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Federal Contracting

DoE Bureaucracy Hard at Work

In fiscal year 2016, the General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted an audit of 28 entities to address issues with Department of Energy (DoE) contractor oversight. DoE, including it’s National Nuclear Security Administration, is the largest federal civilian contracting agency, spending about 90 percent of its appropriations on contracts with companies, universities, and others for federal research and development,  production, and engineering. (GAO, March 12, 2019)

After reviewing contracting and subcontracting data and documents, analyzing regulations, and interviewing federal officials and contractor representatives, GAO found: DoE awards about $23.6 billion in prime contracts with about 30 percent ($6.9 billion) of that total going to subcontractors in the form of universities, different companies, or entities; almost all 28 primes were also subs; subcontractors totaled nearly 3,000; and subcontractor complexity makes it difficult to figure out the relationship between the various parties. (ibid)

More than $3.4 billion in subcontract costs (over a ten year period) were never audited. Because the statute of limitations is six years (according to the Contract Disputes Act), many unallowable costs may not be recovered. (ibid)

GAO made six recommendations, including that DoE develop procedures requiring local offices to verify completion of subcontract audits and that DoE independently review subcontractor ownership information to identify potential conflicts of interest. DoE agreed with all recommendations except to independently review subcontractor ownership information. (ibid) Huh. Wonder why.

Small Businesses, Come on Down!

The Centers of Excellence, established in 2017 by GSA and the White House Office of American Innovation, work with agencies to develop IT modernization plans. So far, two agencies are on board: the Department of Agriculture is in the second and last phase of the program and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is planning a September start. (Nextgov, March 12, 2019)

During the first year of the program, Agriculture completed Phase I and entered Phase II, prior to HUD’s start beginning work on phase I. The pace should pick up this year with many agencies, under a new BPA, working through Phase I at the same time, according to program Director Bob DeLuca, although no start-up date has been made available. (ibid)

It’s expected the program’s next generation will include the original five centers, focused on cloud adoption, contact center, customer experience, data analytics, and infrastructure optimization. Two additional centers for change management and information security will be added. GSA is adding the change management piece to keep things running smoothly once GSA leads step out of the picture. (ibid)

A blanket purchase agreement released last Tuesday outlined the program’s next iteration. This BPA adds new functional areas and points to the future procurement strategy. It will last three years from the award date with an expected value of $100 million, which can increase without mods. (ibid)

Two phases will continue to exist in the updated program: a discovery phase, wherein an agency works with the relevant centers to assess the current situation and devise a plan; and an implementation phase. The new BPA will cover the first phase only, with the second phase of work contracted separately. (ibid)

The final RFQ has been created to attract more small businesses to the program. Vendors can bid on as many or as few of the functional areas as they choose. (ibid)

Prospective bidders must hold GSA Schedule 70 contracts for the relevant special item numbers listed in the RFQ. The turnaround time for the entire RFQ process is short to test how companies respond during short cycles. (ibid)

Vendors interested in bidding will have to complete four submissions: a set of challenge questions, a list of potential scenarios, a technical and management approach description, and a pricing sheet. The challenge questions will be available through Google Forms starting 28 March. (ibid)

Vendors will also be responding to the scenario through a Google Form, answering the question: How would you obtain agency wide buy-in for the modernization efforts promoted by the CoE while also linking efforts and fostering collaboration with other vendors and government staff across all of the centers at the agency partner? (ibid)

Instructions for the other submissions are included in the RFQ. The entire package is due by noon on April 1.

Are you interested in bidding or learning more about the BPA? Call us at 301-913-5000, and we can walk you through the submission requirements.

Schedule 736 hits the refresh button

It’s happening again. Any comments concerning the refresh must be submitted by March 26th, 10 business days after the official notification of the refresh was announced. (GSA Interact)

The updates for GSA Region 2, enhancing schedule 736 Temporary Administrative and Professional Staffing (TAPS), are as follows:

(a) Time limit on use of temporary help service firm.  An agency may use a temporary help service firm(s) in a single situation, as defined in § 300.503, initially for no more than 120 workdays. Provided the situation continues to exist beyond the initial 120 workdays, the agency may extend its use of temporary help services up to the maximum limit of 240 workdays.

  • SIN descriptions have been simplified and classified according to major Occupational Classes. A link under each SIN provides access to the SCA Directory.
  • New pricing templates to simplify price proposals. These vendor pricelists distinguish between Wage Grade labor rates and Professional labor rates.
  • Additional NAICS secondary codes have been added to identify major sub-categories such as Court Reporting. (ibid)

None of these changes require modification to contracts or change the original contract scope. GSA says this refresh helps to make the Schedule more clearly comprehensible for industry partners and agencies. Vendors may update their price lists as necessary. (ibid)

GSA has also announced a webinar to review the Schedule 736 changes, for Wednesday, March 27th, 3:00 PM EST. Access the webinar on the following link:meet.google.com/doo-extp-yck(ibid)

If you’re not certain about how your contract is affected by this refresh, give us a call at 301-913-5000, and we will help.

 

Buh-Bye FBO

GSA is migrating FedBizOpps FBO.gov website to beta.SAM.gov by the end of this year, according to Vicky Niblett, the deputy assistant commissioner for the Integrated Acquisition Environment (IAE) in the Federal Acquisition Service. Changes on the new website will include login.gov added to the registration process, Wage Determination Online WDOL.gov, as well as ‘federal hierarchy,’ an internal process through which appropriate roles can be assigned to federal government workers. (FederalNewsNetwork, February 25, 2019)

In related news, the SAM legacy systems are at the end of their product life and are scheduled to be retired with the functions transferred to the GSA cloud business platform over the next one to three years. There will no new open RFP solicited for this work. The incumbent will continue to perform the sole source contract. (ibid)

Questions about the new website? We are always available to discuss any concerns you may have. Give us a call at 301-913-5000.

INFORMation

At the beginning of fiscal year 2019, GSA implemented the enhanced post-award feedback pilot. GSA has termed this pilot the In-Depth Feedback through Open Reporting Methods or INFORM. (GSABLOG under Acquisition) INFORM allows  offerers to improve upon a proposal or even to see why they were not awarded a contract.

A customized evaluation statement, an opportunity for an in-person oral feedback meeting with the GSA evaluation team, and the option to submit follow up questions are offered under the INFORM pilot. GSA hopes this will help offerers see that the playing field is leveled and everyone is treated fairly during the procurement process. (ibid) This transparency should also cut down on post-award protests.

We are waiting to hear which 50 competitive acquisitions are being tested. So far we know that they will be of varying dollar thresholds, categories, and business size. Moreover, according to GSA, the test group is a representative sample of GSA acquisitions with two Federal Acquisition Service and two Public Building Service actions from each of the 11 GSA Regions and Central Office. The pilot will end with the fiscal year or upon the final procurement award, whichever occurs first. GSA will publish an analysis of the pilot findings. (GSABLOG under Acquisition)

Has your company been contacted by GSA asking for feedback on INFORM? Do you have questions you’d like answered before taking part? Give us a call at 301-913-5000.