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  1. Good morning and happy EOFY16. I'm interested in knowing how other construction teams structure their IDIQs in terms of reconciling RS Means labor rates with Prevailing wage labor rates (assuming RS Means is the required pre-priced UPB required under contract). Here are my assumptions: I've looked through the RS Means cost data labor rates at the back of each cost data book and note that the national union rates are generally up or down, but mostly below prevailing wages. I've noted that RS Means uses a City Cost Index (CCI) to apply a rate adjustment based on locality which is often a rate increase per locale, but often after application, the wage is still under the prevailing wage (under the latest Construction Wage Rate). I understand that using RS Means comes with issues and there is an ongoing debate about whether it saves the Government money (I understand many feel RS Means prices are inflated and does not save the Government money). So I've been perusing SABER IDIQ Specifications/Statement of Works that incorporate RS Means as a UPB and Costworks, or e4Clicks as the estimator (or Timberline for older specs). I see a lot of the specifications request that the contractor use total bare costs, based on national average rates, defined by the RS Means price books. What I hear from contractors is that these rates do not often match the prevailing wages, and so they are forced to provide "extra" labor hours to compensate for the cost of the prevailing wage they are operating under. I've heard it's possible to integrate a custom set of labor rates depending on the estimator a contractor or agency is using (such as plugging in prevailing wage rates in the estimator of choice) but I haven't actually seen this laid out in a Spec/SOW example. My question is, how are your agencies handling this issue (is it a issue?), or is there a generally accepted better method to pre-price construction projects than using RS Means that your agency is using? I admit I may not fully understand all of the issues with using RS Means so please understand I am on the learning curve.
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