joel hoffman

Then again, I’m antiquated, too. 🥸

Carl, I don’t disagree with you. For service contracts at least, what need is there to retain old files edit: or retain files longer than six years? And yes, the six year statute of limitations for filing claims is relevant. However, I’d say that, over the years, I sometimes needed more information than what the as-built drawings contained for construction contracts. Especially if something wore out or failed or if it failed within extended warranty periods. Shop drawings and approval comments were often helpful. Even the daily QC and QA reports sometimes were relevant to investigations to determine what might have happened. This was regardless of whether or not someone was responsible contractually. We may just have needed to source repairs or replacements. I can also see the need to be able to electronically retain information for some supply contracts for issues or repairs down the road. Knowing the dates and sources of purchases for instance. Edit: To clarify, my comments are simply related to be able to retain electronic files of construction (or some supply) contract beyond six years. As Carl noted why retain old service contract files beyond the statute of limitations for submitting a claim? No longer necessary to keep file cabinets and physical files, which was probably a major reason for requiring destruction of old files after six years. Cost and space I remember spending hours in warehouses sifting through shelves and boxes to review contract info.

I think that the six year limit is antiquated, based upon paper file retention methods that required space and resources for box or file cabinet storage. I found it occasionally necessary to review old contract files. Once, I had to review files of the Army Corps of Engineers construction contracts in Saudi Arabia to support determination of failure responsibility and/or enforcement of roof warranties for thousands of failed roofs. I discovered that the Saudis had fully preserved all of our old paper contract files in libraries at the various major project sites. When I was in the Air Force fifty years ago, fortunately the Base Civil Engineer Squadron had saved all the technical contract files from the original Air Base Construction 15 years earlier.. Every time that SAC made Operational Readiness Inspections, we had to hide the filing cabinets or files above the ceiling at CE. 🤪 Thank God for the ability to electronically store contract files now days.

It will be interesting to see how this procurement plays out. According to the Protest Decision, the labor portion of the task order is Fix-Priced, with travel costs being cost reimbursable. Paying almost 1.7 times more money than the lowest task order proposal or 1 1/3 times the next lowest task order proposal (of the three mentioned proposals) would seem to warrant significant justification…

I’d be careful about equating “tariffs” and “duties” with “taxes”. The 52.229-3 clause refers to “tax(es) and dut(ies)” and “taxes or duties”, both in the singular and plural senses. They are distinctly addressed in the clause. Yes, I agree with Don that this clause may* allow an adjustment (up or down) for after award changes to or imposed duties, as stated in multiple posts. And yes, I agree with Don that a tariff is a type of duty, as stated in multiple posts and in numerous references. *The 52.229-3 clause excepts or limits such adjustments where and to the extent that the contract price already includes contingencies for increases in excise taxes or duties.

Researching to source a new control module and determine what would be required took me about 8 hours on the Internet and visiting-consulting with my favorite tranny shop and the local Jeep dealer. Efficient Commercial practices. Hmm.

Speaking of commercial practices I recently tried to find the part number for a 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee transmission control module for my friend’s widow living in Namibia. She also has a 2014 GC. The service rep at a local Jeep dealer here in AL told me that Jeep only supports spare parts for Jeeps for ten model years. He couldn’t find part numbers for either of her model year Jeeps even the US models. I said that sounded stupid. He agreed but indicated that it isn’t just Jeep. Part of the problem is that Jeep/Chrysler has gone through several owner changes since the 1980’s. But he claimed that other domestic auto manufacturers are going the same way. To complicate the problem, my friend’s Jeeps were produced in Austria by a plant under contract to Daimler Benz. He said they have transmissions made by Mercedes or other European or Asian suppliers but couldn’t find that information. They weren’t importing transmissions from the US suppliers. The local service rep tried unsuccessfully to find the VIN numbers for her Jeeps in their Jeep system and on the Internet. I had found secondary sources for domestic Jeep tranny control modules on the internet but they were for US made Jeeps without the parts numbers. They were running between $100-$200. I suppose that I could have contacted those sources for part numbers. I did learn that the control module is inside the transmission, requiring removal and tear down. So we wouldn’t be able to know the part number without a tranny removal and tear down. She lives on a farm that is 150 kilometers from the nearest transmission/Jeep firms. The Jeep will only run in first and second gear at about 20KPH. She said it would be a ten hour drive. She is a widow and can’t afford a tow thst far. I told her that a $2800 tranny repair on her low mileage Jeep would be better than having to buy a newer vehicle. So, it isn’t wise in my opinion to simply make general assumptions that commercial practices by original manufacterers are “efficient” or are “best practices”.

I’m referring to sourcing parts to repair government owned aircraft through the aircraft maker rather from the parts manufacturers.

I love that one. Reminds me of the $1000 bolts, $650 toilet seats Hundred dollar hammers, etc. when sourcing all parts through the prime aircraft manufacturer.

It. Will certainly be interesting. In my over forty years in the military and government I found that very few in the military or the government mission or in acquisition treat the taxpayer’s money like their own. They generally weren’t interested in economy or saving money. The mission users and program managers simply “wanted it all” and wanted to spend up the budget so they wouldn’t face future budget reductions for failure to spend it all. —-———————————————————— The Air Force in particular had Rolls Royce tastes, desires and demands even when on Yugo budgets, when it came to acquiring facilities. When I was in the Air Force in the early 1970’s, the USAF was essentially broke. We only had enough money to use the xerox machine in our office for about the first 15 days of each month. If I need to contact any commercial business or any non-DOD entity by phone that wasn’t a local call to an installation with Autovon, I would have to charge calls to my personal phone number. In my opinion, the desire for Ferrari quality, features and grandeur was realized after Ronald Reagan tripled the Defense Budget over three years, faster than DOD could fully define programs to spend it all. The strategy was to essentially bankrupt he Soviet Union in attempting to keep up with the US DOD. It worked.In my opinion, But once the trend was established there was no retreat from unbridled desires. For many years, almost every new USAF construction project contract was awarded well above 100% of the Programmed Amount. They were crafty though. Every year they put enough lower priority projects in the AF MILCON Program to fund the overruns to award new contracts or pay for changes. I forget what the statutory limit on individual project costs was (maybe 125% of the Programmed amount?) but it wasn’t uncommon to get close to the statutory limit. Many organizations, including those I worked for tend to be self perpetuating bureaucracies. They need to come up with new requirements to justify their existence.

Can’t someone edit this Blog and control the content ? Can any nonmember add comments?

Deleted.

I. Suggest that you ask the office that issued the document with the conflict in it.

“Interested to know if and how FAR 2.0 will address brand name / peculiar items in particular.” How about the Competition in Contracting Act as a statutory basis? Admission - didnt read CICA sources today. Too busy at the moment…

Did they really leave any broader goals or any goals in the draft Part 1 rewrite? That’s a rhetorical question…

Well, if this prime ends up having to pay this sub more than the prime can justify to the government, the sub may have cooked its own goose for future work with this prime -thus why I suggest dangling the cooperation carrot to the sub.

Based upon my interaction with and participation in some proposed reg updates, I’d say that, at least for the topics that I was involved with, the little “c” staffers and even subject matter proponents didn’t know the subject matter and often the implications of proposed language for revisions. Heck, even the industry proponents on industry committees that I knew or was a member of often didn't know either.

Well, if Part 1 is representative of this premise, it pretty well eliminated any overarching principles. EDIT: I generally agree with Vern’s assessment.

Wow, @realquiet. I don’t know if you are a new government contractor. This should be a lesson learned not to accept or offer contract terms and conditions to subs that contradict your prime contract terms and conditions. Doing so can put your company at risk to owe a sub more than the government will pay you in a modification, REA or claim situation..

@realquiet, If the subcontractor is in compliance with its subcontract terms and conditions, I don’t think you have any grounds legally to terminate the subcontractor for default. You may have a little bit of leverage in negotiating with the subcontractor to provide the information above and beyond the current subcontract terms and conditions. If you have an ongoing relationship And/or if the sub wants more work in the future from you, you might twist their arm a bit or coax them and say something to the effect “Hey, please cooperate here if you want to continue doing business with us. The Government won’t pay us unless we provide the required details. “ Negotiate, using the carrot of future business. Other than that, I don’t think you have legal grounds to stand on with the sub to make the government pay you what the sub is demanding that you pay them, without adequate breakdown of costs, markups and time adjustments.

I would think that you have access to a finance and accounting office but generally, funding sources that are expired (e.g. prior fiscal year) are not available for “new requirements” that are independent of the de-committed funds. Also, not sure there was an obligation if it wasn’t presented to the intended contractor. If you have legal counsel, consult with them.

Regardless of the existing subcontractor language, if you, the contractor, want the government to reimburse you for subcontractor delay impact costs and your related costs, you will have to get the sub to provide the necessary detail to support its impacted time and costs.

Along the lines of Carl’s post, can the actual tasks at each installation be quantified and estimated? You indicated that it is “performed overnight”.

It seems to me that you would be paying for travel labor either directly or indirectly, anyway.if contractor will have to estimate such time and factor it into the labor hour rates. Is there a likelihood of local commuting for some of the work, you can specify that the government won’t pay for travel hours for local commuting to such work or commuting between hotel and worksite, etc.

The contract clause requires YOU the contractor to provide supporting details for YOUR equitable adjustment. A subcontract term and condition that is at odds with Your requirement doesnt override your requirement. If you want an equitable adjustment that is based upon or includes subcontractor costs, you must provide reasonably required supporting cost, markup and time impact details.