joel hoffman

As I said above, I can browse through the Guides on my home computer, without logging in with my CAC Card at : https://acc.dau.mil/CommunityBrowser.aspx?i...〈=en-US Look on the right side of the page.

I am able to browse through the document from my home computer without logging in.

That doesn't make acquiring a federal research contract to discover how to improve commercial fishing practices acquisition of a commercial item (or a commercial service).

George, I think that it is based upon judgment but there may be something in agency guidance or a Decision somewhere. Here are some guidelines I have used over the years in the field as an ACO or as a negotiator and in my District and Division level contract admin oversite roles. 1) Are the changes separately priced, including their impacts on the unchanged work and time or schedule? 2) Do any of the changes impact the others such that they must be settled together or will they be (or were they) settled together in one agreement? 3) The scopes of work should generally be distinct and not intertwined. 4) Can they "stand alone" in scope and effect on the contract? 5) Generally, by including them in one mod "for administrative convenience", means to me that we settle them separately but just include them in one mod to save issuing separate mods. We may or may not negotiate them in the same meeting but still would settle them separately. 6) We keep the changes separate to the extent practical in the single modification file. We have distinct change numbers assigned to each. 7) We usually have separate RFP's and/or change order mods that initiate the changes, separate funding documents, and separate government estimates (if applicable) . 8) We segregate the pre-negotiation objectives by change (even if in the same document). 9) The changes may be negotiated in separate meetings or may be negotiated one at a time in the same meeting. There could be one consolidated price negotiation memorandum (if settled in the same meeting) or separate ones. At any rate the PNM would cover negotiation and settlement of each action separately. The adjusted quantities and prices will generally be combined in the mod in the single CLIN schedule in one or more CLIN's as applicable for administrative convenience. 10) If the scopes and descriptions of the changes had not been previously added earlier by change order mod, then they should be separately described in the SF30. 11) Bottom line rule of thumb is that each change keeps its own identity throughout the process and can be independently traced as to scope and adjustment or equitable adjustment to time and price, including impacts. 12 ) If they are lumped together in the settlement or if impacts must be lumped together to reach agreement on bottom line price and/or time, then they aren't independent, thus are interdependent, in my opinion. Does that help?

No. Discussions are open until you close them with a request for final offers. You certainly may combine oral with written discussions. As you indicated, a useful and important objective of discussions is to get to a meeting of the minds.

Wow, I wonder what they consider a "warranty" to entail. There is one thing to warranting the quality a product or service but providing preventive or other maintenance goes beyond my experiences with warranties. In my experience, that is a customer responsibility

Just a general note concerning the Army's new mandatory training on prevention of sexual harassment (and sexual assault). As a rehired annuitant, I just completed my training on "Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention" or "SHARP", which has replaced "Prevention of Sexual Harassment" or "POSH". This training heavily stresses the responsibility of every soldier and civilian employee to help prevent sexual harassment or sexual assault of other military or civilian members through intervention. It changes the focus of previous training from the responsibility of an employee or soldier as a potential victim or victim to everyone's responsibilities toward others. The Army's clear expectations are quite an eye opener. The training also taught me new perspectives of what many of us think of as common dating or situational behavior. This is behavior that many people might probably shrug off, might decide to just look the other way or might think that the victim can or should deal with it themselves. The training, while primarily focusing on typical soldier on and off-duty activity, also included numerous situations involving a civilian employee who actively intervened with soldiers and/or civilian employees. The situations occurred both on and off-duty. And there were situations involving offensive and intimidating behavior by his boss toward a co-worker. Of course, the fact that the charachter is a retired Master Sgt. probably explained his off-duty, "beyond the call of duty" intervention techniques. But it makes one think about observed on or off-duty offensive behavior by Army (military or civilian) personnel or threats to fellow Army personnel. While discussing the training with my sister-in-law and a friend last night, who have somewhat narrow or "traditional" views, it hit me how I had viewed various dating and social interaction situations before the training as "normal" or "tolerable", even if not considered good behavior. Bottom line is that direct harassment or workplace situations where soldiers and employees are exposed to unwanted behavior by others or to situations where the workplace may become a "hotile environment" is not to be tolerated and those observing such activity have a duty to intervene, not just decide that it is the victim or intended victim's responsibility to resolve the situation. This is not intended to answer the questions raised here but share my renewed and increased awareness that every (Army at least) employee has some responsibility to others in the workplace and the responsibility not to tolerate such behavior, whether it be by other government personnel or by government contractor personnel that interact with government personnel. An excerpt from AR 600-20

Oldnavy, Does the issue concern service contractor efforts after the task order completion that would be reimbursable or otherwise payable? Regarding your warranty concerns, in FFP construction contracts, extended warranties after the period of performance are common. There is no contractor payment for warranty responsibilities. Those are simply post acceptance responsibilities. As for the lease, is there any reimbursable contractor involvement after the period of performance? You said that the lease itself was prepaid. I am assuming too that the government is still using the leased facility after the POP, but I might be wrong. If the facility is not being used, that would seem to be more related to the wisdom or folly of paying for something of no value (government waste) than the question of whether or not it can be done. Of course, I realize there are differences between service and construction contracts.

To make a long story shorter, from said website... "What geographical areas are covered under the SCA? The SCA applies to all work performed within the United States. For purposes of the SCA, the term "United States" includes any State, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Outer Continental Shelf lands as defined in the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, American Samoa, Guam, Wake Island, Johnston Island, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The SCA does not apply to work performed in any other territory under the jurisdiction of the United States or any United States base or possession within a foreign country. Also, the SCA does not apply to work performed on ships operating in international or foreign waters. If a portion of the contract services is performed within the United States and a portion is performed outside the United States, the SCA applies to the portion performed in the United States."

Sorry, but I edited my last post above, while you were posting number 11 above...

If your firm is trying to extricate itself from the contract option, I think that avenue would be the best approach - especially since the answers to your questions depend upon the specific facts of your situation. Good luck.

Edited: So as not to have to read the mind of the questioner, is the real question here "can we simply use price-only as the basis for competing task orders under FAR Subpart 16.5, therefore not be required to use price and other factors, as described in 15.3?" Or does the questioner simply want to know if and how other organizations simplify task order competitions in comparison with a source selection for a new contract, using the procedures in FAR 15.3? If not either of those choices, what exactly do you want to know? The question, as stated, could result in people investing time providing answers all over the spectrum. It depends upon the purpose and objectives of the task order competition as to how to simplify it versus source selection competition for a stand alone contract.

GovCon, I can confirm the contract requirements but can not necessarily explain the reason behind logic. And yes, at first it seems like inconsistent treatment of the concept of recovery of G&A to have to guess at the magnitude of future SCA increases. On the other hand, when initially pricing out year work on a FFP contract, a firm has to predict or guess at what the future G&A rates will be, anyway. We usually don't know for sure either the denominator or numerator used to calculate future year G&A rates, right? So, in bidding/proposing prices for an FFP contract that includes out year pricing, one must decide what to use for future G&A markups. One might use a current G&A rate, which may be based upon current or past accounting information and/or trends - or one can use whatever rate they think will be high or low enough to be competitive. No offense intended but, perhaps as an accountant, you are trying to get to precise in the whole G&A pricing for FFP contracts with future year option pricing. As an engineer who has negotiated contracts, changes and claims for years, I have tended to try to fit everything into neat formula pricing scenarios, whereas often contractors must use their best business judgement and approximate what to use in a FFP pricing scenario, which involves some risk. Regarding the second issue, assuming that your client flowed down the clause in its subcontracts, if the sub has additional G&A expense due to the contract requirement, it is charged with knowing the contract requirements and should have reflected the additional expense in its proposal to your client for the contract or task order. . Then your client should not have to pay additional G&A to the sub for the SCA wage rate modification. If your client was aware of the pricing mechanism in the clause, it should have protected itself from such additional costs from the subcontractor that weren't already reflected in its pricing for the out years. No offense but it would seem that a prime on a service contract with out year pricing should become familiar with the pricing mechanisms and restrictions for SCA wage adjustments applied to option year pricing before award.

Yep, we might as well wait for Con to add anything he/she deems pertinent.

Vern, I think that Con has expressed two concerns: 1) Con says that the Clause doesn't allow the Contractor to allocate overhead and G&A to the cost delta for the SCA wage adjustment, so it would have had to increase its markups in the initial contract pricing for the outyear options in order to recover those costs. 2) I believe Con says that a sub is charging the prime for its cost to process the mods plus overhead for the increased wages. Note that if the prime has passed down the clause at FAR 52.222-43 in its subcontracts, the subs probably dont have any more right to charge the prime such costs than the prime has the right to charge the government for those costs.

Okay, to answer that, see this from 13.003 -- Policy. "(a) Agencies shall use simplified acquisition procedures to the maximum extent practicable for all purchases of supplies or services not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold (including purchases at or below the micro-purchase threshold)."... Part 13 was around long before "commercial item" coverage was added in 1997. In my January 1996 version of FAR, 13.5 covers "Purchase Orders" and there is no mention of commercial items in 13.000

ERS, Please advise what you aren't clear about in FAR 13.000, thanks. Breaking down the scope of the Part: 13.000 -- Scope of Part. "This part prescribes policies and procedures for the acquisition of supplies and services, including construction, research and development, and commercial items, the aggregate amount of which does not exceed the simplified acquisition threshold (see 2.101)"... ..."Subpart 13.5 provides special authority for acquisitions of commercial items exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold but not exceeding $6.5 million ($12 million for acquisitions as described in 13.500(e)), including options."... ..."See part 12 for policies applicable to the acquisition of commercial items exceeding the micro-purchase threshold."... ..."See 36.602-5 for simplified procedures to be used when acquiring architect-engineer services." Is it in the wording of "supplies and services"? Do you think it doesn't include those types of supplies and services less than the simplified acquisition threshold that are not commercial items?

Vern, your scenario is incorrect. Dene explained in post #5 that somewhere along the line there was a "design change" that reduced the number of widgets from 200 to 116 with no explanation of how that was implemented. Now the remaining 116 have been deleted and Dene thinks the government is due a credit for all 200 widgets. We know they haven't been "provided". We don't know if they are commercial products that can be resold if already purchased or produced, if they were produced or not produced by the contractor or if they were purchased or not purchased. We dont know if they are severable items or not. What, if any or how much credit is due depends upon a lot of information that is lacking. Dene needs to fully understand the scope of the deletion, tracing back from how the contract required 200 widgets to 0, now.

Dene, if no mod was ever processed for the original reduction from 200 to 116 widgets, then it would seem that the current change is a deletion of 200 widgets. If the government processed a mod earlier but didnt take a credit, I don't know what to tell you, without more information.

Yes, I agree.

I assume that one of the Limitation of Cost clauses (52.232-20 or 52.232-22) is in the CPFF contract, which require the contractor to provide advance notice of an expected "overrun". So, the Government has no liability to pay and the Contractor isn't entitled to any payment for an overrun of the cost limitation, right? Then there would no basis for a "claim" for payment due. Thus, this is merely a "request" for the Government to consider adding funding and allowing payment, correct? Are you asking if there is some regulatory or statutory limit on when it may request to be reimbursed for something that occurred years ago? Or stated another way, is there a time limitation on when the government may entertain a request for payment on something that occurred years ago?

Dene, those questions are examples of my confusion. Your description of the facts is confusing to me. As a new user, to reply to someone, you can just click on "reply", then scroll down to the type in entry box. the message you are replying to will be displayed within coding for a "quote". If you dont want to include the quote, just delete it before typing in your reply. You can keep the quote or abbreviate it. you can add your reply before or after the quote/

I tend to agree with Vern. For payment purposes, if the problem is that the delivery order describes unit prices that have been changed in the basic contract, you need to know for sure whether or not the change was intended to apply to the delivery order or not. If yes, then it would seem that the paying office would need a mod to the delivery order to reflect the current unit price and funding on the delivery order. If no, then the Contractor should be billing for the unit prices reflected in the D.O. EDITED: Situations like this illustrate the danger of simply referencing unit prices in a base contract in a delivery order, rather than including the applicable CLINS in the D.O. - I'm not even sure if that is possible. Aside from that, you didn't say which organization issued the task order but if the buying command issued the D.O., I believe that it has the responsibility to modify the D.O., if the changed prices apply to it. Somebody should modify the D.O., to reflect the correct prices and funding for the entire order, so the contractor can get paid and so the DO will be up to date.

It is difficult to understand the context of your question. In fact the description is confusing. For example: Are these unit priced widgets? Or are they components that must be installed in an aircraft carrier or something, in which the design has changed? You said the contractor was paid for 200 widgets, so did the contractor produce or purchase these and then provide them? Now the government doesn't need them? What does the number "116" represent? A credit for 116 widgets not to be required? The revised number of widgets required by "new construction carrier design"? What is the relationship of the 200 or 116 widgets to the original design and to the change?

I never said that it had anything to do with CICA. It is just another indicator of the need for market research before finalizing an acquisition strategy if you expect to get some competition on a program that has had none for 15 years. Not only that but the organization changed from a lower risk (to industry) cost type to a higher risk, likely less attractive FFP type. Jesse seems to think that it is now reasonable to proceed because they gave it a shot on the open market. It doesn't appear to me to be reasonable to simply proceed without further attempts to assess the market. I tend to agree with his management, but assess the market first before just going back out with a cost type solicitation.