govt2310

Answer: The base contract ordering procedures say nothing about competitive range, discussions, etc.

Does an agency have a duty to notify an offeror that it is excluded from the competitive range if this is a FAR 16.505 task order competition? There appear to be no instructions in FAR 16.505 itself for notification requirements for exclusion from the competitive range. FAR 16.505(b)(6) addresses the CO's duties concerning post-award notifications and debriefings, and it even says that the agency must follow FAR Part 15 on this, but I don't see any requirements or guidance on pre-award notices and debriefings.

Thanks everyone. I will look into these book recommendations.

You are right, Vern. I guess I am just seeking support for my belief that the requirement for an IGCE doesn't make sense in connetion with a SOO. If the SOO consists of say, 2 pages of broadly-written bullet points, most phrased to require the offeror to "propose a solution for" various issues the agency is having, without knowing more, I don't see how a useful, credible IGCE could be created.

How does one make an IGCE for a Statement of Objectives (SOO)? The way it works is, the offeror's proposal is the proposed PWS. So the government agency doesn't write the PWS and post it with the solicitation. If that is the case, how can the agency make an IGCE?

If a solicitation states that the agency will perform a "cost/price realism analysis," and the contract type is a combination of T&M and FFP CLINs, does that mean the agency has a duty to figure out the FAR 15.404-1 "probable cost" of each offeror's proposal? For the FFP portion, I believe a price realism analysis is limited to the purpose of assessing whether the offeror has a clear understanding of the work involved, so the offeror's total price cannot be adjusted. But for the T&M portion, it seems similar to cost-reimbursement, so that makes me believe the agency does have a duty to figure out the "probable cost" when doing the cost realism analysis. Does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks Don Mansfield and Vern Edwards! And here is a recent, interesting GAO decision: Arcadis U.S., Inc., B-412828, Jun. 16, 2016, where GAO held that it is unreasonable for an agency to consider Cost in the Technical Evaluation for a Fixed-Price Competition.

Can an agency consider price when evaluating for Technical Approach? I remember seeing a GAO decision once where the GAO stated that an agency must consider the offeror's Technical Approach when evaluating cost/price (this was a cost-reimbursement contract in the GAO decision). But does it go the other way? Does an agency have to consider Cost/Price when evaluating Technical Approach?

FAR 45.201(c) states, "The solicitation shall describe the evaluation procedures to be followed, including rnetal charges or equivalents and other costs or savings to be evaluated" and shall require all offerors to submit information with their offers listing all "Government property" that the offeror or its subcontractors propose ot use on "rent-free basis." FAR 45.202(a) requires the Contracting Officer to "consider any potentially unfair competitive advantage that may result from an offeror or contractor possessing Government property" and "This shall be done by adjusting the offers by applying, for evaluation purposes only, a rental equivalent evaluation factor, as specified in FAR 52.245-9." QUESTION: Does anybody have an example of how this "rental equivalent evaluation factor" is evaluated for, where the solicitation involves a requirement for contractor services, where it is possible for the offeror or contractor's employees to be offered to work in the federal agency building - so using government-furnished cubicles, work stations, phones, paper, furniture, electricity, etc. - and where the solicitation also allows for offerors to submit proposals that propose their employees working offsite? How would an agency evaluate these proposals so it could compare apples-to-apples?

To Todd Davis: Putting aside the original question asked by jonmjohnson, my question is, from the federal agency's perspective, if there is no authorizing statute giving the federal agency the power to do a grant or cooperative agreement or other transaction for the purpose in question, and so the federal agency's only option left is to do it as a procurement, if a state government agency bids on the solicitation, should the federal agency even consider that state government agency "eligible" for award? Basically, I'm asking if there are any laws or regulations that forbid a state government entity from being an offeror and/or awardee on a federal government contract.

Question: what if the requirement is below the SAT ($150,000) and also below $25,000, but just over the micro-purchase threshold ($3,500)? Say the amount of the requirement is $4,000. FAR 13.106-1(b)(1)(i) allows the Contracting Officer to solicit from one source if the CO determines that the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available. Boof wrote that the formal FAR Part 6 Justification requirements only apply if the acquisition is higher than the SAT of $150,000. Boof, where does it say that? I would like to read this United States Code citation or whatever citation it is. Thanks!

If an agency still chooses to focus on Key Personnel Titles/Duties instead of Functions, and if an agency chooses to utilize the Statement of Objectives (SOO) method instead of a SOW, how can that agency evaluate Key Personnel under the Key Personnel Evaluation Factor? In a SOO, the agency does not designate the KP roles/titles/duties, rather, the offeror is supposed to determine the composition of its Key Personnel.

Can an agency contract out the COR/COTR job? Or is that considered inherently governmental?

The original award was never terminated. The CO simply "froze" the contract by doing the CICA stay of performance. It was frozen for 15 months, then "unfrozen" when it turned out that the original awardee was the awardee again after corrective action.

Yes.

HYPO: A Contracting Officer finds a company "responsible" just before making award. The CO makes award. After sending out the Notice of Award letters, an unsuccessful offeror files a protest at GAO alleging misevaluation of its own proposal. The agency takes corrective action. It takes 15 months to reevaluate and complete the corrective action. The results of the corrective action are the same as before: the original awardee is the awardee again. The CO did not "redo" the responsibility determination for the awardee. Instead, the CO believes that the previous responsibility determination they did -- which is now 15 months old -- is "still good." After making award and sending out the Notice of Award letters to the unsuccessful offerors, the same protester from before files a protest at GAO. QUESTIONS: Was the corrective action proper if the CO did not "redo" the responsibility determination, but instead, relied on the 15 month old responsibility determination from before? Is there a time limit on how long a CO's responsibility determination is good for?

To Jamaal: Let's say the Notice of Award was already issued to the awardee. Notice of Award letters went out as well.

HYPO: An agency finds ABC's proposal to be Technically Acceptable. Later, the agency sends ABC a Notice of Award Letter notifying them that ABC is an unsuccessful offeror. ABC files a protest at GAO. After the protest is filed, the agency realizes that ABC's proposal should have been found Technically Unacceptable, because it failed to meet a material solicitation requirement. QUESTION: Does anyone know of a GAO Decision with these facts? Do you think GAO would or should deny the protest, just based on these facts?

Vern wrote: Technically, this is not a "new" award. Yes, we have simply take corrective action, which involved reevaluation and a new source selection decision/memo. It happens to be that the "new" awardee is the original awardee. Note, the original protest involved allegations that the agency did not take certain information into account when evaluating past performance. So in the corrective action, that "new" PP info was taken into account. The original protest was filed at GAO only, and the agency took corrective action.

Say an agency sent out FAR 15.503(B ) Postaward Notice of Award letters to unsuccessful offerors. Written debriefings were provided to all of them. After a protest was filed, the agency decided to take Corrective Action. The Corrective Action involved reevaluating the proposals. While it was reevaluating the proposals, the agency did not "terminate" the original contract award to the original awardee, but rather, "suspended" their contract and did not allow them to work. Now the agency has completed its new reevaluation. The same awardee from the initial evaluation is also the awardee after Corrective Action. Must the agency send "new" FAR 15.503(B ) Postaward Notice of Award letters to ALL the unsuccesful offerors? Can the agency send the Notice of Award letters to ONLY the unsuccessful offeror that protested last time? Technically, this is not a "new" award in the sense that, there is no new contract being awarded, but rather, the contract with the original awardee, which was "suspended," will now be "unsuspended" so the contractor can start performing the work.

The Performance-Price Tradeoff (PPT) method raises practical issues. When agencies try to use PPT for "FAR Part 15" solicitations, PPT does not allow for compliance with FAR 15.306(c ) (it requires evaluation "against all evaluation criteria"). In PPT, usually the solicitation will say that Price is evaluated first, then only those proposals found to have F&R price move on to be evaluated for Technical, then only those proposals found Technically Acceptable move on to be evaluated for Past Performance. If an agency intends to hold discussions, and they want to do a Competitive Range, it looks like the agency could just do the Competitive Range "cut-off" by including in discussions only those offerors with technically acceptable proposals. In other words, an agency does not have to evaluate on "all" evaluation criteria, as the agency does not even get to evaluating Past Performance until after the Competitive Range has been made. But I can see how a disgruntled offeror might see this as the agency failing to comply with FAR 15.306©. As far as I know, GAO has not addressed this specific question.

Does anyone have any guidance on how a CO is supposed to evaluate for "Balanced Pricing" in a Price Analysis? Some colleagues have proposed using the "Total Allocation of Price" or "Total Allocation of Cost" method for determining Balanced Pricing. I have never heard of this method before. Is anyone here familiar with it? Does anyone have any other methods for determining whether a price/individual CLINs are "balanced"?

Ok. Thanks!

Good point.

The solicitation was silent on that issue. The solicitation did not require submission of proof of a "binding commitment between the offeror and the sub."