joel hoffman

Do you actually have a concern about 1102 series being converted to a schedule under the Excepted Service, not specifically “Schedule F” ? That could be a possibility. Might be a good thing for the Nation.

I don’t know if the 2020 EO is still current or has been reissued or revised from the referenced one.

From Wikipedia:under “Excepted Service” “Excepted service”“The excepted service is the part of the United States federal civil servicethat is not part of either the competitive service or the Senior Executive Service. It allows streamlined hiring processes to be used under certain circumstances.” “Schedule Policy/Career appointments, formerly known as Schedule F appointments apply to "confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions."[5]” “[5] • "Executive Order on Creating Schedule F In The Excepted Service". whitehouse.gov. 2020-10-21. Archived from the original on 2021-01-30. Retrieved 2020-10-24 – via National Archives.”

Yes, it addresses “duties” (including tariffs)

What I really was trying to understand is why do you want or need the contractor to reduce its prices?

Are you asking whether you can seek voluntary price reductions from on-going service contracts? What is the end purpose or goal to accomplish?

Thank you, Vern. I was personally able to successfully use the numerical system in source selections but observed and noted the problems mentioned herein at other Districts and agencies.

I once taught a design-build construction class in Portland, Oregon with a Contracting Officer who was involved in that decision, when she worked at Army level. I remember her confirming those reasons being involved in the decision. She said there were numerous protests involving scoring schemes and that the agencies tended to overlook real differences between proposals,, instead relying on scores. Plus Adjectival rating systems allowed more subjectivity in the selection decisions. I’m not sure that many or all of the evaluation teams and contracting personnel have learned to justify the basis (the meat ) first, before assigning ratings or tend to assign ratings first, then find ways to justify the rating..

Yes. Well said. It’s to avoid not being able to see the forest for the trees or however that idiom goes. But we must not overlook the basis for the ratings when making comparisons between competitors. I often saw selection decisions made solely or primarily on numerical scores or solely price/quality (score) or quality/price ratios. IMO that was assuming too much precision in scoring systems. Both in allocating points among the various factors and subfactors and in assigning points during the evaluation. Plus it tended to obscure WHERE (which factors/subfactors) the points were assigned to. I believe that those all were some major reasons for the Army banning numerical rating back in the early 2000’s.

It’s essentially a roll up summary level description or label for the supporting documentation. Why would one write down every detail supporting the ratings in a matrix of all the proposals? When comparing proposals, one can start at the rating level but then would distinguish by examining the underlying details.

Don, the assigned ratings must be supported by documenting “the relative strengths, deficiencies, significant weaknesses, and risks resulting from the proposal evaluation. I always made the SSEB team develop and provide the above (the MEAT of the evaluation) during the CONSENSUS evaluation, and THEN we assigned the appropriate, corresponding “rating”, again by consensus. Non-numerical ratings naturally fall out based upon the supporting data. The underlying, supporting data were also used in the comparative analysis and cost-technical trade-off when applicable.

I agree with Vern.

Since you aren’t on the SSEB, I don’t know what your involvement and input to the SS at this point are. You probably can’t answer Vern’s valid questions and probably ought not post them here. I personally wonder whether there were actually any ORAL discussions between the Government and all these “offerors” and did the firms that submitted proposals say they won’t or can’t meet the current solicitation requirements. If there were REAL discussions and the firms can’t or won’t meet the current requirements, then the source selection officials should decide whether revised requirements would be acceptable to the government and achievable by the current proposers. If yes, it might be advisable to revise and continue. If revisions to the current requirements would result in major changes to the solicitation, .it might be necessary to cancel and re-solicit. If not acceptable, they will have to decide if they need to continue with the current solicitation or pursue another course of action.

@MBown What’s your point? Tariffs and duties are commonly interchangeable terms.You can do a simple search to find that. The 52.229-3 clause discusses increased or after imposed excise taxes and duties as eligible for a price adjustment. Not every type of tax is eligible for price adjustments either. The GSAR clause says that the contract prices “include all applicable Federal, State, and local taxes” And “No adjustment will be made to cover taxes which may subsequently be imposed on this transaction or changes in the rates of currently applicable taxes.” Whether or not a tariff is a duty or a tax, the GSAR clause at 552-229-70 doesn’t provide for a price adjustment for changes in rates or after imposed taxes nor does it mention duties or tariffs. Edit: Some other mechanism in GSA schedule contracts may provide an adjustment for tax increases or imposed/increased duties such as tariffs. I don’t know. I was only addressing the aforementioned FAR and GSARS clauses.

“An agency shall evaluate competitive proposals and then assess “their relative qualities” solely on the factors and subfactors specified in the solicitation." Does assess “their relative qualities” mean “compare the quality between the different proposals” - solely based upon the specified factors and subfactors ? Oxford Dictionary: Relative as an adjective: …”considered in relation or in proportion to something else.” "the relative effectiveness of the various mechanisms is not known" —-—————————- Or does it mean “assess their [each proposal’s] relative qualities” under the specified factors and subfactors using some type of rating system [e.g., is it relatively weak, meets, exceeds, excels under the factor or subfactor quality requirements]? In other words what is the contextual meaning of “their” [singular or plural] and “relative” [compared to each other or compared to the evaluation criteria]?

Well, let’s see. A Tariff is a “duty”, not a tax. So, the GSAR clause only addresses “taxes” being inclusive in the contract prices. The GSAR clause is for contracts expected to exceed the micro purchase threshold but not the simplified acquisition threshold: “529.470 Domestic contract clauses.(a)Insert the clause at 552.229-70, Federal, State, and Local Taxes, in solicitations and contracts estimated to exceed the micro-purchase threshold, but not the simplified acquisition threshold.“ —-———————————————————— Does your contract allow and involve acquisition of non-domestic supplies or materials? FAR 52.249-8 Why not try discussing this with GSA?

PilieroMazza PLLCTrump Administration’s Proposed Tariffs: How Can Governme...While on the campaign trail, President-elect Trump spoke of implementing tariffs. How will government contractors be affected if the upcoming Trump administration enacts its proposed tariffs in 202...

Have you checked your GSA schedule contract? Is FAR clause 52.229-3 in your contract? I found this AI overview: “For federal contractors, the FAR clause related to tariffs is FAR 52.229-3 (Federal, State, and Local Taxes), which allows for equitable adjustments to contract prices when new or increased federal excise taxes or duties (like tariffs) are imposed after contract award, provided the contractor notifies the contracting officer promptly and the costs weren't already factored in.”

So a simple reading of the EO would require that the Attorney General or President must review the government’s preliminary position advanced on every protest, or contract claim or REA involving application of contract or case law?

Of course, what happens when Federal Court case law contradicts an Executive Branch interpretation of the law? That will have to be adjudicated between the President and/or Attorney General and the Judiciary, won’t it?

State laws are heavily influenced by industry lobbyists and associations. I know from experience, having being a registered PE in two states.

By the way, there is much civil, UCC and common law litigation concerning disputes on non-federal construction and A-E contracting. There is much variation, depending upon the particular state laws and jurisdictions as well as jurisdictional precedent decisions. Appeals of decisions are common. I used to get monthly summaries and still am subscribed to one monthly source. I still have a shelf full of yearly updates to such case law. Haven’t read them in 18 years but kept them because I’m too lazy to clean out my bookcase. 😆

Remember that D-B is statutory. The original 1920’s D-B threshold was higher than the current statutory threshold, which was understandably lowered during the 1930’s Depression era. Trump won’t fight the labor unions there, even though the ridiculously low, unchanged Depression era threshold is of no benefit to union labor. Applying D-B requirements to jobs that small is administratively wasteful (time spent and $) for both industry and gov’t. Edit add: The changes clause allows the government to make unilateral, in-scope written or (case law - constructive) changes and establishes the basis for an equitable adjustment for increases or decreases (per case law) in the contractors cost and time extensions, etc. The part 12, commercial contract clause , allowing only bilateral agreement before making a change is unworkable for construction contracting - often resulting in delays, disruption and/or rework and other time schedule and cost impacts. $$$$ and T—-i—-m—-e——.

Ah, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning “Don Acquisition”. I figured it was a clever, double entendre for “Department of the Navy Acquisition”. 😁

Huh? Im not referring to any of the socio-economic aspects of the FAR here. I’m talking about the A-E and construction contract-specific clauses and coverage, that are comparable to other non-FAR A-E and construction contracting models. They have been used a long before the FAR, going at least back to the beginning of the seventies in DoD contracting for construction and A-E contracting. I’m referring to federal A-E construction contracts being all over the place without standardized formats and consistency within those specific areas. There are billions of dollars of DoD A-E/construction contracts alone awarded each year across the Services. Obviously, there are various standardized formats and conditions for each State and local government contracting organizations. And when I was in private practice we used standard formats.