours = extended price for each labor category. As a subcontractor, we do not want to submit the full breakout (OH & G&A) of the loading of the rates to our Prime, so they will receive the template only showing each final rate loaded through cost, fee applied and resulting CPFF rate. But in the Sealed Package to the Army of course, we have to show the full breakout. The problem is, when we use the ROUND function to truncate the computed rates to 2 decimals, the price we give to our Prime is slightly off from that we compute for our Sealed Package to the Army. If we remove the ROUND function, the difference goes away. But then if someone takes the rate formatted with 2 decimal points x hours on a calculator, the result is slightly off between the two templates. Question how best to handle this? Do we: Use the ROUND function, leaving the small difference in total prices there, and include explanation that the difference between rates to Prime and Sealed package are due to rounding, or Turn off the ROUND function (thus the actual rates go out to 5 decimal points or more) which eliminates the difference – but then the rates shown (with 2 decimals) are not exactly the rates used times the hours to arrive at the price – and include an explanation about this fact? Or is there another way to handle this? (Note the total difference amounts to ~ $50 per year over 5 years) (Since it is a CPFF we realize during performance we will just be billing actual costs. This question just relates to the proposed rates and how to handle the difference between total prices to Prime vs Sealed Package to Army caused by rounding.)
  6. HTH, thanks for the link to that fantastic series of articles - very helpful at this stage of our development!
  7. We have calculated that currently we have 4 Full Time Equivalency (FTE) Indirect Heads and 45 FTE Direct Heads. Total 49 FTE's. So our current workforce is about 8% Indirect & 92% Direct. (Revenue approx $7M/yr, providing engineering & training services to government customers.) Is there anywhere I could compare our labor utilization ratios to see how we measure up in this industry? Or does anyone feel comfortable sharing examples? This analysis is part of our ongoing efforts to be sure we are running as efficiently as we possibly can. Any input appreciated.
  8. Due to implementing some new costs savings strategies, we have calculated we can reduce our Plant-Site OH by approx 15% and our G&A by 4%. We won't begin to realize these cost savings until starting in September-October time frame. Going forward of course we will use our newly lowered OH & G&A to calculate new T&M rates. But we have several existing contracts where T&M rates were built using the older, higher OH & G&A. At what point are we obligated to inform the current customers that due to cost savings we can renegotiate lower rates this coming fall? Assuming we do HAVE to inform current customers? I.e., we can't just say "those rates were already negotiated & agreed to, so even though we know our OH & G&A costs will be lower next year, that doesn't affect our agreed to T&M rates on existing contracts", can we? Thanks in advance for any feedback or direction to relevant rules.
  9. That is just what the pricer is saying, I just hadn't seen this before. Thanks for very helpful input as usual!
  10. Ugh, that didn't work - the data was in a table but format didn't save. In a nutshell they are applying 11% profit to the Programmer, 6% to the Analyst, and 8% to the Engineer. Does this work, or does the profit % have to be the same for all 3?
  11. T&M rates for IDIQ as submitted to prime (govt customer DHS) were computed as follows: (example) Direct Labor Overhead G&A Loaded Cost Profit % Profit T&M Labor Cat Per Hour 50% 10% Per Hour (varies) Amount Rate Programmer $ 50.00 $ 25.00 $ 7.50 $ 82.50 11% $ 9.08 $ 91.58 Analyst $ 40.00 $ 20.00 $ 6.00 $ 66.00 6% $ 3.96 $ 69.96 Engineer $ 30.00 $ 15.00 $ 4.50 $ 49.50 8% $ 3.96 $ 53.46 Question: Is the profit % varying by Labor Category going to pass audit? The pricer is saying risk of hiring suitable personnel at the bid DL (which was based on BLS) varies per LC so profit % should vary based on this risk. I've only seen one profit % applied to all LCs in a given proposal before. Opinions?
  12. Yes, thank you, we have read those references, and used them to develop our policies & procedures. Only the question about the part-timers didn't seem clearly answered there. We are editing our Timesheet procedure to address this as suggested by H2H. Thank you!
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