woops85

I would guess someone told them they needed a better reason to cancel than "we only got one" so they spent some time figuring out how little $10K would actually get them towards where they wanted to be. If I was the vendor, I'd ask for a debriefing as part of my own educational process to find out what they viewed as strengths and weaknesses of the proposal. If they agree, can always ask them outright during the meeting about the cancellation.

Doesn't the vendor self-certify as to which NAICS codes they are doing business under (or want to)? And couldn't they just update their CCR to reflect the new NAICS code?

Why wasn't the second proposal evaluated? Or did you mean that after evaluations, only one was found technically acceptable? Thanks for clarifying.

At GSA it comes from the GSAM - sub ( c) below "519.803-70 Contracting officer evaluation of recommendations for 8(a) set-aside(s). (a) If you disagree with a recommendation by the Associate Administrator for the Office of Small Business Utilization or the SBTA to set aside a procurement for award under the 8(a) program, discuss the matter with the official who made the recommendation. ( If you decide not to award the contract under the 8(a) program, forward a copy of the documentation required by FAR 19.202-1(e)(4) to the Office of Small Business Utilization (E) within 10 working days. ( c) Once a contracting activity acquires a product or service successfully on the basis of an 8(a) set-aside, the activity must acquire all future requirements for that product or service using 8(a) set-aside procedures. However, the availability of Federal Prison Industries, Inc. and Nonprofit Agencies Employing People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled (JWOD) mandatory sources which may not have existed at the time of the original requirement are sufficient reason to discontinue setting aside a continuing requirement.If you determine that acquiring the product or service as an 8(a) set-aside is no longer in the Government?s best interest, use the procedures in FAR 19.506 to withdraw a repetitive set-aside. "

We deal with customers in Germany and any services contract has to be TESA certified by the German Government after award but prior to start of work. Our KOs leave the effective date as is and do as Vern suggests with a period of performance that starts 60-90 days from date of award (TESA approval can be a slow process sometimes)

The Director of the Army Contracting Command has said at conferences that he has the ability to cross-level requirements across the various contracts shops that fall under his domain. But it's getting close to when most contracts shop have reached capacity for FY10 awards

Definitely the latter Mostly irritated by fact that after 8 months they can/will not tell me if they have billed all direct costs and they have closed out their books for their fiscal year. Only after expressing my dearest hope that their finance department understood the difference between direct and indirect costs sis they say they were "holding" a cost to be billed until they got their DCAA actuals back. That way if adjustment was in Government's favor, they could use unbilled cost to offset any credit they owed. I understood the reasoning but was frustrated by the refusal to identity what the unbilled cost was - labor, ODCs, a tools purchase - or the estimated amount. Given we have one vendor who is still waiting on their 2000 actuals from DCAA, I wanted to know a ballpark figure in case funds near cancellation. I need a smiley for beating head against wall.

What does this community consider to be a reasonable time after the POP expires for a company who is fully or modified CAS compliant to have billed all Direct Costs on a cost-plus contract? Please note I am not talking about receiving rate adjustment invoices - just when I should reasonably be able to expect confirmation that all direct costs have been billed. Am I crazy to think that 8 months after POP is too long when no subcontractor labor was involved (actually I think that's too long even when subcontractor labor is involved)

If you make the mod effective date 1 May, what happens if you need to issue another modification in April; for example to incorporate a new version of conflict of interest/non-disclosure agreement language that has to go into effect immediately? Then you have Mod 2 effective 1 May and Mod 3 effective 10 April. The effective date of the option is the first date of the period of performance specified for that option period, regardless of the date the mod is signed.

Majority of recent DoD level guidance supports the move away from time and materials and towards fixed price. The policy vault at http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/ is a great starting point.

Please clarify re: the missing information. Was it (a) You asked for say a draft Quality Control Plan and the plan was not there or ( along the lines of you asked them to address their approach to quality in their written proposal and they left it out. Sounds like (a) but wanted to be sure

Ref Q1 - see below from DPAP website under Interagency Contracting at http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/cpic/cp/intera...cquisition.html ------- In accordance with the requirements of section 801 of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, the Director, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (DPAP), Mr. Shay D. Assad, signed a "determination" that it is "necessary and in the interest" of the Department of Defense to utilize the acquisition services of the Department of Energy in FY 2010 for "essential mission related requirements." The determination can be found here. Component single focal points (see DPAP memorandum of September 18, 2009) are encouraged to contact Michael Canales of DPAP/CPIC (Michael.Canales@osd.mil 703-695-8571) with any questions and to discuss reporting requirements. Section 801 of the Fiscal Year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), "Internal Controls for Procurements on Behalf of the Department of Defense by certain Non-Defense Agencies," required the heads of all non-DoD agencies that provide acquisition support to the Department certify that their respective non-Defense agencies will comply with defense procurement requirements for FY 2010 for assisted acquisitions executed on behalf of DoD in FY 2010. The Following non-DoD agencies have certified Department of Veterans Affairs General Services Administration U.S. Department of Commerce National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office Of Personnel Management (OPM) ? Management Services Division United States Department of the Interior U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Certifications are not expected from the following agencies U.S. Department of State Central Intelligence Agency Federal Bureau of Investigation ------- So there should be no effect on Dod's use of GSA contracts since GSA has already met the certification requirement

best practice - send vendor out of room while you develop initial questions after they make their presentation. That way KO can make sure you're clarifying and not offering an opportunity to improve. And one person should ask the questions. If the answer generates a follow-up, it gets fed to that person on paper, so they can tinker with wording if needed. My organization routinely uses oral presentations with Q&A for clarification afterwards. During initial question gathering, there's usually one we throw out because it's along they lines of "they didn't talk about this - can we get them to address it?" That's when the govt caucus comes in really handy

Ashley - Have you talked to your local GSA Fleet rep to see if there's anyway you can get notified each time they make a new buy? Might not tell you exactly what cars/SUVs you will actually get but would give you a list of the possible makes/models?

Formerfed - Thanks. The hardest part of this has been trying to figure out their thinking. Anyone know where I can take a course in mind reading?

Both will be competitive procurements and that's clearly written into the Acquisition Strategy and in the approval document. ITES-2S is an Army ID/IQ that we can order off of and the office giving Client A the interpretation is the PCO for the vehicle so one would think they know it's a multiple award IDIQ. Alliant was also multiple award (59 primes)

napolik - New task order under existing multiple award IDIQ. Both are DoD clients, specifically Army but are dealing with different Army contracting shops for purposes of getting approval to use non-DoD shop. Not pertinent but both shops have told respective clients they don't have capacity to support the procurement so that's not part of the equation. Client A - order value is $30M annually and they want 5 years but are considering 3 because of this interpretation. Client B - order value is $45M annually and they only want 3 years because work is in Afghanistan and hopefully we'll be out of there in 3 years. Both targeted IDIQs have ceiling value over $1B and were multiple award (Client A = ITES-2S, client B = Alliant) WhyNot - Both procurements would be done under FAR Part 16, not 15. I'll look at the FAC - thanks

Thanks on the cite correction. It changed my ( B ) into a ( and when I went back and changed the smiley back into letters I dropped off the subparagraph heading of D altogether - my bad I still forget to adjust spacing on the things with parens, etc that get changed into other things - like the copyright symbol My problem is that I totally agree that their interpretation makes no sense but I need to convince them of that. That's what will make me pull out my hair

All - Running into an issue with conflicts in interpretation of new FAR language. 16.504 Indefinite Quantity Contracts ( c) Multiple award preference (1) No task or delivery order contract in an amount estimated to exceed $100 million (including all options) may be awarded to a single source unless the head of the agency determines in writing that? (i) The task or delivery orders expected under the contract are so integrally related that only a single source can reasonably perform the work; (ii) The contract provides only for firm-fixed price (see 16.202) task or delivery orders for? (A) Products for which unit prices are established in the contract; or ( Services for which prices are established in the contract for the specific tasks to be performed; (iii) Only one source is qualified and capable of performing the work at a reasonable price to the Government; or (iv) It is necessary in the public interest to award the contract to a single source due to exceptional circumstances. (2) The head of the agency must notify Congress within 30 days after any determination under paragraph ?(1)(ii)(D)(1)(iv) of this section. (3) The requirement for a determination for a single award contract greater than $100 million applies in addition to the requirements of Subpart 6.3. I work in an Assisted Acquisition shop and our clients are being told by their contracting shops that this language means they cannot award a Task Order under a GWAC/IDIQ valued at over $100M without the head of their agency approval. We disagree and say this language applies to the award of a new contract vehicle, not the task/delivery orders under the previously awarded vehicle - esp since you can't have an IDIQ under an IDIQ. Have tried the argument that if it applied to the award of task/delivery orders, language would have gone in FAR 16.505 Ordering. Since clients have to get their contracting shop to sign off on the acquisition strategy before we can proceed, many are saying let's just shorten the projected POP (from 5 to 3 years say) so we're below the threshold. Of course, then they are facing a new procurement every 3 years because not willing to try to convince "the powers that be" that the interpretation is wrong. DFARS is silent and I can't find any DoD or Army level policy memo that possesses this interpretation. Looking for either something that says their interpretation is right or other potential ways to argue the point.

In our process the TEB Chair runs the technical evaluation and provides all the training beforehand. The KO is involved in the development of the training and its presentation but is generally not in the room during the consensus discussions after individual evaluations have been completed.

Vern - Don't you think it might actually be helpful in some cases to have the KO be part of or at least an observer to the proceedings? Esp in cases where there is a large variance in price and the KO is the one who has to document the trade-off analysis. Since our Tech team knows nothing about the price proposal until after they've completed their evals, having KO there to prompt for better explanations of why x is so good or y presents a bigger risk can be helpful. If the KO assigned to the procurement can't be there, maybe a CS or even a different KO to give that focus?

Totally agree that it's impossible. Think our CO Council has been tasked with coming up with a procedure for documenting this consistently so say if Option 2 is not exercised and order is recompeted early for some reason but then we wind up using 52.217-8, we don't get caught in the MCS situation and someone says we never evaluated it. Sometimes it seems we spend more time figuring out how to "protest-proof" the documentation than doing the evaluation itself. Sry - just frustration talking.....

Are funds in question still in period of availability? Some would argue this is a de-ob and re-obligation and therefore funds need to still be available - best to get this interpretation from funds certifying officer. Is RDT&E the right type of funds for the other CLIN?

VBus - No clue yet. Obviously our CO council needs to works this out quick as we have some solicitations currently on the street and will potentially need to amend based on their decision. Maybe I can pass some suggestions from here. Initial guidance was to do it but not how to do it

Based on the reconsideration, we got new guidance from our legal yesterday. Basically they want the KO to document as part of their Price Negotiation Memo the evaluation of the pricing of the 6 month extension should it be exercised. Kicker is that KO must document it for every period where it could potentially be utilized. So if you have Base + 4 years, must evaluate the pricing if used at end of Base, end of Option 1, etc. to ensure fair and reasonable. Add another page to the memo!