On 5/6/2025 at 7:52 AM, C Culham said:

@realquiet Big "IF". My experience would suggest that most contractors in any setting are not in 100% compliance with even their own terms and conditions. If you look hard I suspect you can find the leverage to strongly suggest they should cooperate or otherwise they are gone as to me the leverage does not have to be for the specific issue. Or as noted another element of negotiation.

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.

23 hours ago, General.Zhukov said:

How big a change would this be? What are the implications?

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.

1 hour ago, jtolli2 said:

The FAR will retain only the provisions required by statute or essential to efficient, secure, and cost-effective procurement.

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..

9 hours ago, C Culham said:

Kind of a repeat.....but,

Yep they do. There is not privy of contract between your sub and the Government. Or as stated absent some subcontract language to require the supplier to provide you are at the mercy of your sub.

What to do? Get a new sub? Provide the detail as the prime and hope it fits what your sub is telling you? Take your dilemma to your CO and ask them what they would like you to provide. If they say they want it from the sub and on the subs letterhead then you might be back to - get a new sub if the sub does not want to cooperate?

@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.

5 minutes ago, Retreadfed said:

What do you mean by recapture? Do you mean can you use the funds for a new requirement?

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.

19 hours ago, Neil Roberts said:

@realquiet, if a stop work clause was included in the prime contract, it should have been flowed to the supplier with proper alteration of the parties. The changes clause requirements in the prime contract can be considered applicable to the stop work clause order. The order should be flowed from the prime to the supplier. Prime contractors should always include a changes clause in supplier contracts. Such clause should indicate that the supplier agrees to submit a "fully supported" proposal to the prime, or similar language. If so, the supplier can be held in default of its contract with the prime if it does not agree to submit to the prime the detailed information you mentioned,

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.

On 4/8/2025 at 4:51 PM, Don Mansfield said:

Was it 1-year money?

It appears to be.

23 hours ago, C Culham said:

I do wonder what "shall"s and "must"s will disappear. After all "shall" appears eleven times in this EO “Restoring Common Sense to Federal Procurement”

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤪

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.”

19 hours ago, Neil Roberts said:

Also see 52.229-3 Federal, State, and Local Taxes.

Yes, it addresses “duties” (including tariffs)

8 hours ago, CO4life said:

Yes. And does it create an issue with the option periods that are remaining. The end goal is simply reduce the contract value without reducing scope. Basically, can the contractor do the same but for less.

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?

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.

58 minutes ago, MBrown said:

What legal authority are you using to distinguish "tariff" or "duty" from "tax"?

@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.

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?

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?