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A&E Single award IDIQ w/ 52.217-8


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I am unable to edit the above post without it automatically going to another page for “Spendlogic”

I wanted to add: What prevents the parties from negotiating revised rates for the extension if they didn’t think of it during the original rate negotiations (other than the literal sense of at the (existing) rates ? 

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The redirected page (using Iphone) is for “SpendLogic”, which is an advertiser on this page. What’s up, Bob? 

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15 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

You should not be preparing training slides about such matters if you have not personally done appropriate historical research.

At least to the extent where I incorrectly represent the facts right.  Are there any good books/material that provide historical content to certain FAR/DFARS sections other than going back in time through all the Federal Registers (which is hard to navigate for me) and Federal Acquisition Circular.

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15 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

You should not be preparing training slides about such matters if you have not personally done appropriate historical research.

At least to the extent where I incorrectly represent the facts right.  Are there any good books/material that provide historical content to certain FAR/DFARS sections other than going back in time through all the Federal Registers (which is hard to navigate for me) and Federal Acquisition Circular.  This would help on something I've been kicking around doing, a training session on Clause/Provisions.  We all know where 52.204-(24-26) come from but not the intent/reason behind a lot of the other ones.  While providing feed back to Contract Specialist for awards I KO I always provide comments and FAR references on why I am requiring the changes/corrections.

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15 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

You should not be preparing training slides about such matters if you have not personally done appropriate historical research.

At least to the extent where I incorrectly represent the facts right.  Are there any good books/material that provide historical content to certain FAR/DFARS sections other than going back in time through all the Federal Registers (which is hard to navigate for me) and Federal Acquisition Circular.  This would help on something I've been kicking around doing, a training session on Clause/Provisions.  We all know where 52.204-(24-26) come from but not the intent/reason behind a lot of the other ones.  While providing feed back to Contract Specialist for awards I KO I always provide comments and FAR references on why I am requiring the changes/corrections.

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16 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

You should not be preparing training slides about such matters if you have not personally done appropriate historical research.

At least to the extent where I incorrectly represent the facts right.  Are there any good books/material that provide historical content to certain FAR/DFARS sections other than going back in time through all the Federal Registers (which is hard to navigate for me) and Federal Acquisition Circular.  This would help on something I've been kicking around doing, a training session on Clause/Provisions.  We all know where 52.204-(24-26) come from but not the intent/reason behind a lot of the other ones.  While providing feed back to Contract Specialist for awards I KO I always provide comments and FAR references on why I am requiring the changes/corrections.

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2 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

I wanted to add: What prevents the parties from negotiating revised rates for the extension if they didn’t think of it during the original rate negotiations (other than the literal sense of at the (existing) rates ? 

After this thread I can't really see any good reason, the concern was if negotiating rates was a scope change, if is was a scope change would the Brooks Act effect dealing with the current awardee to where we would have to reach out to the other vendors that we held discussions with.  I believe those concerns have reasonably been addressed.

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4 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

What prevents the parties from negotiating revised rates for the extension if they didn’t think of it during the original rate negotiations (other than the literal sense of at the (existing) rates ? 

After this thread I can't really see any good reason, the concern was if negotiating rates was a scope change, if is was a scope change would the Brooks Act effect dealing with the current awardee to where we would have to reach out to the other vendors that we held discussions with.  I believe those concerns have reasonably been addressed.

11 hours ago, Jamaal Valentine said:

Does the contracting office have any -8 options that don’t use the preceding year’s  rates? Does the contractor have any contracts that do not use the preceding year’s rates?

Seems that forwarding established pricing/rates into the (-8) isn't completely settled, our policy folks in Bureau tend to lean more towards they don't flow.

4 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

The easiest resolution of the rates , since it is a government option, might be to use a literal sense of the term “at the rates specified in the contract”  and that there is no adjustment except for DOL wage rate adjustments

Even though this is an IDIQ, options were established (again not how I would have done it).  The way the rates are specified is by option year/period, could I then use option year 1 rates for my (-8) period.  A reasonable person would assume that you use the latter rates but the way the clause is phrased one may take that literal sense of the term and make an argument for doing such.  
 

 

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12 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

What prevents the parties from negotiating revised rates for the extension if they didn’t think of it during the original rate negotiations (other than the literal sense of at the (existing) rates ? 

After this thread I can't really see any good reason, the concern was if negotiating rates was a scope change, if is was a scope change would the Brooks Act effect dealing with the current awardee to where we would have to reach out to the other vendors that we held discussions with.  I believe those concerns have reasonably been addressed.

19 hours ago, Jamaal Valentine said:

Does the contracting office have any -8 options that don’t use the preceding year’s  rates? Does the contractor have any contracts that do not use the preceding year’s rates?

I get a sense that forwarding established pricing/rates into the (-8) isn't completely settled or not all agencies are on board, our policy folks in Bureau seem to lean more towards they don't flow and requests that they be priced.

12 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

The easiest resolution of the rates , since it is a government option, might be to use a literal sense of the term “at the rates specified in the contract”  and that there is no adjustment except for DOL wage rate adjustments - of which there wouldn’t be any for professional salary based rates. That was the traditional sense of use in our agency. Also, the cited ASBCA case involved a best value (price included) competition.

Even though this is an IDIQ, options were established (again not how I would have done it).  The way the rates are specified is by option year/period, could I then use option year 1 rates for my (-8) period.  A reasonable person would assume that you use the latter rates but the way the clause is phrased one may take that literal sense of the term and make an argument for doing such.

Tried to respond all day and this was the first time I could log in.

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19 hours ago, sackanator said:

Seems that forwarding established pricing/rates into the (-8) isn't completely settled, our policy folks in Bureau tend to lean more towards they don't flow.

Even though this is an IDIQ, options were established (again not how I would have done it).  The way the rates are specified is by option year/period, could I then use option year 1 rates for my (-8) period.  A reasonable person would assume that you use the latter rates but the way the clause is phrased one may take that literal sense of the term and make an argument for doing such.  

If you are saying that you would exercise the -8 extension for a period where an unexercised, option is already priced, in my opinion you would use the rates that would have been applicable had the next priced option been exercised.*That would be a no-brainer -again in my judgement.

The parties already agreed to the rates applicable to new task orders issued during the next timeframe.*

I don’t understand why your “policy folks” would question that. That was the original , negotiated intent of the parties and the government agreed that those rates are fair and reasonable. And those are the applicable, negotiated contract rates for task orders issued during the following contract period. *

If the -8 option will be exercised following the last priced option for an A-E, negotiated contract, then the plain language of the -8 clause would indicate that you could use the current rates. But if there was no thought about the possibility of -8 extension or multiple extensions under -8 during negotiations - then there is room for further negotiations- in my opinion.

The case that Vern cited was for a best value competition where price was a factor for selection. You’ve got to make a distinction between an A/E,  Qualifications-Based selection and Best-Value selection.  There should have been no pricing by the top three firms interviewed to consider during the A/E selection. You’d go to the next most highly rated firm for pricing if you couldn’t come to agreement on scope, terms, performance or a fair and reasonable price.  

*this is assuming that the rates aren’t based upon the time periods during the actual performance of the task order , I.e. rates change if A/E performance extends from one period into a following period. If performance of a task order begins in a following period, what rates are you using (Rhetorical question- no answer necessary)? 

It would be reasonable to assume that tasks issued during the last priced option period that would be expected to extend beyond that period would be priced using the rates for the last period.

But - We don’t know exactly what types of A/E work are involved and how long tasks take. 

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I should have asked much earlier in this thread if you are using the A/E for labor hour or time and material type tasks within the various periods. I have been assuming that these are fixed-price design type A/E task orders that may or may not extend beyond the period in which they were issued. 

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6 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

images.jpg.2932a5b168e6606a088ee1abb5a69d29.jpg

Can’t read your post, Vern

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21 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

It didn't work and I can't fix it by edit due to the current major malfunction.

Sorry. That was also my situation yesterday and the previous afternoon.

Any time I tried to fix something, everything became part of a link to one of the banner ads. Then I couldn’t even log in to the forum. I thought that I’d been hacked. I kept getting a message that the site was not secure. If I pushed connect anyway, it erased my user name and password. I changed password and that didn’t work either.

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1 hour ago, joel hoffman said:

I should have asked much earlier in this thread if you are using the A/E for labor hour or time and material type tasks within the various periods. I have been assuming that these are fixed-price design type A/E task orders that may or may not extend beyond the period in which they were issued. 

The way this one works is the rates for the disciplines is negotiated as fully burdened.  Each task order is then issued as a Firm FIxed Price based on the labor hours required for each discipline (plus other additional costs such as DVD's, prints and travel).  So for example the A&E for a project proposes 6 hours for Senior Electrical Engineer and 7 hours for Electrical Engineer IV.  The Government determines that more work could be done by the Electrical Engineer IV and negotiates the A&E down to Senior Electrical Engineer 4 hours and Electrical Engineer IV at 8 hours (also reducing the total hours for Electrical Engineer required).  Its not a Labor Hours because we don't pay for the hours, they are only used as part of the negotiation for the total price.  I've only touched A&E working in NGB so this is the process I am familiar with.   

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21 hours ago, sackanator said:

The way this one works is the rates for the disciplines is negotiated as fully burdened.  Each task order is then issued as a Firm FIxed Price based on the labor hours required for each discipline (plus other additional costs such as DVD's, prints and travel).  So for example the A&E for a project proposes 6 hours for Senior Electrical Engineer and 7 hours for Electrical Engineer IV.  The Government determines that more work could be done by the Electrical Engineer IV and negotiates the A&E down to Senior Electrical Engineer 4 hours and Electrical Engineer IV at 8 hours (also reducing the total hours for Electrical Engineer required).  Its not a Labor Hours because we don't pay for the hours, they are only used as part of the negotiation for the total price.  I've only touched A&E working in NGB so this is the process I am familiar with.   

Ok thanks, so I’m reading this being mostly or all for FFP specific design tasks, even if the task order performance extends past an ordering period. NGB = National Guard Bureau, I assume.

As an aside, NGB members often attended our USACE Design-Build Construction, PROSPECT Course.  Many years ago, they formally adopted our Design-Build contract clauses - and that was many years before the HQUSACE formally adopted them in the USACE Acquisition Instructions in 2014.  They’d been used on many tens of billions of dollars worth of USACE D-B projects before 2014! That’s a long, Internal political turf war story between HQ Directorates,  for another day.

But I was pleasantly surprised when the NGB told me that they had included them and were using them. My hat is  off to the the NGB! 😄

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