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kostdiek

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  1. Beantown, Understand re definition. That's how I understand it as well. To follow-up on that... How do we go about getting reimbursed? Do we just ask the prime? What's our argument if they refuse? Are we required to be reimbursed by any law or regulation?
  2. The prime contract and the subcontract are both T&M. There was not a mod to the terms of the contract or the scope of work. I believe it is within the scope of work for the performer to travel to different local locations because there are servers at a couple of different locations. His job within the scope is to fix the servers. It's not a new requirement exactly. It's just that for several months, the other servers did not have any issues, and now they do. It's a requirement that we did not fully think through during the bidding process. The subcontract says the following. Note that it says it will reimburse non-local travel, but then it goes on to say that local travel is essentially the commute. It does not define local travel as travel between work locations during a work day. If they had not defined local travel in this strange way, it would be more clear. B.3Supplies/Services and Prices A. The Subcontractor’s T&M Labor Rates, shall be specified in potential Task Orders, shall include all compensation due to Subcontractor for labor hour services to be rendered hereunder and include the costs of fringe benefits, overhead, general and administrative expenses, profit or fee, except as specifically authorized in accordance with paragraph 2 below. B. The Buyer will reimburse Subcontractor’s actual costs incurred for non-local Travel and ODCs that are: i) explicitly authorized and funded hereunder ii) allocable and allowable costs in accordance with FAR Part 31 cost principles, and iii) supported by adequate original documentation. No Fee/Profit shall be allowable on ODCs/Travel. 1) Reimbursement shall be made for authorized actual expenses to include costs of transportation, lodging, meals, and incidental expenses, along with such other reasonable and necessary expenses related to the services as mutually agreed upon hereunder. 2) Authorized Air travel shall be reimbursed for coach-class accommodations unless no other accommodations are available or such accommodations would require circuitous routing, travel during unreasonable hours or the like. Subcontractor must secure advanced written approval from Buyer for travel not specifically authorized hereunder. Local travel, defined as travel between employees’ residence and assigned place of work, is not allowable. Seems to me that we need to clarify with the prime, but that they are likely to say no even though this subcontract language (to me) is not clear. Thanks for any thoughts.
  3. We are in a situation on a subcontract where we only have a labor CLIN, but our performer has recently been required to travel locally between a few different Government buildings to do his job. We have been reimbursing this performer via the unallowable line on the contract. Is this permissible? Too late, I know, but I did not know this was going on. The bigger question is what regulation provides guidance applicable to this situation? If we provide "free" travel to the Government for a performer to do his duties, is that wrong, even though we are charging the contract via unallowable line? What is the best remedy? Anything other than asking for a travel CLIN? On another note, we have a contract with the state of Maryland that also might require the local travel in the future, and go figure, we do not have a travel CLIN. We are also a subcontractor on this work. Does anyone know what regulation governs this? I know this is a federal forum, so I understand if you do not want to discuss this one. Thanks in advance for any insight. Please provide FAR and/or DFARS or other law references with your answers.
  4. I am trying to read that ASBCA case, but I cannot find it. 45808 is not on the asbca.mil website. Has anyone else found and read it? We have a contract where we are doing flight tests only (no development, production, modification, etc.), and we are trying to figure out the DFARS Ground and Flight Risk Clause applicability to us.
  5. Vern, As usual, you answered all of my questions, including the FAR proof I need to have meaningful discussion with colleagues. I have to admit that upon initial review of FAR 16.703, I was not reading it the way I was taught in the most excellent FAR Bootcamp. Thanks for this post!
  6. Thank you, Navy Contracting 4, for both posts. Interesting to view them as one year instruments. Ours is going to be for 5 years, but I see your point above.
  7. Another question I have regarding a BOA is the FAR clauses associated with the future DOs under the BOA. Each of those DOs will use the FAR clauses and date listed in the BOA. Each new DO will not have the FAR clauses automatically updated if new versions of the clause have come out. I believe this is made clear by FAR 16.703(a) where the purpose of a BOA is to establish clauses applying to future contracts. Do you agree? If not, please point me to a FAR reference as to why not. Thanks.
  8. I do not have an answer to Troy's question. I have a couple of other questions associated with the establishment of a BOA, so I am attaching to this thread. I hope that is ok. If not, someone tell me, and I will not do it again. We are in the process of establishing a BOA with the Air Force. The first sentence of the BOA following the SF26 states: "New clauses or changes to existing clauses in this BOA apply to all orders, including previously awarded and future orders." Does the government have this right (to change previously awarded orders with a change to the BOA)? Does it have to be bilateral, or can it be unilateral? Note I have reviewed FAR Part 43. Under scope of the part, it states it "does not apply to (a) Orders for supplies or services not otherwise changing the terms of contracts or agreements (e.g., delivery orders under indefinite-delivery contracts)..." What does that mean for the statement included in our BOA. Please provide FAR reference with any answers if possible.
  9. Yes, you are correct on the Seaport CPFF term for services only. This is exactly what I needed, and that clause is right there in our subK, too. Thank you so much uva383 for responding on a Saturday!
  10. We received the following mod from our prime contractor, which they say is a word-for-word flow-down of the prime contract mod. I understand the Government can cut our funding anytime, but can they really direct which days of the week we work? For example, we have one employee who has a two-week vacation planned in September, but that time will not go toward her 20% cut because it's not only on Friday. I have tried to research the FAR about this, and I have not been able to find anything. I appreciate any FAR or other law references you can provide to help me understand how this is ok (or not). Thanks. 12.0 STATEMENT OF WORK ADDENDUM Notwithstanding any other provision of this contract, in the event that the Government reduces operations pursuant to a furlough of civilian employees of the Department of Defense, the level of effort for this contract or task order established in SEA 5252.216-9122 LEVEL OF EFFORT (DEC 2000) shall be reduced for the tenure of the civilian furlough. The level of effort for this contract or task order during the civilian furlough period shall be expended at an average rate of 2346 (80% of 2932) hours per week. The contractor is not required to remain on standby and should take every effort to minimize its overhead costs during the reduction. At the conclusion of the civilian furlough period, the level of effort will revert to the prior rate. The contractor will not be required to immediately revert to the prior level of effort, but rather will be allowed a reasonable amount of time to revert to the prior rate. During the civilian furlough period, unless otherwise authorized by the contracting officer, the work schedule will consist of an 8-hour work day Monday through Thursday. Therefore, Friday will not be part of the work schedule. At the conclusion of the civilian furlough period, the work schedule will revert to the prior established schedule, if any. This revision to the normal work week is not the result of an Executive Order or an administrative leave determination.
  11. Thank you, dcarver. Yes, we did consider the pass through from the prime. Understand the point of the tripwires. I really appreciate your response.
  12. We are a subcontractor. The ultimate Government client has "tripwire" rates, where if a contractor rate in a certain category is over a certain rate, it requires SES-level approval for funding. An engineer must not cost more than $130/hr for example. The prime contract is CPFF, and our subcontract is CPFF. This makes it strange because they basically take CPFF rates and roll them up like a T&M rate and compare them against this tripwire. Is there any reason we have to bid the same fee percentage on each person? We have one expensive engineer that is close to the tripwire rate. Could we bid her fee percentage lower than the other two engineers on the task? Since it is CPFF, not cost plus percentage of cost, it seems to me that this would be ok. As long as the bid makes it clear which dollar amount is cost and which is fee, it seems like we could bid the "rates" however we want, understanding their cost is their cost and that cannot be changed for the bid. Please let me know if you see any issues with this approach.
  13. We are a subcontractor only at this point. Recently we were negotiating a subcontract and associated SOW with a prime, and they refused to change one of the tasks because that's what the prime contract task says. However, the change we were suggesting still fit into the scope of the prime contract. The prime task verbiage said "Represent the Government at meetings..." and we suggested changing it to "Attend meetings and provide status updates to Government personnel..." to avoid the representation issue. We did not want "represent the Government" in our SOW. Does anyone have a reference that states the subcontractor statement of work does not have to match the prime contractor SOW, but rather it has to be within scope of the prime contract? I'd like to be able to quote a FAR reference or something to tell this prime in the future that the subcontract tasks do not have to match the prime contract tasks.
  14. As a subcontractor, we generally add prime contractors to our insurance certificate once a subcontract is awarded. Should it be a regular practice to remove primes from our certificate immediately once the contract has ended, or is there a close out period where coverage would still be required/recommended? Does a prime have any contractual use of our insurance once the contract ends even if we don’t request that they be removed as certificate holders?
  15. Another question on FAR Clauses to be included in subcontracts... If a clause is required to be flowed down due to text in the clause or if a clause must be included in a subcontract in order for a prime to fulfill its obligations to the Government, does the clause have to keep the same date as the clause in the prime contract, or can an updated FAR Clause be used if there is a newer version? Does anyone have something I can point to in order to prove the answer to this question?
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