NewbieFed

Contract specialist, entry FAC-C cert. Working on FAC-C 2 and will be a CO in the near future. My experience has been working on awards between 10k-250k, and also have some experience with awards over the SAT 250k (below the 7.5 million limit for commercial items). The kind of job "I want" is to streamline government programs, save them money, make them more efficient, etc. I was curious as to Management/whether Program Analysts do this. I'm frustrated with my current position because it seems people just wants me to make awards as fast as possible. We get spammed with a ton of last minute acquisitions whenever a funding deadline is approaching so they can use up their funds...seemingly disregarding the Bona Fide Needs Rule. Nobody seems to care that I save the money a few thousand on a contract here and there. People are more likely to get annoyed that I do a full and open competition (slightly delaying the acquisition and risking an award to their non-preferred vendor) to save them money rather than quickly spend more money on the restricted competition acquisitions that they wanted with their poorly written/poorly justified justifications/JOFOCs. And in performance evaluations, the metric always seems to be revolving around how fast we can make the awards/get stuff out the door to please the program office. How much $$$ I save is not remotely considered whatsoever.

I've been in the 1102 field for a few years and it has not been what I expected. I expected to be a business + regulatory advisor and save the government money...the reality for me has been completely different. Thus, I am looking to transition out of the field. Anyone have recommendations? I have FAC-C cert, some business experience, and a law degree. I have been looking into the following: 0341 - Administrative Officer 0343 - Management and Program Analysis Series I am not sure what the difference between 0343 vs 0340 (Program Management) is.

FPDS vs Buy American Act vs Trade Agreements Act, etc. FPDS automatically categorizes GSA orders as full and open competition. But the FAR with the BAA/TAA seems to suggest GSA with Brand Name restrictions is NOT full and open competition.

Far 8.405-6 Limiting Sources has its own version of Brand Name under section (b) and (b)(1) (b). I'm referring to the 8.405's brand name restriction. (b)Items peculiar to one manufacturer. An item peculiar to one manufacturer can be a particular brand name, product, or a feature of a product, peculiar to one manufacturer. A brand name item, whether available on one or more schedule contracts, is an item peculiar to one manufacturer. (b)(1) Brand name specifications shall not be used unless the particular brand name, product, or feature is essential to the Government’s requirements, and market research indicates other companies’ similar products, or products lacking the particular feature, do not meet, or cannot be modified to meet, the agency’s needs. Is using Brand Name restrictions with GSA under 8.405 still considered a competitive procedure, competitive + full and open, etc?

Thanks. Does this mean it fits in a grey zone where it is both a competitive procedure but also not full and open competition?

FAR 6.102(d)(3) says use of GSA's MAS program is considered a competitive procedure (e.g. posting on GSA Ebuy and selecting vendors with GSA contracts). However, I've read that the use of Brand Name Restrictions (BNR) is not competitive, and only Brand Name or Equal acquisitions are competitive. Using a BNR requires a Justification for other than full and open competition. The Buy American Act (BAA) requirements also require us to post a Brand Name or Equal requirement to allow full and open competition (instead of a BNR) if we are posting on FBO/SAM.gov. However, if GSA is available, the Trade Agreements Act usually override the BAA. So is the use of GSA still considered competitive even if we use a Brand Name restriction?

Thanks. I did consider adding the non-GSA items as OLM items to the GSA purchase under 8.402(f), but I was under the assumption that adding the open market items will trigger Buy American Act requirements because the total price will be over 10k? If the BAA is triggered, the acquisition will be delayed by a month of bouncing it around different agency departments and the white house OMB for review and approvals. I am trying to avoid the long delays caused by the triggering of the BAA. I was hoping that dividing it into an 80k GSA order and a 7k under MPT order will allow me to avoid all of that delays since GSA orders and orders under the MPT are exceptions/waivers to BAA requirements.

I have a requirement to purchase two items: 1 large equipment worth 80k and 1 small accessory to that equipment worth 7k. The large equipment is on GSA Advantage while the acessory item is only on the open market. Both items are made in a foreign country. Can I divide this order into two different orders without violating the rules against split purchases? 1. 80k GSA order and 2. a separate 7k equipment order on the open market If I do this, I presume I don't have to deal with all the new Buy American Act/Made in America Act approvals and waivers since the first is a GSA order and the other is under the MPT? I'm thinking it doesn't violate the rule against split purchases because the objective is not to stay under a purchase card threshold and I am not trying to avoid sending this to our contracting office. The purpose is to cut down on the regulatory approvals, expedite the order, and allow us to use GSA for the larger part of the order. Is my thinking correct?

Thanks. This was a Brand Name limited RFQ posted to SAM.gov. Your FPDS suggestions are pretty much what I have right now: Extend Competed: Competed under SAP Type of Set Aside: Small Business Set Aside Other Than Full and Open Competition: This is left blank. If I try to mark SAP non-competition or anything else, it immediately gives me errors because it conflicts with the fact there is a small business set aside. So what I'm confused about is even though this uses FAR 13 and not FAR 6, our agency uses Far 13.501-Sole source (including brand name) acquisitions. Our agency considers this type of acquisition to be non-competitive, and considers this to be an "Other Than Full and Open Competition" acquisition that needs a document called Justification for Other Than Full and Open Competition "JOFOC". So even though our agency considers this to be Other Than Full and Open Competition, I'm not supposed to mark this in the FPDS system?

This was not a sole source. This involved a Limited Source (specifically Brand Name) restricted RFQ posted on SAM.gov that had a small business restriction under a specific NAICS code.

I'm getting the following FPDS errors when doing a simplified acquisition purchase (under FAR 13 simplified acquisition procedures) of a 29k supply item that was reserved for a small business, but also had a Brand Name restriction in the SAM.gov posting. If "Type of Set Aside" is 'Small Business Set Aside-Total', 'Small Business Set Aside-Partial', 'HBCU or MI Set Aside-Total', 'HBCU or MI Set Aside- Partial', 'Very Small Business Set Aside', 'Emerging Small Business Set Aside' , 'HUBZone Set Aside', 'Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business Set Aside', '8(a) Competed', 'Buy Indian', '8(a) with HUBZone', 'Veteran Set Aside', 'Women Owned Small Business', or 'Economically Disadvantaged Women Owned Small Business' then "Extent Competed" must be 'Full and Open Competition after Exclusion of Sources' or 'Competed Under SAP'. If the "Extent Competed" is 'Not Available for Competition', 'Not Competed' or 'Not Competed Under SAP', a valid "Other than Full and Open Competition" must be selected. Is FPDS saying that a small business set aside to allow multiple small businesses to make offers automatically gives the acquisition "competition"? I had a Brand name restriction in my SAM posting, which I thought would still classify it as SAP non-competition under FAR 13? However, if I then select "Competed under SAP" then I can't select Other than Full and Open Competition due additional issues of it not allowing me to select Other Than Full and Open Competition. However, since this is a Brand Name restriction with a JOFOC/Justification, would that count as an Other Than Full and Open? If "Extent Competed" is 'Full and Open Competition' or 'Competed under SAP' then "Other than Full and Open Competition" cannot be selected. If "Other than Full and Open Competition" equals 'SAP Non-Competition' then "Extent Competed" must be 'Not Competed under SAP'. Now I've had COs in the past tell me that FPDS is wonky and sometimes requires nonsensical options, so it's not going to get everything correct. So sometimes, we have to just select different options to remove the FPDS error messages even if the classification isn't quite correct. Is that one of the situations here?

Thanks for the explanations and link, this is useful and helpful. Thank you for the link. Unfortunately, I get different answers from multiple COs I ask. After reading these links, I am thinking I should proceed one way....but I'm not the CO so I should still ultimately do what the COs suggest. As for training, yeh, unfortunately I've been bounced around multiple COs who tell to do contradictory things, and my training most of the time was basically being told to "use this template for this" (which sometimes turned out to be outdated).

I have a service contract that will be sole source to a particular vendor. Let's say our program office and the vendor are confident it will cost $50,000. They got to this 50k figure by working together and calculating the number of labor hours and labor rates. A previous CO in our office structured a similar service contract with the same vendor as a firm fixed price contract with multiple line items specifying the categories of work and hours that the vendor would bill (each line corresponded to a different labor type...eg. admin. assistant @ 100 hrs x $20 an hour = $2000 for the line item. I was confused by this because this seems to resemble a T&M contract if the vendor can only bill for the hours they work? I'm under the impression that FFPs are lump sums where the vendor would get 100% of the fee regardless of whether they work 50% or 200% of the estimated hours. Thus, my first set of questions is: 1. Should Firm Fixed Price service contracts use billing based on labor hours with fixed amounts of hours per labor category? 2. Or should FFP service contracts just have a total flat fee without regards to billing based on any type of labor category & labor hour breakdowns? Basically just a lump sum where the vendor can bill 100% of the total amount regardless of work effort as long as they complete the services. Furthermore, this current service contract was structured as a single line item with some details on pricing in attachments. This confused the vendor into thinking the structure was similar to the old contract where they would bill based on labor rates and categories. The vendor suggested we turn this into a T&M with a 50k ceiling. My second question is: Is there any way to keep this agreement as an FFP? (eg. Turn this into a lump sum somehow) Or is this more appropriate as a T&M? My third question is: One of my colleagues, a veteran CO, told me I should turn this into a T&M lump sum. But I thought lump sum only exists for FFP and not for T&M - what is correct?

Yeh, they put DAP in their T&C link in the quote. Is "quote referenced for pricing only" common language used by contracting professionals? A specific exception was not raised. If this means the quote is implicitly incorporated, what happens if the quote was implicitly incorporated and the quote terms contradicts the PO's referenced clauses?

Ye, I just find it strange that the government is basically paying taxes and fees to itself. So the vendor is the manufacturer. The manufacturer has an office and locally incorporated branch in the USA and an office in the foreign country of origin. The vendor used a 3rd party shipping company (Fedex) to ship it. They handled all the paperwork and shipped it directly to us/the government. Who is the importer in this case? Our contractor is with the vendor/manufacturer company.