Greetings,

Can Travel and Other Direct Costs CLINs be awarded on a labor hour basis?

Thanks.

LB

Please be specific as to what you are asking.  Travel, as used in the travel cost principle, refers to transportation costs, the cost of lodging and per diem.  Other direct costs is a vague category of cost with no meaning defined in the FAR.

Litai, could you also please outline the facts that caused you to ask this question...what has been going on with whom? What has been said or done so far, etc. 

Does this post relate to your previous post regarding Hybrid Contracts?

Edited December 27, 20187 yr by Neil Roberts
be more specific

On ‎12‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 4:38 PM, napolik said:

Yes, this is part of the hybrid contract.  I was just told that you can only use "Labor Hour CLIN" to define cost for travel and ODCs.  My understanding is that this would define those CLINs as a time and materials cost and not on a reimbursable as defined in the FAR.

 

On 1/10/2019 at 1:27 PM, litai said:

Yes, this is part of the hybrid contract.  I was just told that you can only use "Labor Hour CLIN" to define cost for travel and ODCs.  My understanding is that this would define those CLINs as a time and materials cost and not on a reimbursable as defined in the FAR.

Not sure what is meant by the second sentence. As for the 3rd sentence, per FAR 52.232-7 (b)(1)(ii)(C), materials mean, among other things, ODC (which may include travel). Per (b)(3) and (b)(4), such material costs appear to be reimbursable. Does your contract clause indicate the same language?  

8 hours ago, Neil Roberts said:

I was just told that you can only use "Labor Hour CLIN" to define cost for travel and ODCs. 

Did whoever told you this give you a FAR citation to support the assertion?  I see nothing in the FAR to support this.  Travel and ODCs can be, and often are, funded on a cost reimbursement basis.

No, they did not tell me where in the FAR.  They said that the Travel and ODCs couldn't be defined beforehand so they had to be set as a labor-hour clin with a NTE limit.  I've managed several similar contracts and have never seen this.  They said they had to make it a labor-hour and FFP hybrid because there were three CLINs that couldn't be defined with price beforehand and these had to be set this way pursuant to the FAR.  The 3 CLINs are: Travel, ODC and Surge projects.

Like I said, in the past these were all defined within the FFP with a NTE limit.

FAR 52.232-7 does not prohibit or require that a cost reimbursable item be limited by an NTE. It is up to your company to accept or reject that concept.

1 hour ago, litai said:

Like I said, in the past these were all defined within the FFP with a NTE limit.

This sounds like you are calling a cost reimbursement CLIN a FFP CLIN.