here_2_help

I imagine that the contracting officer would like to establish confidence in the contractor's number. If the contractor is asking for more funds today, how does the contracting officer know the contractor won't be back next week, asking for even more funds to complete the work?

One of my pet peeves in this area is the set of indirect rates to be used for forecasting the At-Completion variance from the estimated cost budget when an FPRA is in place. Many government folks expect the contractor to use its FPRA rates; after all, that's what the parties agreed to for estimates of future costs, right? Not in my opinion. In my view, the contractor should use its current indirect cost estimates--which could be its FPRP rates or something even more current--to project its to-go costs. Often, FPRA rates are decremented as part of negotiations, which renders them (potentially) inaccurate. The At-Completion variance should be as accurately calculated as is feasible. Since we argue about which set of indirect rates to use, you can safely infer that my clients are encouraged to provide their government customers with as detailed an estimate as they can feasibly provide, because they are asking for more money than planned and it is only reasonable to expect an explanation of what happened and why, as well as a justification for the amount of additional funds now required. Just throwing "1 number" at the customer is not a winning success strategy, in my experience.

I apologize. I said I was done with this discussion but here I am again. Shrug. I have seen the scenario quoted above many times in my career. The contractor believes it is smarter than the government and wants to innovate unofficially and without the mess of a contract modification. Adding another person who was not contemplated at the time of contract formation and price agreement must make sense, right? At least from a technical perspective. The perspective ignores the agreement struck between the parties. If the contractor wants to add another FTE (and associated labor hours) then Vern's post of an hour ago is the way to do so. Doing so unofficially is going to lead to all the problems already mentioned in this thread. Again, I bow out unless a comment is specifically directed to me. I will attempt to stay "bowed-out" this time.

Well, if this was a FFP-LOE contract I would 100% agree with you. However, this is a CPFF LOE-Term contract, so there is no way to avoid compliance with the LoF / LoC clauses, to my way of thinking. To be more explicit, in a Cost-Type contract, the labor hours and dollars are integrated. You say the customer is buying hours but there is also an estimated cost (and fixed fee) inextricably associated with those labor hours. As I basically agree with your conclusion (a mod is required or else the contractor stops work or else the contractor continues to perform without remuneration) I will say no more.

1. Contractor has a CPFF LOE Term contract with an estimated cost agreed-upon based on 10 FTEs for one year (19,200 labor hours). By terms of the contract, the contractor must deliver all LOE hours within the estimated cost, or else notify the customer of a potential overrun IAW 52.232-20 or 52.232-22 (as applicable). 2. Contractor plans to add an additional 0.5 FTE (halfway through the Period of Performance). As a result, the contractor will deliver more labor hours than the parties originally contemplated (20,160 hours vs. 19,200). However, the additional hours come at an additional cost. Because the contractor will incur more labor hours than budgeted, it will burn through its funding faster, likely triggering the 52.232-20 / 52.232-22 notification. 3. Upon receipt of the contractor's notification, the contracting officer must decide whether or not to provide more funds. If more funds are provided, then a modification to the existing contract will need to be made. The customer will be compensating the contractor for the additional 0.5 FTE (presumably because value was received). If no additional funds are provided, then the contract will be completed earlier than the parties anticipated. Work will stop until the next option year is exercised (if it is exercised). That's how I see the situation, anyway.

Restating my position(s): 1. You don't provide the contract award date (or effective date if not the award date) so there is no way to tell whether the contract was awarded before or after the Class Deviation was issued and took effect. If the contract was awarded before the Class Deviation took effect, then the contract language controls. If the contract was awarded after the Class Deviation was issued, the contract language still controls--unless somebody wants to argue the point in court. If you think the clause doesn't belong in the contract, because of the Class Deviation, you should request it to be removed via contract mod. 2. Yes, because the contract contain 52.216-7 and that clause requires submission. Inclusion (or not) of 52.215-2 does not trump the requirements of 52.216-7. In point of fact, though, DCAA rarely audits the ICS submitted by small businesses, because there's typically not much recovery for audit hours expended. DCAA calls this "risk-based" auditing. EDITED: From the link provided by HitTheNutz:

By issuing a UCA for the requested funding. At least, that was my impression as to what the OP was thinking about.

What is the prime contract type, please?

I would add to C Culham's comment that IAW 52.232-20(c), the contractor should have provided the CO with the amount of additional funds necessary to complete the work. The CO can accept that amount or not, but there should be no reason to have the contractor continue to work without providing additional funding. To do so effectively defeats the purpose of the clause's advance notification requirement, which is to provide the customer with sufficient time to find the finds or to decide to tell the contractor no further funds will be forthcoming.

So long as the lodging cost is within the ceiling established by GSA for the locality, and there is sufficient evidence the cost was incurred (e.g., a receipt), then the cost is allowable as defined by the FAR. Company policy, however, may indicate a different choice.

Vern, I'm going to send an email to Linda. I bet the merch will be cheaper than giving away expensive government contracting tomes. Also -- sorry to hear your injury hasn't yet cleared. Best wishes.

Vern, if you ever offer your own branded merch (merchandise) to the public, that quote needs to be put on coffee cups and T-Shirts.

Linda Y -- would you say the days of travel or the activities involved are severable between the two different contract PWS's? Can the contractor feasibly "split" time and expenses between the two contracts? If so, what would the basis be? EDITED: Related question. Other than travel, are their any contractor activities that might generate costs past the end of the first contract's PoP? For example, are there any subcontractors whose costs, incurred for activities within the PoP, will be recorded by the prime contractor after the end of the PoP? (This is entirely normal, by the way.) If so, how will those costs be handled? If this is a cost-type contract and the contractor settles its final billing rates related to the years of contract performance, and wishes to submit an additional invoice for its "final" billing rates (IAW 52.216-7) -- how will those costs be treated?

I have much to say, most of which I will keep to myself--because this is the Beginner's Forum and no place for a technical discussion of allocability. I will offer the observation that nobody has yet asked the most obvious question -- under which contract were the travel costs proposed and priced? Another related question: Assume there was no follow-on contract. Would the travel costs have been the same? If not, why not? What is changing based on the introduction of a new contract (final cost objective)? What event(s) drive the change? Direct cost allocation determinations are surprisingly hard.

As a contractor, I always appreciated it when our government customers funded a single TO for program management and TO proposal prep. We (and they) managed that single TO and then all the other TOs were solely for the work that was ordered. Simple, clean, and efficient--at least for us.

Relations between the F-35 Joint Program Office and the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin, have been (in the past) problematic. Maybe she was tainted by that troubled relationship? Maybe Lockheed Martin folks whispered in the ears of Administration officials? Maybe in her dealings with the multiple military services that are customers of the F-35 program, she upset somebody in another service, or even within her own service? To answer your question, though: yes. It can be. "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." -- Randy Pausch

From today's main page, a protest decision at the Court of Federal Claims, decided for the protestor. Although the government was not required to perform a cost realism analysis for this fixed-price award, it committed to do so. Request for injunction granted.

Smallbusiness, look at the situation this way. The costs in question were properly charged as direct contract costs at the time. Because you didn't comply with your LoC/LoF clause(s), the customer is not obligated to pay for them. Right? In essence, the costs have become unallowable via your noncompliance with the contract clause(s). Now you ask whether you can move the unallowable direct costs to indirect and recover them as allowable indirect costs. What do you think your auditor(s) are going to say about that? Do you think they'll be okay with that? Now, there is a slight chance of keeping the costs as direct costs and recovering them, if the costs are (as you describe them) COVID PTO costs. There is a lot of DOD guidance on reimbursement of such costs. Have you read the guidance? In essence--at the CO's discretion--the costs may be reimbursed. May be being the operative phrase.

I was just going to post that same paragraph! Regardless, the court found that the SBA OHA got it right on the remand from the first protest. Now comes the appeal?

I found the decision to be hard to comprehend. I thought it was just me. Your comment makes me think it may be the judge who drafted the decision.

Today's main page includes a decision from the CBCA that seemed to turn on the differences between a single award ID/IQ contract and a requirements contract. Because the Board found that the contracts awarded were unambiguously ID/IQ contracts, it concluded that the appellant (Sage) was not entitled to any termination settlement expenses once the guaranteed minimum value had been satisfied. A sentence from the decision struck me as a good lesson to keep in mind for contractors receiving such contracts: "The risk of any losses incurred by the contractor as a result of start-up costs that exceeded this minimum lies squarely with the contractor."

I know it's a lot of work, Bob. Thanks for all your prior efforts.

$20M project 15% = $3M 40% of $3M = $1.2M If you are concerned that you cannot meet the required amount, don't bid. Don't hope you can make it--know you can. Have a solid plan in place. Or don't bid. I have no insight into your other questions.

Yes, there is such a rule of thumb and it's very straight-forward. Make the subcontractor provide detailed support for each of the costs being claimed. Make the subcontractor show you how those costs were incurred solely because of the delay, and not for any other reason. Make the subcontractor show you how the costs could not have been avoided with respect to your subcontract. There. That's it. Everything else in this thread is, in my opinion, not responsive to your question.

I'm excited to learn what "carrying costs" means in this context. I Googled the phrase, and it seems to have something to do with the cost of maintaining inventory. If you can, please let me know how the subcontractor calculated its additional incremental costs related to an inability to start work as anticipated. I'm also interested to learn what "FE" stands for -- Field Engineers?