REA'n Maker

What's "wrong" with Government contracting is that it is not, nor has it ever been, about achieving the lowest price for an item or service. If that were the case, drinking fountains would still read "whites only", job ads would still read "Irish need not apply", only Fortune 500 companies would sell to the government, and women would still be fired from their jobs when they got pregnant. Am I the only one who didn't sleep through that part of CON 101? So I think it's fair to say that eliminating all these "nuisance" provisions would be good for the acquisition community, bad for the country. And when you are spending taxpayer dollars, "bad for the country" is a cost like any other. If paperwork ain't your thing, you're in the wrong business.

This sounds an awful lot like a depot maintenance contract, scenario-wise: a known input (busted F-14 radars), with unknown circumstances (how busted?), with an acknowledgement that some tasks are inevitable and predictable (removing busted radars from F-14s and bench-testing them). Is "BOA" the answer to this scenario?

Why not $5M each? Surveillance over 4 contracts with $1.25M ceilings is no different than surveilling 4 contracts with $5M ceilings. Fair Opportunity doesn't prohibit awarding every single TO to the same contractor, so why hem yourself in by trying to guess the ultimate award value on each?

So if the contractor used less hours, on a FFP, he would happily refund his additional margin to the government, right? Sometimes the absurdity inherent in a given scenario is best illustrated by the absurdity apparent in its inverse scenario.

1. Why would I want to do this? (conceptually) 2. Why would I want to do this? (practically) Or; what would I accomplish that a single fee determination couldn't, and; considering all the work with fee determination is on the government's side, why would I put myself through that torture, considering once per year is painful enough as it is?

Isn't the question actually "does evaluating a proposed model contract take longer than drafting one from scratch?" Doesn't 12.301 kind of open the door to the OP's approach, i.e., "...include only those clauses...Determined to be consistent with customary commercial practice."? How much are these "dictated" T&Cs costing the government? But admittedly there is a scary implication of this approach: Lawyers. It seems implied that they would now be actively involved in Source Selection, e.g., "Evaluation Factor X: Legal Sufficiency of the Proposed Vehicle (Pass/Fail)".

Small business would be well-served by this kind of scheme. It would force them to become experts in the contracting process, something woefully lacking in today's environment where firms come out of the SBA preference programs without the ability to find their 'donkey' with both hands (as SBA will tell you). As it stands, most of them graduate to oblivion because they have been coddled and hand-held to the point they don't know the difference between a BPA and an IDIQ. There seems to be a belief amongst many commenters that somehow the government would 'not be protected' unless there is government authorship, however, no one said "non-compliant with the FAR". By the same token, commercial-to-commercial transactions are assumed to be bound by the UCC and/or Civil Law re: contract terms. Isn't this kind of a logical extension of Part 12, i.e., he who provides the most favorable terms, wins? whoever holds the funds will always have the power, and that will always be the government. At least in the suggested scenario, vendors would be forced to read the dang contract for a change..

I'm trying to understand how it could be any other way than as described in Vern's quote. MACS are kind of an artificial construct created by the contracting office who awarded them, in that they are MACS because the CO said they expect to 'award X number of contracts as a result of the solicitation'; otherwise, they have no defining characteristics on their face to distinguish them from single-award. That is why many times you can only spot a MAC "in the wild" by noting X IDIQ's with sequential numbering, all with the same ceiling. So why in the world would anyone ever not set a ceiling for each vehicle? As amply demonstrated by this example, you run the risk of losing the bubble on your ceiling if you're trying to track the combined ceiling on X vehicles which are otherwise independent in their administration. The mess you are in seemed entirely predictable....contracting is complicated enough without going out of your way to make it more so...

I "got that idea" from FAR Part 16: "A firm-fixed-price, level-of-effort term contract is suitable for investigation or study in a specific research and development area." That's not even including the specific stipulations under 16.207-3 Why in God's name would I award "study" contract with a $150K ceiling, or get a waiver, for routine physician services under a Part 12 buy? That would be wacky. So if a CS came into your office and requested a waiver to the FFP-LOE restrictions, under a Part 12 buy, would you approve it? The same thing they do for everyone else in the private sector, hence the commercial contract. I can 100% assure you it's not "investigation or study in a specific research and development area".

I was thinking of my experience with VA contracting when answering that question - the contract doctors typically aren't on-call; they are the ones taking scheduled appointments. I've also seen them contracted on Indian reservations because of the travel time involved to the nearest VA facility: Hours of operation: 8 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.Monday through FridayClosed on weekends and HolidaysVoice messaging system available 24 hours http://www.washingtondc.va.gov/patients/appointments.asp My reference to "normal" FFP precluded the "LOE" option because of its limited application, and an FFP LOE doesn't fit the scenario of a fixed set of tasks over a fixed time. The only reason for saying it is "done" is because the PoP is complete, not because they have delivered something. Regardless, FFP-LOE doesn't mean you bill by the hour, or that you aren't entitled to the full FFP absent a scope change. VA needed a doctor for a year. The contractor provided a doctor for a year. Scope met; payment deserved.

One other big question is simply, "how is it even possible for a doctor put in 5 days a week/52 weeks per year onsite at a VA hospital when we know for a fact that the government is closed for at least 10 holidays every year?"

Agreed, but as a purely intellectual exercise: 1) how would one contract for 2080 hours on a "normal" FFP? 2) Is the KTR delivering only hours? How is that possible without being (in practice and regulation) a LH contract? 3) What happens if the KTR works more than 2080? Can he file an REA/claim? Here's the statement I'm focusing on: Glaring Issue #1: Was the COR tracking hours? Glaring Issue #2: Did the contract require the contractor to submit hours? Everyone is paid at some form of hourly rate, or at least what they are paid can be converted to an hourly rate. There is simply no other way to price a service contract (i.e., you don't just say "Meh; $120,000 seems about right"). But that has nothing to do with the terms of an FFP award. We are all prisoners to our experience, but FWIW, I have fought this "award as an FFP/manage as a LH" nonsense for years. As a proud former 1102, it pains me that many offices play the game of soliciting in an FFP environment and managing in a LH environment, simply because they don't want to do the work associated with justifying a LH approach. Then the COR "manages" by counting contractor butts in seats, and refuses to certify the full invoice because Billy Bob went to Disneyland last week. And voila, when it comes time to close, you have money left on an FFP, which should technically be impossible. What other scenario could produce such a result? (other than systems/lag issues, which with integrated finance and contracting systems, are increasingly rare.) If I were the contractor, I would demand full contract payment. Period.

Telling the contractor in the RFP to base their estimate on a 2080 hour year, and saying that the contractor has to be onsite 7 days a week for 52 weeks per year as a contract term, are two very different things. Are you saying the contractor was billing you on an hourly basis under an FFP??? The government constantly confuses 'estimating methodologies' for 'contract terms'. FFP is FFP, regardless of how the price was estimated. They aren't delivering hours, so how can you 'T for C' them without incurring a claim?

And when Gender is removed from official documents, then what? "Self-identification" is becoming more literal than anyone realized. Gender neutral passports move a step closer to reality after Labour backing http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gender-neutral-passports-move-a-step-closer-to-reality-10123734.html

"Because the cost risk is most accurately described by the Estimated/Most Probable Cost ratio." (Puts the ball back in your CO's court as to why adjectives could better describe the risk.)

You do realize that 'HAL' was originally supposed to be an IBM computer, right? "I'm sorry, Dave, but I can't allow you to terminate this contract" (at which point you are blasted into space) What WOULD we like it to do? Create a bulletproof Section M? Conduct evaluations in microseconds? Prepare our Rule 4 files for us? Watson will never do the award determination part, but it seems like cranking through the months-long processes that seem to vex humans would be useful (making sure the RFP is consistent; making responsibility determinations; validating vendors in HUB Zones; set-aside determinations; market research). Leave the fun stuff to the humans (doing the deal).

Now Sec. 080603? (as revised Feb '16) http://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/documents/fmr/current/03/03_08.pdf

The odd thing is that according to FPDS, it looks like the current obligated amounts on the 2 Watson contracts are mere peanuts. Like everything else from IBM, the final answer will surely be to outsource everything to India. I find it very disconcerting when technologists insert themselves into this field - try and convince a single IT guy that automated clause logic is crap. They've been claiming victory on that one for 10 years now.

I also don't use the word "idiot" on professional forums, don't make a habit of accusing entire groups of people I've never met of being "incompetent", nor do I lack the basic social skills of a fully functioning adult. But some day, in the not-too-distant future, I hope to develop my chops to the point where I too can cut-and-paste from FAR Part 15, as opposed to summing up the issue succinctly and with a little humor.

Unfortunately, there is no clause which reads "The CO shall not request pricing data which makes no sense considering the situation and which cannot be properly evaluated anyway".

I thought that's what I said in my first post: the DC and O/H pool on which the proposed FCCOM was based were not deemed by the CO to be applicable to this effort. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that CO was going around checking whether specific assets are being employed on a specific contract; I was using 'capital asset' in the only context that made sense in regard to FCCOM, i.e., the cost pools which account for those capital assets.

"Your post about use of capital assets on an individual contract being dispositive regarding the allowability of FCCOM with respect to that contract is just wrong. " I was merely making the shorthand point illustrated by your scenario above: maybe the CO was saying that Engineering labor was not an appropriate direct charge for the effort in question. I've seen stuff like this when a contractor proposes engineering work on a follow-on production contract (i.e., the instant contract is not reasonably expected to employ the engineering DC & O/H pool to which the allowable FCCOM is applied). If I as CO don't accept the direct charge and its O/H pool as reasonable, allowable, and allocable to my contract, I certainly don't incorporate the associated FCCOM into my counter, regardless of CAS. That is a possible circumstance in which FCCOM would not be "allowed", as the OP stated. (I suspect the OP was a bit imprecise in their terminology when stating the CO said FCCOM was "not allowable", which cannot literally be true). You almost make it sound as if the mere fact that the contractor proposes FCCOM makes it acceptable - that's not what you meant, is it?

My point is that the issue may actually be that FCCOM is not allocable to that contract rather than not allowable per se. " In other words, the contractor accounts at the total company level for facilities cost. This total, which is divided into various overhead pools as determined by the contractor, is then allocated to an individual contract based upon that contract’s use of direct charges that those overhead pools would be applied to" https://dap.dau.mil/aap/pages/qdetails.aspx?cgiSubjectAreaID=3&cgiQuestionID=108904 Further: "The business-unit's facilities capital cost of money is then broken down by overhead pool and allocated to specific contracts using the same allocation base used to allocate the indirect costs in the overhead pool.... The estimated facilities capital cost of money is specifically identified or proposed in cost proposals relating to the contract under which the cost is to be claimed. " http://www.acq.osd.mil/dpap/cpf/docs/contract_pricing_finance_guide/vol3_ch10.pdf For example, job-related training is allowable, but not allocable to every contract (compared to alcohol and/or the CEO's summer lake house, which are never allowable OR allocable). In short, Allowability requires Allocability: http://www.dcaa.mil/FAR_Cost_Principles_Guide.pdf

Absent some action on the part of the government during performance which caused you to be harmed, I fail to see where an REA would come into play. A belief that you're not charging enough is not 'harm'.

Maybe the CO feels there's no requirement to employ capital assets? Occam's Razor and all that...