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ji, It says "the Contractor shall not be required to make any deliveries under this contract after the completion of customer order, including options, 60 months following the expiration of the basic contract ordering period." This is in their FSS contract, if I were inputting this clause in an agency IDIQ I would phrase it the same... although as Vern mentioned it does say [insert date], in which case I would calculate the date and insert it... I never awarded an agency IDIQ, just BPAs so I never had to worry about that clause.

It’s a big organization. Most of the staff are knowledgable and professional. There are some exceptions but every office is like that. They are customer focused and stress planning in a collaborative manner with program offices. Because the office is large, there are opportunities for advancement as people retire. They do lots of IT contracts and expect COs (noticed your KO reference showing DoD background) and CSs to have a basic understanding of IT acquisitions. They also do lots of professional services as well as studies and analysis.

Current federal employee possibly interested in employment.

Are you a contractor/company or an individual seeking employment there?

I am curious if anyone on this forum has experience working with the IRS as a KO or CS. Can anyone tell me about their experience and the type of contracts they utilized? Was it a positive experience? This is an open ended question, please tell me about your experiences good and bad.

The SBA released its annual Small Business Procurement Scorecard for fiscal year 2020 of how federal agencies are doing in meeting their small business goals. The SBA, in announcing the Scorecard, highlighted that small businesses received $145.7 billion in federal contracts , a $13 billion increase from the previous fiscal year. But looking beyond the headlines, not all of the trends are positive for small businesses. Let’s take a look at the numbers. As a reminder, Congress has set goals for federal agencies to award contracts and subcontracts to small businesses under 15 U.S.C. § 644(g). The Scorecard tracks how the federal government as whole, and individual agencies, are accomplishing those goals. First, the great news is that contracts awarded to small businesses were at $145.7 billion in fiscal year 2020, eclipsing last year’s total of $132.9 billion in prime contracts. This represented 26.02% of overall contracting and exceeded the goal of 23%. The percentage of overall contract dollars is down from 26.5% in the past year. The federal government met its goals for a number of other small business contracting programs too. Small Disadvantaged Businesses (including those in the 8(a) Program) earned 10.29% of federal contracts, or $51.6 billion, well exceeding the goal of 5%Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses exceeded the 3% goal with 4.28% of federal awards, or $23.9 billion. Unfortunately, the government did not meet its goals for the following programs: Women Owned Small Businesses earned 4.85% of federal contracts or $26 billion, just under the 5% goal. While the total dollars were up from 2019, the percentage of overall dollars was down.HUBZone businesses earned 2.44% of federal contracts or $13.6 billion, under the 3% goal. This percentage did go up from the prior year mark of 2.28%. In addition, the total number of small businesses went down, as did the total number of WOSBs. The numbers of small businesses in the Small Disadvantaged Business, SDVOSB, and HUBZone categories went up. (This calculation was based on the vendor count in the top 100 NAICS.). HUBZone remains the category with the fewest number of businesses in that category. It’s unclear if that is due to the compliance restrictions in the program, or the lack of opportunities for HUBZone set-asides, or some other reason. Looking to the specific agencies, there was some tough grades coming out. While many agencies got As and there were a few Bs, two agencies stand out for getting poor grades. We’re looking at you: Department of Education and Department of Housing and Urban Development. Education got a C and HUD got a D. As we’ve written about in the past, the SBA has been pretty easy on agencies, so it’s good to see them giving some tough grades. Still, as in years past, a number of agencies didn’t meet their goals and still go some pretty good grades. That’s something the SBA should consider changing. There is definitely some good news coming out of this Scorecard. Overall small business dollars went up. On the other hand, federal agencies missed the mark for both the WOSB program and the HUBZone program, and the overall number of small businesses went down, so there is room for improvement on those fronts. The Administration’s recent announcement that it plans to boost Small Disadvantaged Business contracting by 50% means there is a recognition that there is room for federal agencies to do better on small business contracting. Questions about this post? Email us or give us a call at 785-200-8919. Looking for the latest government contracting legal news? Sign up here for our free monthly newsletter, and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. The post SBA Issues 2020 Small Business Scorecard, Small Business Contracting Over $145 Billion! first appeared on SmallGovCon - Government Contracts Law Blog.View the full article

Does the document that has the DPAS information have CUI markings?

Not saying a deep dive will answer the question but here is another possible reference to check around in. As I understand it does provide help regarding DFARS 252.204.7102 and NIST SP 800-171...... http://dodprocurementtoolbox.com/ at the Cybersecurity tab

The ever changing mission of OMB as directed by the President has OFPP a pawn in the movement of the material in the chess game of bureaucracy......an interesting read of the 30,000 foot level variety! https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RS21665.pdf

Instead of that, which doesn't mention DPAS, start with DoDD 4400.01E, Defense Production Act Programs. https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodd/440001p.pdf?ver=2018-11-09-111906-183 Then look at DoD 4400.1-M, Department Of Defense Priorities And Allocations Manual. https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodm/440001m.pdf?ver=2018-12-11-110803-913 To the best of my knowledge, DPAS ratings are not controlled unclassified information. But check around.

Here is an article from The New York Times of May 28, 1976, about OFPP when it was new. They quote Hugh E. Witt, the first administrtor, a very experienced procurement professional from DOD, and Lester Fettig (they misspelled his last name), who would become the second administrator. Note that Federal procurement, then a paltry 70 billion a year business, is now a one-half trillion dollar a year business. Note, too, the last line of the article. Note Witt's description of his office's powers of review. When DOD revised its acquisition policies last year I doubt that they even thought about OFPP, much less submitted their changes for its review. Of course, I could be wrong about that.

You may start your research with DOD by reviewing https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances/dodi/520048p.PDF

Michael Wooten was nominated on May 7, 2019 and confirmed on August 1 of that year. So, unless something has changed, Gebre won't be in office before 2021. But, who knows, maybe the Senate will make Gebre's nomination a priority.

I read the DPAS regulations and can't seem to find an answer. Is a DPAS rating on a contract (or subcontract/purchase order) considered CUI? Does a foreign national need to be restricted from seeing it?

Well. As the OFPP Administrator is, by statute, also the head of the CAS Board, I'm wondering just how much the Board is going to accomplish during his tenure. I'm not happy to say I have to agree with Mr. Edwards' comment, above.

From the article it does not appear he has much of a background in Federal Procurement. If the past is prologue with recent OFPP Administrators I don't think he will be in the position very long.

Who cares? OFPP is dead. It is irrelevant to the issues at hand. He'll speak at conferences, give interviews, launch an "initiative" that will go nowhere, rate a profile in Contract Management magazine, and say encouraging things.

Sam, Is your fill-in "60 months" as you originally reported or "60 months following the expiration of the basic contract ordering period" as Carl wondered?

Former political appointee at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to head OFPP.

The following is noted, not sure it changes the discussion but words of a contract do count. 52.216-22(d) in part states this in most GSA FSS contracts - "...60 months following the expiration of the basic contract ordering period..." And then here - https://www.gsa.gov/buying-selling/purchasing-programs/gsa-schedule/schedule-buyers/contracting-officer-guidance-schedule-ordering-procedures -GSA states this - "Before placing an order, verify that the FSS Schedule contract has FAR 52.216-22 (Oct 1995) to allow for the exercise of options on orders beyond the contract period. However, no orders or options on orders may extend more than 60 months after the expiration of the FSS Schedule contract"

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For a long time the fastest manned aircraft was the North American X-15. (I think it still is), but it was a rocket plane, not a jet plane. There is a lot of good free stuff online about the X-15 Program and the rocket plane programs, and some good books. See The X-15 Hypersonic Flight Research Program, https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4219/Chapter6.html and X-15 Frontiers of Flight, https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/470842main_X_15_Frontier_of_Flight.pdf. I like books that focus on the aircraft, but there are a couple that focus on the pilots, like Scott Crossfield, Robert White, and Neil Armstrong. Two interesting such books are: Petty, Beyond Blue Skies: The Rocket Plane Programs That Led to the Space Age and Evans, The X-15 Rocket Plane: Flying the First Wings into Space. They focus on the pilots and the flights.

I agree!

The blank in 52.216-22(d) is supposed to state a date, not a number of months.

Okay. The hourly rates to be paid in 2026 will be in accordance with the schedule contract or task order you bargained for. But I have to wonder -- if the parent schedule contract's fill-in for FAR 52.216-22 is "60 months" and a new task order is issued during the 59th month, then does the "60 months" fill-in effectively limit that task order's period of performance to a maximum of one month? Sometimes, different people have different perspectives. If you believe a task order award to one of your competitors was based on that awardee quoting a labor category that does not meet the requirements of the FSS contract, you may be able to protest the award and let the protest tribunal provide its perspective, which might or might not align with yours depending on the facts. If the task order award is under the protest amount, you might raise the matter with the agency's task order ombudsman.