joel hoffman

I have never heard of a “unilateral agreement”. An agreement consists of concurrence by the contract parties concerning some matter. Do you mean a unilateral decision by the government to determine entitlement to an excusable delay and establish or deny a time extension?

How is a contract or task order when acquiring products or services priced as cost reimbursement or cost reimbursement with fixed fee a FAR commercial product/service contract? ” 12.207 Contract type. (a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, agencies shall use firm-fixed-price contracts or fixed-price contracts with economic price adjustment for the acquisition of commercial products or commercial services.” (b) (1) A time-and-materials contract or labor-hour contract (see subpart 16.6) may be used for the acquisition of commercial services when…”

Who was the scholar and what is the source ? Did I miss it?

Way to go, Carl. Putting this in perspective, is the government worse than the myriads of ridiculous terms and conditions imposed every day by businesses. What I think is especially ridiculous are all the exceptions written into the warranties, etc. that you can’t read until you buy the product and open the package…

@formerfed, is this the article:

Did you mean to say something, formerfed? 🤠

LOML has disengaged from the thread after 3 September, leavingw many responders’ questions unanswered and much speculation. I suggest we not waste any more time continuing to respond…

Please clarify. What does “below the market that is offered by the owner” mean? Are you saying that the lease price is below the market price and is reasonable in amount? Please clarify. Are you saying that it would be included in the G&A pool and that it “is” (already)(?) or did you mean “ it will be”(?) the “main office” of the contractor? Where is the firm’s “main office”now? Does the “main office” serve the contractor’s other contracts too (I.e., the total cost denominator for G&A includes the total cost of company sales or similar designation)? Just need to understand the full context of the scenario. Thanks.

🙏🙏🙏🙏

Is “now” before finalizing the task order or after bilateral agreement and issuance? If before, II definitely would agree with the contractor. If the contractor agreed with the requirement during the negotiation of the task order and later balks, I’d disagree… ————————————- On FFP construction contracts for lump sum CLINs, the Corps of Engineers for decades has required and obtained rather high level breakdowns of the CLIN values - to assign to schedule activities for tracking progress and for preparing progress payment invoices. It might include percentages of labor and materials and sometimes mobilization share of the CLIN price. If a lump sum activity was subcontracted, they would provide that value and any high level breakout. But I’ve never seen a requirement for reporting detailed actual costs for the direct and indirect “costs” for invoicing on lump sum CLINs. We’d use the percent progress performed. I do remember one large RR bridge and trestle project where the subcontract cost for the bridge fabrication and materials was more than the entire CLIN price for the installed bridge. So they had to prorate the subcontract cost for the fabricated bridge materials, shipping and installation for progress estimates. Of course they made up that underbid item on other parts of the project.

I typed up a similar thought then deleted it. Thx for the thought.

This is probably a rhetorical question. But if you are using anther agency’s contract, wouldn’t it be appropriate to CALL or otherwise contact THEM first for an after the fact question about using their contract? Like asking “what happens if one of the schedule holders emailed their quote instead of submitting it through the EBuy system?”

@C Culham, yep probably so. Likely a lesson learned not to assume that submission requirements are totally specified in the EBuy system. Also to read all the GSA instructions…

@NewbieFed , please let us know how this worked out. Of course, if the quote in question isn’t otherwise the winner, it wouldnt be an issue for award this time. Thanks.

Seems like it would be wise to see if the GSA contracts contain any conditions requiring submission of quotes through the EBuy System. NewbieFed appears to have assumed that it was an “obvious” requirement that Newbie didn’t have to specify. Apparently, the RFQ contained an email address for some reason. If it didn’t, how is it appropriate to send a quote via email? If it did, was there a stated purpose for the email address? If the EBuy route is not an inherent requirement, it’s a lesson learned to specify how to submit quotes. Seems like a simple solution here.

Looking forward to your upcoming article, Vern. The 1980 GAO memo to OFPP is very informative and mirrors much of my arguments. Even then, GAO was indicating that there was no need for “protection” for organized labor for small, relatively insignificant projects below the then $10,000 simplified acquisition limit, let alone a $2,000 threshold. Such contracts were reserved for small business firms. Those firms generally aren’t unionized and are burdened by administrative costs and manpower resources to comply with D-B. The GAO said that the D-B protections were designed for workers on large project [not minuscule projects that would likely be performed by non-union employees anyway]. Sorry for rambling. I’m done now.

As an example, the Davis-Bacon threshold was higher ($5000) 93 years ago than it is now. They lowered it 89 years ago to $2000. That’s longer than anyone here has lived. Trivial? That’s an understatement. A dollar then was worth over 20 times what it is today. Today a dollar can buy about 4.4 cents of what a dollar could buy back then. My dad earned $1 a day plus meals and a cot in his Army run CCC Camp in 1933. $2000 was equivalent to 2000 man days of work. 🤪

Carl, when you have to use multiple trades to perform a tiny amount of work…which is reserved for small business firms anyway, it’s not practical for Unionized contractors. So there is no need to “protect” or promote union labor on such small jobs. But it probably will be the same for Longer time. Common sense isn’t evident here.

Nine hours ago, @ji20874 posted: “Joel,Are you trying to make a case for a change? Fine with me if you are, but I don’t think Wifcon.com is where you need to make your case.” ———————————————— ji, have you followed this thread? Yes, I responded to the subject of the thread. I simply mentioned that the $2000 Davis-Bacon threshold appears to be immortal. It’s been the threshold since 1935. The original 1931 threshold was $5000 but was lowered, as part of efforts to end the Great Depression, to $2000. You can read the history of the Davis-Bacon Act at Wikipedia.com Then, I was challenged to explain why it’s “bad for the system and the country” and why it’s burdensome. The conversation eventually got around to the likelihood of the DB threshold being increased. It appears that it won’t likely be raised. A dollar in 1935 is worth $22.69 in 2024. I wouldn’t advocate raising it that much. But a comparable amount of construction work within the current threshold is about 4.4% of what you could get in 1935. And labor productivity was much lower then, resulting in larger labor crews and total labor hours to construct a project. Means, methods, materials, tools and equipment have greatly increased labor productivity. If most of the 88-90% of the US construction industry workforce is willing to work as non-union craft labor, is there a need to retain a 1931 ($5000) or 1935 ($2,000) Depression Era threshold for application of primarily union based wage rates. Almost all, if not all states, have adopted minimum construction wage rates. In fact, when I was still active in construction contracting as late as 8 years ago, actual wages on our job sites often exceeded the DB minimum wage rates due to market competition for craft labor. This thread intended to discuss, in part, regulations and laws that, once Instituted, tend to live forever, regardless of whether or not they are still necessary. Unionized contractors likely won’t bother with minuscule contracts with very little labor hours but with the administrative expenses to comply and report, Union work craft rule restrictions, etc.

Carl, did your research show you that DOL has recently decided to revert to methods used to determine Prevailing wage rates that are essentially based upon organized labor bargained rates, even though they might not be “prevailing” for the locality This is the way it was done a relatively long time ago in the seventies and 80’s. I don’t remember when that was changed to reflect more actual prevailing rates. Now it seems to be back during this Administration. So wage rates applicable to a small minority of the workforce may now again be considered the prevailing rates… It was posted on WIFCON awhile back, complete with the DOL “spin”, justification.

The administrative effort on the part of non-Union contractors isn’t nil. 88-90% construction employees are non-Union, generally including those working for small business employers. Local Small Businesses would be the industry market for very small construction contracts (generally reserved for small business anyway) assuming the DB threshold would be raised to say$10k. Remember that the labor share of $2k-$10k minor construction/Maintnence/repair contract would generally be a small percentage of the total price, which also would likely include, materials, tools and equipment, supervision, overhead and profit.

Thanks, Vern. I’ll look for the article. Bye.🤠

@Vern Edwards Because Saturday, you asked me to go on (“provide specifics”). Did you forget? I thought I’d already made my point. You had appeared to believe that there was some value to the construction workforce in keeping the threshold at $2000. However, in response to your Saturday request, I provided some specific details for my reasoning against retaining the threshold. Yes, “I know” and am glad we agree that the DB threshold should be changed and that we agree Congress and the President won’t change it. None of them know anything about it. It’s purely political, in almost meaningless support for the 10-12% portion of the US construction industry labor force that is unionized. That’s why the $2000 DB threshold is practically or seemingly “semi-immortal”. Those unionized construction firms likely won’t bother seeking or taking on a $2000 or even larger small construction contract. Those can be relatively easily procured from local small business firms using simplified acquisition methods. Seemingly Immortal laws and regulations was a point in the original post quoting Elon Musk and in wifwaf’s summation, both of which you challenged. it’s interesting that even some of the largest US construction firms have separate Union and non-union companies (e.g., Bechtel). It’s called “Double-Breasted Operations”. I’m done too, thanks.

@Vern Edwards Ok. See next post.