TAP

Just wondering if anyone was familiar with the Buck Town Contractors ASBCA case confirming the Government's failure to identify a defect during construction is a constructive waiver of the specifications? This would seem to have rather significant ramifications on Government inspection, acceptance, and payment of invoices on construction contracts. 60939, 60940, 60941 Buck Town Contractors & Co. 12.17.19.pdf

Since it's unpriced the wage determination should be current when you award the task order. Normally you'd send out the current wage determination with the task order RFP and verify it is still current prior to making the award.

In either scenario the contractor would be required to pay the prevailing wages as determined by DoL retroactively from the start of the contract, and would not be entitled to an adjustment to the contract price.

Take a look at FAR 52.219-14 Limitations on Subcontracting, and the clause prescription; "The contracting officer shall insert the clause at 52-219-14, Limitations on Subcontracting, in solicitations and contracts for supplies, services, and construction if any portion of the requirement is to be set aside for small business and the contract amount is expected to exceed $150,000." This may answer your questions.

Per our desk guide for SCA contract price adjustments that would be considered a business expense (G&A or overhead) and not allowable as part of the contract price adjustment.

I agree with Drabkin for the reasons stated. Clearly this phrase is written as future tense. May not be what was intended, but that's how it is written.

Yes, I could imagine such a set up working quite well on a large BOS contract for example, with IDIQ line items for certain over and above facility repair work such as roofing, HVAC, fire protection, elevators, security systems, etc. It might make sense to put all them under a single solicitation, and then make multiple awards for the various items of work whether single or multiple offerors get awarded contracts for specific CLINs.

1. Yes 2. SBA 3. 8(a) Program Participant

No, you understood correctly. It appears I misunderstood or misremembered some guidance I was given years ago on the subject by our lawyer. But the components (AHU sections) weren't domestic anyways, so in this case it really didn't matter. Thanks for straightening me out though. I learn something new every day.

As the Canadian made AHU sections weren't manufactured in the United States I don't see how I erred. Simple assembly of those section doesn't constitute being manufactured in the United States. 52.225-9 Buy American-Construction Materials. “Domestic construction material” means- (1) An unmanufactured construction material mined or produced in the United States; (2) A construction material manufactured in the United States, if- (i) The cost of its components mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States exceeds 50 percent of the cost of all its components. Components of foreign origin of the same class or kind for which nonavailability determinations have been made are treated as domestic; or (ii) The construction material is a COTS item.

Vern, I may have mixed up some TAA terminology here, but I think to determine the country of origin it's essentially the same. I had a contractor who wanted to "assemble" non-domestic construction material (in this case a large AHU that comes from the manufacturer in sections) on-site and call it "domestic". Naturally I told him no. He then asked what if they assembled it off-site? I told him that such assembly doesn't substantially transform the AHU and therefore wouldn't qualify as "domestic". Not to mention the sections would come from Canada, the contract was below the TAA threshold, and the AHU would have to be disassembled first to physically fit into the mechanical room and then reassembled. They had to substitute an American made AHU for the Canadian made one they were planning to use for the project.

To meet the Rule of Origin test an article has to be “substantially transformed into a new and different article.” Acceptable would be actual manufacturing and/or meaningful and complex assembly. The gist of this is that to qualify, most of the value in the product must originate in the “designated country”.

"The CO is stating that the award cannot be made to that vendor because the NAICS is not resident in SAM." How do they come up with these things? With this logic a contractor would have to list all possible NAICS codes in SAM they potentially might want to compete for or otherwise risk being excluded from award. There was a "Federal Contracting Myths" blog thread a while back, and it never ceases to amaze me all the "myth-information" that exists in the 1102 world. Here's another one: "While it would be convenient to extend the contract performance period beyond one year, the only way to extend a performance period is by use of an option to extend the performance period. If that were possible to extend a contract beyond the performance period without the use of option periods, we would have "extended" the performance period on the IDIQ ______ contract, as we had a lot of capacity remaining, but it had no additional options. So the Government had to re-procure." In this context we were discussing the possibility of extending an IDIQ contract that was awarded on sole-source basis under the SBA's 8(a) program. See if you can find all the myth-information.

I didn't say you had to do a notice and then a solicitation. I would probably only do so if I had 2 or more small business, as well as other than small businesses, and I planned on soliciting as a small business set-aside. If 2 small business didn't respond I'd then go unrestricted.

I don't see anything wrong with using RFP in the context of requesting proposals for a new task order against a multiple award contract. If you had 2 or more small business you could send out a "notice" of a planned small business set-aside for a new task order, then based on the response send out the actual task order "solicitation" (RFP) accordingly once the acquisition strategy was determined.