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Thank you!

Hi all, Thanks for the detailed discussion. Let me clarify a few points from my original question: We are incrementally funding, and the contract includes 52.232-22. By Ceiling, I was referring to the Total Estimated Cost. By Funded Values, I was referring to the amount of funding obligated to the contract per CLIN that we can burn against. To be more specific, they are looking to deobligate any excess “Total Value” which they define as the Total Estimated Cost + Total Award Fee for each CLIN. The deobs of any excess award fee pool isn’t concerning to us since we are obviously only are issued funding for the amount of the award fee we earned based on award fee criteria, so that amount will not change depending on finalization of our indirects for each contractor fiscal year. It is the Total Estimated Cost piece we are concerned about. We are fearful of a situation where our final rates come back as higher than what we were billing at with our provisionals, and if the Total Estimated Cost has been deobligated down to current funded values, we would not be able to recover the extra actual costs since the Total Estimated Cost had been reduced, leaving no room to recover the costs. As @formerfed mentioned in their original comment, that is exactly what our agency is looking to do - they want to clean up their books and deobligate any excess “Value” from our expired CLINs. We have asked the COR to hold off on deobligating any unused value until we have the final indirect rates established to avoid this all together, so hopefully they agree.

We are the prime on a CPAF contract and the government is asking to deobligate unused ceiling down to our funded values for previous option years. One of these option years took place during our contractor fiscal years for which we do not yet have settled indirect rates with DCAA. If we were to proceed with the deobligation of ceiling down to funding and our final negotiated indirect rates with DCAA result in an underbilling, is the government still required to reimburse us for the underbilling, even if that would put us in excess of the ceiling? Is the government still required to reimburse us for the underbilling if in excess of the funded value? Or, should we ask that they government hold off on deobligating any ceiling until we have the final, settled rates with DCAA? Thank you in advance for any clarification/guidance!

We are not concerned with the costs or time associated with doing the reporting, more-so with understanding the requirement and if it is applicable or not. Since it is not in the contract, it appears obviously inapplicable, but I was seeking insight from this group on why it may not have been included in the awards, and if this is common. I like to understand the "why" behind things, and speaking with colleagues and other contracting professionals has always proved more fruitful than asking KOs.

My company has two prime contracts: One is a CPFF TO under a IDIQ vehicle and the other is a CPAF single award contract. Neither of these contracts include 52.204-10 Reporting Executive Compensation and First-Tier Subcontract Awards. Both do, however, include 52.204-13 System for Award Management Maintenance, and one of the reps and certs within SAM is 52.204-10. Based on this, I have two questions: Since 52.204-13 is included, we do have to complete the certification for 52.204-10 in SAM. BUT, since 52.204-10 is not included as a contract clause, my firm does not have to complete any reporting in FSRS, correct? I want to ensure we are not negligent on any reporting requirements. What are possible reasons why the contracts don't include this clause? Looking at the clause and 4.1403(a), it seems like they should be included. Thanks!

Thanks for all the feedback. We were surprised the CO wanted to manage how we are performing that closely as well. If anything, we thought it showed dedication on the part of the employee. The employee took PTO earlier in the week and they wanted to catch up, so they worked a few contract billable hours on Saturday and Sunday so deliverables didn't slip. This is under a cost reimbursement contract type so we are solely invoicing the government for an employee's actual costs regardless of when they perform the work. We don't apply any premiums to these costs. Additionally, our accounting system uses dilution, so even if he were to have worked over 40 hours in a given week to this contract, his effective/adjusted hourly rate would have been calculated lower, and our invoiced amount to the Govt would have been the same as if he had worked 40 hours.

Is there any hard restriction in the FAR or other govt regulation restricting weekend work? We have a CO who is questioning why work was done on the weekend, although there is no language in our contract that expressly restricts it.

Good point. The RFP I used to form my scenario did not require Certified Cost or Pricing Data since it was based on adequate price competition, but I agree that paying close attention to those requirements is imperative, and would potentially impact the strategy we use to develop subcontractor pricing.

Understood. Thank you for your guidance!

Hi Vern, Yes, that is the short of it. We ran into a situation where we were going to price all the work as a Prime (because we did not have the intent to subcontract off the bat, but had Subs listed as team members to potentially bring on in future option years in other volumes), but had to note which LCATs would be staffed by Subs. We wanted to just list all rates as Prime rates and state in our cost narrative that subs would be priced & reimbursed in accordance with our Prime rate card. The practice seems a little off to me, but I have heard from a few others that is standard practice, so I just wanted to confirm.

I am hoping to get some guidance on subcontractor pricing under a T&M RFP both during the proposal phase and in post-award execution. My firm is used to only supporting cost-plus prime contracts and have only supported T&M contract types as a sub up until this point, so I wanted to ensure my team and I understand the mechanics behind building a compliant cost proposal, and remaining compliant in post-award execution including invoicing. Consider this scenario: Say in Section I of the solicitation, the Govt incorporates 52.216-29. The CO did not make mandatory any of the three approaches discussing in paragraph (c) of the clause, but later in the PWS requests that we note in the mandatory pricing template if the rate is a Prime Rate or a Sub Rate. In our proposal, we as the prime propose a single rate for all sub and prime Senior Engineers at $150/hr, and delineate some as Prime positions and others as Sub positions, but again with no differentiation in the rate. If our subcontractor proposed a rate of $100/hr to us the Prime during a preliminary data call for target rates, are we still able to use the $150/hr rate in our prime proposal for the sub positions, invoice the Govt for that $150/hr for sub work performed, and then only pay the sub their proposed $100/hr? Or, are we required to bid a rate for the subcontractors comprised of the rate the sub provided us the Prime + any applicable Material and Handling (Sub’s rate + Material Handling = Proposed rate for subcontractor Senior Engineers on rate card to Govt). Does the Govt care in this instance what we pay the sub or are they just concerned about paying us the contractor the hourly rate on the Schedule? Would the answer be the same if we have non-priced subcontractors in our proposal, and post-award want to allow them to staff an FTE? If that is an acceptable practice, how, if at all, would that differ if the solicitation incorporated 52.216-30? Furthermore, would doing this be possible if we were required by the RFP to conduct a detailed subcontractor price/rate analysis, or if the subcontractor were required to submit an unsanitized build up or certified cost or pricing data? As for post-award execution, 52.232-7 states that the Govt will pay the contractor an hourly rate prescribed in the contract for labor that meets the LCAT quals, whether it is performed by the contractor or subcontractor. Does the Govt care what we pay the subcontractors, including if the rate we pay them is higher or lower than the rate establish on the schedule for subcontractors, as long as we only invoice at the rate established in the Schedule? Or, does what we pay the subcontractor have to match what rate we invoice the Govt for?