formerfed

If multiple firms are qualified with competitive pricing, nothing wrong with maintaining competition during the performance period. Technology will rapidly change over the next few years. Having contractors deliver using an “open architecture” approach needs stressed for the good of the country where one company can easily pick up where another left off.

Carl, You're taking this way off topic. Those GSA blog comments have nothing to do with this. Of course agencies can add clauses to their orders that don’t conflict with the Schedule. My comment had to do with whether clause 552.212-4 applied to orders. I admit I got off track thinking of a couple past situations where Schedule clauses referred to “GSA” and “contractor” and agencies tried wrongly to say those clauses pertained to their individual orders substituting themselves for GSA. I was wrong with that. As Vern mentioned, we don’t know what the agency modification said in the OPs case. Certainly an administrative action can be unilateral. But In other situations where an agency’s action infringes altering contractual rights, the modification needs to be bilateral reflecting mutual agreement.

Vern, Agreed. Seeing the specific language removing funding is necessary first. Carl, I’ll wait for someone at GSA to respond.

The 552.212-4 clause says “Changes. Changes in the terms and conditions of this contract may be made only by written agreement of the parties.” That just addresses contract changes. Those are revisions made to the Contractor/GSA PSS contract FAR 52.216-18(b) on Ordering says “All delivery orders or task orders are subject to the terms and conditions of this contract. In the event of conflict between a delivery order or task order and this contract, the contract shall control.” That simply covers agency orders for supplies and/or services under the contract. The clause means agencies can’t order something that’s not part of the contract. I know several GSA people are on here. Hopefully one will explain this citing prior opinions. Im not saying an ordering agency can unilaterally take funding away from a order without the contractors concurrence. But 552.212-4 isn’t the basis.

Carl, you are quoting a contract clause that pertains to the contractor and GSA. The issue here is a task order. The GSA contract doesn’t say anything like that applies to orders. I know GSA contracts well

The OP said it’s the companies accounting system fault Unfortunately this stuff happens frequently. It’s most due to CFOs wanting to clear the books of unused money and also makes them look bad for annual audits. The right think to do is having the CO check with the contractor.

When stakes are high, one winner takes all won’t work. To a lessor extent, a small number of multiple awardees for a contract pool won’t work either. Disgruntled sources can win also if they make enough fuss.

Carl, knowing the GSA process well, it really doesn’t matter what some may argue. The terms of the GSA contract control. I know lots of agencies now are deobligating excess funds in the 4th quarter to reprogram for other purposes so money doesn’t lapse. That may be the case here. ji20874 offer sound advice. I would also call the CO and explain the situation. The program office likely wasn’t aware additional charges apply. But invoice and there’s plenty of time to add funding back on the order.

Good catch Joel!

Some new issues. One concerns a drop in small business obligations mostly due to Category Management which includes most GWACS as well. CatMan contracts generally are too large for small businesses to get a fair share. The other issue comes from the Alliance for Digital Innovation (ADI). ADI states GWACS often stifle innovation and access from smaller IT sources. While these firms can team of subcontract with larger companies, often the larger companies impose so much oversight, control and adoption to their procedures, the smaller companies are hindered. ADI also claims the governments emphasis on experience and past perrformance in source selection effectively closes the doors to new, small sources. As an alternative, ADI suggests a “show, don’t tell” model. They also suggest greater use of commercial case studies.

@contractor100, that article mentioned lots of issues. I’ll just respond to the one you raised. Combining questions and providing one answer is a common practice. An agency may get 20 similar questions. Some may even be “ghosting” so to reflect negatively on a competitor. In other instances, the identity of the source posing the question may be obvious. So paraphrasing and combining questions with a single answer isn’t wrong. But not completely responding to a question is.

In that time frame, lots of misuse occurred. Since then detailed ordering procedures were added to the FAR and the process is now much clearer and precise, especially for services requiring a statement of work. Probably the most significant issues arose from agencies just transferring money to GSA at the end of a fiscal year just to “bank” or avoid losing the money.

I read how Agriculture set up a multiple award pool of BPAS for IT services. A year ago they realized over 150 contracts for various IT services would expire over the following year or so. The contracts were duplicative, with inefficient ordering, and didn’t reflect benefits from consolidated purchasing. So they developed a strategy to award BPAs under GSA Schedule as replacements. The entire process took eight weeks from start to finish and that included placing $60 million in task orders following initial awards. They started sending inquiry emails of interest to well over a hundred sources. Those that responded received a draft SOW seeking advice and input including ideas for evaluation. Agriculture next asked for brief technical information and experience using the stated evaluation criteria and down selected to a lessor number. They then held orals virtually, reevaluated which further reduced the number, and made selections. That included seven small businesses. They spent a little over a week competing initial task orders with the small business pool. Given this short time and ease in awarding BPAs, I’m amazed at how many agencies still do their own IDIQ contracts when the same work is available from GSA. There really is so few reasons for separate IDIQs - agency specific terms and conditions can be added as long as they don’t conflict, prices are all negotiable, contractors can easily subject for very specialized work they don’t presently have, and the administrative time and expense for awarding IDIQ contracts is many times more than the 0.75% fee GSA charges. I once heard a supervisor at an agency say they don’t use GSA Schedules solely because she doesn’t get the same workload credit - a contract counts much more than a task order and see needs the data to justify positions!

The unfortunate thing is Salus only found out adjectival ratings and price. We don’t know what we’re the merits of identified strengths making up those ratings and respective value if paying a premium was considered. We also don’t know if the agency just looked at the adjectival labels, said all three were equal, and price trumps.

Joel, You’re missing what I was telling the OP. There are ways of writing proposals that can distinguish yourself from your competitors. All things being equal, a proposal that offers exceptional benefits with proof may deserve higher ratings. What often makes an offer a winner with LH proposals is providing benefits over your competitors. I also used an example for experience where a proposal focuses on what they accomplished (results from their efforts) instead of simply saying they did the work. That’s also different from a past performance assessments by clients. I'm talking here about a winning offer. You’re bringing up performance, enforceable promises, and administration which is a different subject.

We don’t know what any offerer said or didn’t say nor any real history. So any opinion is purely speculative. LH contracts can be grossly inefficient or very efficient depending upon individual circumstances. Offerors can come up with innovative ways to improve efficiencies. What if an offeror proposed a way to reduce prices by 30%? We just don’t know here.

I don’t think you’ll ever find out what’s behind this evaluation. But one possibility alluded to earlier in the thread is none of the offers really stood out. That may be why all the offerors got similar ratings of Acceptable. Often what differentiates one offer from another is simply what is said and how facts are presented. For example two offerors may have similar past performance. One states what their experience was in an engagement. Another does the same and then highlights accomplishments and positive outcomes for the agency because of their work. The implication is selection of them will provide benefits that competitors won’t. Or with a factor involving technical approach, an offeror distinguishes themself by stating uniqueness of what they do. They come up with a combination of tools and techniques that will help in performance instead of just simple compliance with the tasks. Then for icing on the cake, state how that helps the agency. An example is proactively monitoring and forecasting risks and mitigating early on. This allows your company to perform and consistently meet or exceed customer requirements all the time. Another example is you have an internal quality control system that utilizes subject matter experts and reviews all reports and deliverables before submission to clients. For contracts that essentially buy contract labor, there are possibilities to demonstrate advantages over competition. You could say you have a deep bench that you will train on the clients needs at no cost to the agency. That means if an employee is gone for any reason, a replacement will be virtually seamless. Or you cross train employees so they know the work of others. In event of a surge, others can help out. This may eliminate the need for overtime. From what you said it seems like the agency may be looking to reduce costs and minimizing overtime. Focusing on creative approaches on this might go a long way on winning. Just some thoughts for the future.

All I can say about this and the other two threads is “wow.” In just about every office I know, people are overworked and understaffed. COs are swamped. Why get into this issue when there are so many higher priorities? If a CO feels a contractor is in violation, just notify DOL. That’s their job. At best, this is a real stretch if it’s even the COs concern. I’m sure there are lots more pressing issues for COs to devote their time - like assisting program offices in preparing documents, quit taking shortcuts such as forcing LPTA and avoiding discussions, and self education.

Hard to tell in this instance what the issues are from the government side. Somethings evaluators get drafted to do that job. They might be inexperienced and just follow the process laid out to them. Often without some help and people looking over their shoulder, all offers look similar. They don’t see differentiators because they don’t know the program. So all offerors get similar ratings. Two things I learned about proposals. One is if you don’t have some information and background about the requirement and what the government is looking for before the RFP is released, your chances of winning are slim. What program offices really want versus the RFP wording literally says can be different. Second, and this is what Vern mentioned, a professional proposal writer can turn responses into hard hitting and impressive messages that catch evaluators attention.

@DCDOD2020 Thanks for the explanation and background. We can see where you are coming from now. Contracting in future using labor rates will be challenging. Who knows what the long term outcome will be but many experts forecast higher amounts from possible inflation and more leveraged positions by labor.

OMB issued an RFI seeking ways to implement. The third section is on procurement. I included the link below as well as copied the part of procurement. My initial thought this is all commendable but how much further than the government push the practice of buying to other areas? At some point supporting all these policy areas like trade, labor, socioeconomic, competition, employment, etc. as well as extensive performance reporting before agency programs/missions suffer? https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/05/05/2021-09109/methods-and-leading-practices-for-advancing-equity-and-support-for-underserved-communities-through

Why restrict the range of possible approach’s? What’s the benefit? You conceivably exclude a better or lowered priced offer. What I said is there’s no requirement to specify a SIN. But if you do, offerors must be compliant.

It doesn’t matter what anyone here says. It’s the agency CO that matters. Ask them. I agree it doesn’t make sense to restrict competition to a specific SIN. But if that’s what the agency CO says, you are fighting an uphill battle. Also see this https://www.gao.gov/products/b-409888

Carl brings up some points to consider also. I personally feel five years is the longest most contracts for general support services should run. The OP never responded to my question about whether the services are covered by GSA Schedule. If they are, it’s crazy to do a new contract. Also agencies have to do is identify a group of companies they want to solicit and involve enough to ensure at least three responses. Quick and easy for both initial award and recompetition later. Occasionally there is an advantage engaging in a long term agreement with quality suppliers. If that’s the case, use of an award term provision can provide benefits. If the contractor does things like maintain/improve quality, timeliness, performance, etc. for things that are important to program needs, an award term provision where the contractor earns additional periods of performance might be good. The downside is it’s tough to identify and measure key elements that clearly benefit the government as well as the time and effort involved in assessment. I’m suggesting something like this instead of a 5 year base + a 5 year option.

To that I’ll add the practice of adding new contractors and eliminating others is time consuming and resource intensive. It takes a lot of thought to devise the approach and implement. An “open season” is really a new solicitation with evaluation of offers, perhaps conducting discussions, and making source selection decisions. Removing nonperforming contractors can also be challenging.