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DWGerard1102

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Everything posted by DWGerard1102

  1. I left the civil service (GS-1102-11 Contract Specialist) back in the 2000s for a job with a defense contractor due to some professional conflicts with the contracting office I left. I was there for a few years serving as a senior contract administrator with signature authority for all but the largest contracts. After a few years the contractor reassigned the duties of my office to another division and pretty much left my office and coworkers out to dry (All but a few resigned and went to other companies). I applied for and was hired by DHS/ICE as a GS-1102-12/13 Contracting Officer, so it received a one grade promotion over my previous civil service position. So the concept that a rehired federal employee could receive a promotion upon being rehired is not new.
  2. Some agencies already have a system that takes the full and open paradigm out of the decision making process. They require all prospective offerors to prequalify for specific systems that will be purchased and only solicit those contractors for requirements in those systems. That rationale is good; the systems involve flight, missiles and other systems where people's lives would be endangered by using a non-standard product or assembly. I don't know how that would work for procurements that do not involve critical systems like aircraft wings and engines, but perhaps it is time for us to go to such a procurement philosophy where possible.
  3. While it is true that the DoD will ignore the SBA regulations, in a protest the GAO folks often will go to the SBA regulations if they are from recent laws that have been enacted and use that to make their ruling. That happen the most in regulations that are related to FAR 19 but I have seen it in the past where they ruled on other FAR chapters that the CFR regulations were based on newer laws and should have been used in lieu of the older regulation which no longer reflected the law. Basically, the DoD position is not ironclad in a protest and can be overruled by GAO or another court.
  4. None of the KO's that I have worked with via the Small Business Specialists have done that. I have recommended it but the closest that I have seen is where the KO issued a sample task order or statement of work for them to submit a proposed cost for and then they used that cost to build their subcontracting plan. That does not happen in all of the plans that I have to review. If I was the KO, that is how I would set up the subcontracting plan part of the question; but that does not answer the OP question. If it was up to me, I would state specifically what the minimum awards would be and then communicate that in a competitive arena, the best value proposal would win without regard to how many awards went to any specific contractor. One contractor could very well win all of the maximum funding for the contract less the minimum awards. Not all contracting offices would agree with me on that, I have worked with some that insist that all contractors should receive awards. I have asked how they would deal with one contractor consistently not submitting the best proposal and they could not really answer that question.
  5. This question has not been overlooked in the contractor community but it has also not been answered as far as I can see. I review subcontracting plans for multiple award contracts (one solicitation with separate contracts for each awardee), and the subcontracting plans vary depending on what the contractor thinks the "total" contract amount in the SubK plan is. Some think it is the whole contract amount or maximum for the MAC, others think it is a subset of the maximum and other punt say they cannot figure what the total contract amount and have the Government tell them what to put into that area of their plan. This situation has been around for at least 8 years now, for that is the time that I have been in the PCR role and it has always been that way. Perhaps one day their will be an answer on how to resolve how MACs should be administered, but that day has not come yet.
  6. To the OP, You will need to speak with the SBA 8(a) and HUBZone offices as both of those organizations have very specific requirements for their programs. The novation means that the newly formed company has to recertify for the HUBZone program (13 C.F.R. § 126.619(3)) and for the 8(a) program (13 CFR § 121.404(g)(1)). The Contracting Officer may or may not be familiar with those requirements.
  7. I would hope that at least some agencies conduct training for the clients and customers, but I doubt that is the case. I have offered training for years to the 1102 and program folks for the agencies that I support as a SBA Procurement Center Representative and all I have gotten (with two exceptions), is a big, hollow, empty nothing in return. Given that anything I present is worth CLPs and is free of cost, that baffles me. If contracting offices won't push training for their own staff, its not likely they are emphasizing it for their clients and customers.
  8. C Culham the SBA does not care if the FAR does or does not support its rules, the COC process is theirs and they use 13 CFR and not the FAR for their regulations. I have brought up that problem (Agencies use the FAR and the SBA ignores the FAR most of the time), but have not had a lot of success. At least once I have had a FAR regulation in hand but the SBA leadership would not even look at that cite, and relied purely on an attorneys opinion to make a rule (not a regulation, and not even written down at the time), that was contrary to the FAR regulation. In this case the Contracting Officer should work with their legal and leadership staff and decide what to do; award or not award to the SB concern. The SB affected by the partial COC should either live with that ruling or appeal it on the grounds that it prevents them from fully participating in the contracted work. Not sure how that would turn out; it appears that the ruling is pretty much anti-small business, but the SBA has taken that position before on other rulings.
  9. I checked with the COC Specialist in my Area and here is what he said: Chapter 4 of the COC SOP allows a partial award if the contract allows for award less than the full amount. 9. Can the COC Specialist or FS Recommend a Partial Award of a Contract? a. Yes, both the COC Specialist and FS can recommend a partial award provided: (1) The solicitation has a provision which allows for the contract award method; and (2) The SB has the capability to perform at the anticipated reduced level. 12 CFR125.5(f)(3) states (3) Where a contracting officer finds a concern to be non-responsible for reasons of financial capacity on an indefinite delivery or indefinite quantity task or delivery order contract, the Area Director will consider the firm's maximum financial capacity. If the Area Director issues a COC, it will be for a specific amount that is the limit of the firm's financial capacity for that contract. The contracting officer may subsequently determine to exceed the amount, but cannot deny the firm award of an order or contract on financial grounds if the firm has not reached the financial maximum the Area Director identified in the COC letter. He said he never ran into this particular situation but that it was most likely to occur in ID/IQ contracts where the potential financial ability of a small business contractor might limit the number of awards the company could handle at a time. It might also affect Multiple Award Task Order (MATOC) contracts where a small business contractor might be found to be capable up to a specific dollar amount and that the contractor is not certified by the COC for DO/TOs above that amount.
  10. I work at NASA, so I am on a mandatory work from home(WFH), right now. My WFH may go longer because of my cancer treatment program which puts me into a different category.
  11. In my experience your agency is the outlier; none of the agencies I have worked at (8 places, CA, DC, GA, TX, FL, AL), required overtime for half the year. Only 1 (a base support contracting office), required overtime in September, with optional overtime beginning in August. Most of the offices I worked in did not have any mandatory overtime, even those with predominantly one year funding. The offices working with more multiple year funding like the one I am in now are like "October is coming soon? How cute!"
  12. If you are the KO then you can submit the Size Protest as soon as the contractor is designated as the apparent awardee. Just let the size specialist know that the protest is from the KO and not from another competitor so they know not to impose that rule. The rule that states the award has to be announced prior to the protest being submitted is for when other competitors protest to the KO prior to award. I used to work as a size specialist for the SBA before they removed that program from the PCR duties.
  13. One factor in your corner is the SBA Procurement Center Representative (PCR) for your agency. The PCR has some authority that you as the Small Business Specialist do not have, primarily the ability to negotiate from an outside position which eliminates the "disagree with me and it will be reflected in your evaluation this year" problem and ultimately, the SBA Form 70 which is the equivalent of a tactical nuclear weapon in the Contracting process. A SBA Form 70 will stop the process in its tracks and if the dispute is not resolved at the HCA level, elevates it to the Agency HCA and the Secretary for the SBA's office, usually the SES over the SBA Office of Government Contracting. If you don't know who your PCR is, check out the SBA website under "Federal Contracting/Procurement Center Representative directory" Once there you can drill down and find the PCR for your organization if it is listed. If not, just send a message to the Area Director over the location where your organization is and they will reply with the appropriate PCR contact information.
  14. My case is unique in that I work remotely 100% of the time; my boss is in different state than the one where my office is located, about 200 miles away. Everyday is a kind of telework as the clients that I service all send their documents to me via email and other document handling systems save one, my office is located in that one client who brings me their documents by hand. I have seen my supervisor face to face about 2-3 time per year since I took this job, one year it was zero times when she was going through a health issue. I see my clients face to face (other than the client that is hosting my office), about 5-10 times per year when I visit their offices for meetings, small business conferences and other seminars. A few clients that are remote from my office (travel required), I see maybe once per year depending on when and where the DoD Small Business Conference is held. That said, I can pretty much work from my office or at home with no change of productivity or work tempo. My host client just upgraded my computer to a laptop from a desktop so that I can work from home using their IT system as well as my employer's system since my cancer is forcing me to work from home a bit more often, primarily because of broken bones which is an effect of Multiple Myeloma. Probably the worst telework problem is how the IT people handle connecting my employers laptop to my home internet provider. My house has all the required protection, firewall, virus protection, spam protection, etc., but the IT system in my organization will set up an update and then when the laptop reboots, my employer's IT system will kick the laptop out of the system forcing me to travel 115 miles to the nearest local network for my employer to re-sync the PIV card to the computer. I have refused to do that lately, so they have figured a way to sync the laptop from my home office, but not my home. My home office is 6 miles from my house, which is better than 115 miles.
  15. In that case the contractor may have exceeded its small business size standard due to its affiliation with the company that bought the company stocks. You should contact the Procurement Center Representative for your organization and let them know as the original contractor is no longer eligible for small business set asides if they, via their affiliation with the buying company, is no longer a small business.
  16. Is the original contractor a small business? If so, there are additional factors to consider.
  17. The $4M restriction applies to the contract award, but it does not restrict the KO from exceeding that cap after award unless it is an obvious attempt to game that restriction. The regulations themselves only speak to the contract award amount. If the contractor is not an ANC or other tribal entity, then two years after award the KO can modify the contract as high as needed so long at the SBA is notified of the modification no later than the contractor is notified of the modification along with a statement that the modification was not contemplated prior the award of the contract. If the contractor is an ANC, then the cap is not $4M, it is $22M per FAR 19.808-1, so there should be no angst about modifying the contract up to that level.
  18. awhinton, I believe the reason is that GSA is awarding another option for the contract due to either an extension or a protest ruling. I don't have the slides from the training event yet, (should get them sometime this week), so I can't be more specific.
  19. I just went to a GSA training event yesterday and heard that the 8(a) STARS II contract is just entering its Option Period this year so all contractors will need to recertify their small business status in October per the GSA rep. That recertification is required per 13 CFR § 121.404(g)(3) for long term contracts at the 5th year of the contract and at the start of subsequent option periods.
  20. Freyr, Thanks, I am not sure why the link did not work but that is the correct case. The case itself only dealt with a limited scope but the entire amount of malfeasance that I found went back much farther.
  21. https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/ma/news/2010/July/THROWERverdictPR/html
  22. Yes, click on the SBIR website on page 2, and then the PPT link and the phone numbers and email addresses are within that PPT presentation.
  23. This is a 2013 presentation of the SBA's Guide to SBIR/STTR Program Eligibility but most of the information is still correct. There have been some changes since then but they relaxed the requirements in those changes so if you meet the standards in this guide, you SHOULD be okay. The only CORRECT answer has to come from a direct inquiry to the current SBA SBIR website on page 2 of the document. SBIR-STTR elig_size_compliance_guide.pdf
  24. The answer is not a set date, it would come down to when the Buying firm's interest became control of the company being purchased. In a size determination the reviewer would look at that information and make a determination. Usually there is a point in the negotiation between the Buyer-Seller where intent is clear, and that date would be the point that affiliation is assumed. At that point the revenues of both firms would be combined to determine the size of the combined firms.
  25. For the latter (assisting small businesses...), you might want to check out the PTAC (Procurement Technical Assistance Center) or SBDC (Small Business Development Center) in your area or in areas you would be interested in. Those organizations are outside of the Federal employment system so you would not be a GS-1102 if you worked there. There a lot of offices for both categories, and most are located in or associated with universities so they provide an interesting place to work. Those organizations specifically assist small businesses in the Federal contracting arena so your contracting experience would be of value as an employee at those organizations.
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