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Showing results for tags 'service contract'.
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Good day to everyone, I am hoping you all could help correct me and point me to additional material to read/review. First, I have MCI, so my memory and my ability to recall information is lacking compared to most. But I try my best, and it surely takes me many more hours than the average bear. Mostly on the weekends and evenings. Anyway, I’ve been in the 1102 career field for almost 20 years (I wasn't always this bad, but over time my recall ability has decreased significantly), and I have never been on this side of the fence. I directly support a 3-Star and he has not been pleased with the results they’re receiving from some of their contracts. I’ve been tasked to basically lead/develop and create the entire contracting requirements package. I have no other support…such as a technical requirement owner I could bounce ideas off of. What I’ve been struggling with is the idea of what type of effort this should be. What I mean by that is, the old effort has a lot of fixed price LOE on it. The boss thinks he wants a performance-based services acquisition. I have no earthly idea how in the world I will develop this requirement, focusing on “outcomes” for auditing services. Because we’re basically paying companies to conduct audits. FFP, LOE; paying for hours. How can I successfully and clearly measure a service to audit something? How does the USG verify the work? Based on the number of issues they discover? The number of issues they don’t discover? The old effort FFP LOE, paying for hours, is flawed in the sense that there really aren’t any measurable deliverables. If the contractor shows up for 40 hours a week, they’re getting paid. That is the root cause, we have nothing to hold the contractor too. I suggested some kind of report that the COR could review to verify the audit progress has occurred. The "COR" is an 0-6 and has no desire to do any of that, so he said, no. I know I am missing the ball here. I’ve read a few things on this website, and one example for PBSA was cleaning the floor. Even then, isn’t the end result somewhat debatable? Couldn’t a person debate what a “clean floor” looks like? I know that is silly, and I am not being a wise butt here, but normally everything has to be so clearly defined when you issue a solicitation. For many reasons, contractors propose based on the solicitation, and they don't want to lose money in an FFP environment. I am really struggling with this tasker. I’ve never had to write the PWS before, I was never a requirement owner. I've always had an IPT where different sections were drafted by SMEs related to each specific section. How can I successfully measure a “performance objective” for an auditing service? If there were incentives tied to this, I could relate it to perhaps time, so the quicker the audit is completed the higher the incentive. The problem with that is speed could increase the chance or mistakes, which we don’t want. Because of the power this individual has, the contracting shop will basically award anything, and I mean anything that comes their way. It’s not really their fault, it’s just a matter of the 1-Star SCO (Term changed now but Senior Contracting Officer) “losing” to the 3-Star every time. It’s a very uphill and very political battle, that the SCO will lose every time. This has created an environment where the contract requirements package has basically been a bag of crap that Contracts then has to award. Which then causes the 3 Star to be upset when the contractor isn't performing to his liking. And the circle continues. I hope I can help change this evil circle. The dollar amounts aren’t significantly high, so these normally go under the radar of other type of contractual oversight. I just want to do the best job I can within my abilities. I am just really struggling with the idea of PBSA for my type of service, auditing. I’ve read the DOD PBSA December 2000 countless times, and I still can’t get it to click. I don’t know what a measurable “outcome” could even possibly be… the contractor completes the audit? Okay, but how can we even truly verify they completed the audit? Can anyone suggest a decent contract as an example? Perhaps I can pull it from EDA? I appreciate your time, knowledge, and support.
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I am working on a enterprise service contract follow on effort for a DoD 4th Estate agency, and looking for any enterprise service RFP's that you can share the RFP link from beta.sam.gov. The RFP can be for a multiple award IDIQ ,single awardee, or anything in between. It can be from a non DoD agency as well. The purpose of casting this wide net is to get ideas, see any innovative source selection methods etc. If your RFP/program requires fully burdened labor rates, even better! If a link isn't available from beta.sam.gov and you'd need to email me the RFP, send me a message and I will provide you with my work email. Thanks in advance!
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I recently started working in IDIQ Service Task Order environment with primarily SOW. That being said, as a starting point the maximum number of hours for a given position is 1820 and the duties and tasks are not open ended with the type of work expected clearly laid out. For the SOW's the number of hours for the respective positions are stated for the base period and out years - ie "Position 1- 960 hours," for a 6 month base period. Some of the TO's are LOE, LH, or FFP (right or wrongly). My team recently awarded a TO and it was my position that it would be FFP. The SOW stipulated that hours and positions may be trimmed/increased based on conditions related to workload, but the tasks of the contractor is clearly defined. The SOW established expected hours for the respective positions. The TO has a 9 month base, a 3, 6 month options, with fixed labor rates (fully burdened) based on the rates negotiated at IDIQ level. Further, the duties are defined and not ambiguous and are more administrative than anything. The Contractor said it should be LOE, vice FFP. I disagree. For FFP LOE per FAR 16.207-1(b), with respect to FFP LOE, it reads that the government pays the contractor a fixed amount, which I read is to basically guarantee a fixed amount of money, regardless of whether services of equal value were provided. Further the work is not "for investigation or study in a specific research and development area." For LH: The application of LH reads FAR 16.601(2)(b) "Application. A time-and-materials contract may be used only when it is not possible at the time of placing the contract to estimate accurately the extent or duration of the work or to anticipate costs with any reasonable degree of confidence. See 12.207(b) for the use of time-and-material contracts for certain commercial services." We set the contract up with a 9 month base and the option periods based on our expectation of how long the services may be needed and the option periods to serve as a contingency if you will. So I don''t think the above, allows for use of LH in this situation. Thus, I think FFP, whereby the contractor invoices based o the number of actual hours worked is the most sensical approach. In simplistic terms, if 10 contractor's work 5 hours a day for 7 days" then they'd invoice for 350 hours for that period. I did some research and there seemed to be different philosophical views on whether a particular service contract should be FFP LOE/FFP/LH and it almost seemed like people prefer one over the other, not because its right, but because its just how they've always done it. My previous experience was in commercial FFP EPA IDIQ supply contracts, so I don't have as much familiarity with service contracts, so I appreciate anyone's thoughts/perspectives.
- 59 replies
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- task order
- service contract
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Hello WIFCON! Would love some input here from any knowledgeable folks about this... I am an Army PCO tasked with negotiating a request for equitable adjustment (REA) on a fixed price commercial contract for severable services that I recently inherited from a predecessor PCO. It's $5.6M, five year contract (base + four option years). The initial award was about two years ago--we are currently in the first option year. Shortly after award, during the base year, the Government realized it had vastly underestimated the magnitude and needed additional performance out of the contractor, and so the contract was modified (five times over the course of the first two years) to pull forward performance scope from the out years. So now the contractor has submitted an REA for additional OH costs related to administrative burden and greater than anticipated subcontracting costs in order to meet accelerated deadlines. The REA amount is significant, and the circumstances are much more complicated than what I'm able to provide in this forum, but, basically I've determined the REA has merit, and I'm trying to write up my merit analysis and price negotiation memo. I have a few questions I'm hoping someone can help me with. THANKS! SCOPE: As I said, I'm inclined to determine the REA has merit, but my analysis leads me to believe that we're dealing with an out of scope change. I say this after reviewing the Contract Attorney's Deskbook (Chapter 21), which outlines several factors to consider for scope determinations. Ultimately, to me the cumulative effect of all the prior changes may have constituted a "cardinal change". If that's the case, what's the change authority I'd use for the modification? In my experience, typically out of scope changes require a J&A, and with a J&A I'd use the applicable J&A authority as my mod authority--but that doesn't make sense since this is an REA, right? I'm not going to write up a J&A for all the contract changes that ALREADY happened am I? (Seems to me the modification associated with the negotiated REA is only to equitably adjust the contract as a result of the constructive changes leading up to this point.) Often I use the changes clause 52.243-1 as my modification authority, but it's my understanding that the changes clause 52.243-1 is only good for WITHIN-SCOPE changes. And since this is an REA and not a claim (yet, at least), using the disputes clause 52.233-1 wouldn't be correct either. So what do I put in the SF-30? FUNDS: I assume the fiscal law associated with an REA is the same as any other modification? I.e. Within scope modifications use award year money and out of scope modifications use current year money? Other related details: each of the aforementioned modifications were done bilaterally. The contractor signed each SF30 without a price proposal, but all along he was corresponding with the PCO and COR that he felt the contract scope was creeping larger and larger and as a result he was facing cost impacts he hadn't anticipated.
- 33 replies
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- rea
- request for equitable adjustment
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