Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

CPARS.gov now official source for past performance information

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The U.S. federal government has completed the merger of the Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS) with the Contract Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS.gov).  CPARS now serves as the federal report card system for prime contractors providing services and products to the U.S. federal government.

Government decision-makers now use CPARS to review contractors’ performance under previously awarded contracts.  Data points include requirements compliance, meeting deadlines, reporting processes, integrity and business ethics, pricing and invoicing, and customer-service processes.  These reviews often contain sensitive information and can also influence new contract awards, therefore, only authorized government personnel have access to these records, along with the specific awardee.  No records are available to the general public.

The contracts tracked in CPARS must be prime contracts and fall above the Simplified Acquisition Threshold (now $250,000 base plus option years).

Subcontracts are not tracked in CPARS, however, the Small Business Administration is considering a process to create a pilot program to provide subcontractor performance ratings.  No updates from the SBA regarding the subcontractor program have been posted since April 2018 when the Subcontractor Past Performance Pilot Program was published in the Federal Register.

Continue reading at:  TargetGov

Preparing for contract performance and guarding against problems

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Congratulations!  After a hard bidding process, your company has earned an award.  But though this award process might’ve been long and tough, potential issues are still ahead.

We often hear stories of soured relationships with the government during contract performance.  Adverse performance issues can come at a hefty cost—in terms of money, time, and reputation.

Here are some suggestions to help guard against performance disputes with the government.

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon Blog

How to challenge a bad performance rating

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While you might not be able to fight City Hall, you can fight a Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System rating.  The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals recently confirmed it has jurisdiction to annul an inaccurate and unfair government evaluation of a contractor’s performance — a potent form of relief available to companies who believe the government has improperly rated them.

In a published opinion — Cameron Bell Corporation d/b/a Government Solutions Group, ASBCA No. 61856 (May 1, 2019) — the board said that while it cannot require the government to issue a specific rating, it can remand the matter to the contracting officer with instructions to redo the evaluation.

By regulation, companies have a right to rebut a negative evaluation of their performance in the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System, or CPARS.  A contractor’s rebuttal submission typically is due within 14 calendar days of the date the agency invites the contractor to respond.  If this proves unsuccessful, a contractor may challenge the CPARS rating by submitting a claim with the contracting officer under the Contract Disputes Act, or CDA.  Then, if the contracting officer denies the claim, the contractor can appeal the decision to an appropriate Board of Contract Appeals or the United States Court of Federal Claims.

That is precisely what the contractor did in Cameron Bell.  There, a contractor challenged a less-than satisfactory rating of its performance in a CDA claim.  After the contracting officer denied the claim, the contractor appealed to the ASBCA seeking various forms of relief, including injunctive relief, breach of contract damages, and a request that the board “return [the] matter to the government with guidance indicating that the government should have rated appellant satisfactory, or better.”

The government moved to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.  The board denied the motion in part, finding that it has jurisdiction to “assess whether the contracting officer acted reasonably in rendering the disputed performance rating or was arbitrary and capricious and abused his discretion.”  The board also noted that, while it lacks authority to order the government to revise a CPARS rating, it “may remand to require the contracting officer to follow applicable regulations and provide [the contractor] a fair and accurate performance evaluation.”

Continue reading at:  National Defense Magazine

Why contractor past performance data is becoming both more, less valuable

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When the General Services Administration released the $65 billion Alliant 2 governmentwide acquisition contract for IT services back in June 2016, it was one of the first major procurement efforts to put a premium on past performance.

As part of the self-scoring approach to Alliant 2, GSA determined that 40 percent of the evaluation points would be on how vendors have performed on previous and similar work with the government.  At the time, industry analysts praised GSA for building on this self-scoring approach.  Now three years later, the self-scoring approach where past performance is a significant evaluation factor has grown in popularity.

At the same time, vendors and federal procurement officials alike heed a common call that the current approach to obtaining past performance is problematic and needs to be rethought.

“As the government moves to buying more services and solutions, things are getting more subjective and you want to be able to do a better job of motivating contractors to do more,” said Jim Williams, a former federal executive with GSA, the IRS and the Homeland Security Department, and now a principal with Williams Consulting, LLC and an advisor for GovConRx.  “The forces are coming together to say vendor past performance is a valuable tool.  But it’s not working as it should because it’s too burdensome and not as accurate as it should be.  No one wants to throw it out.  We just want to fix it.”

Experts say the current system, the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS), takes too much time to fill out, lacks important details and isn’t as accurate as it needs to be.

“The time and effort to draft CPARS evaluations is too much, and with most agency contracting staffs pressed to do more with less, that gets pushed out further, especially if there is a need to justify ratings over satisfactory,” said Mike Smith, a former DHS director of strategic sourcing and now executive vice president at GovConRx.  “There needs to be some way to justify anything over satisfactory that is not so hard to track down all the information so it becomes less cumbersome.  Contractors also are not actively engaged in the documentation and support of the ratings.  That has to change too, especially as agencies are paying a lot more attention to ratings.  We have to figure out how to make sure past performance ratings are not done in haste.”

Smith said on average, depending on the type of procurement, it could take a contracting officer a few minutes to a few hours to write an in-depth CPARS review.

New data compiled by GovConRx shows the value of CPARS is dropping dramatically.

Continue reading at:  Federal News Network

ABSCA confirms contractors may challenge unfavorable CPARS ratings

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While you might not be able to fight City Hall, you can fight your CPARS rating.  In a short opinion published May 1st, the ASBCA confirmed it has jurisdiction to annul an inaccurate and unfair government evaluation of a contractor’s performance.  Cameron Bell Corporation d/b/a Government Solutions Group, ASBCA No. 61856 (May 1, 2019).  Though the ASBCA cannot require the government to issue a specific rating, it can remand the matter to the contracting officer with instructions to redo the evaluation ─ a perhaps imperfect, yet still potent form of relief available to contractors who believe the government has improperly rated their contract performance.

By regulation, contractors are entitled to rebut a negative evaluation of their performance in the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System, or CPARS.  FAR 42.1503(d).  A contractor’s rebuttal submission typically is due within 14 calendar days of the date the agency invites the contractor to respond.  See id.  If this proves unsuccessful, a contractor may challenge the CPARS rating by submitting a claim with the contracting officer under the Contract Disputes Act (CDA).  See, e.g., Cameron Bell, ASBCA No. 61856, 2019 WL 2067642 (May 1, 2019).  Then, if the contracting officer denies the claim, the contractor can appeal the decision to an appropriate Board of Contract Appeals or the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Continue reading at:  Inside Government Contracts

GAO: Past performance should relate to solicited services

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Past performance is an important evaluation factor in many solicitations.  Essentially, it allows an agency to guess as to the likelihood of an offeror’s successful performance under a solicitation by looking to its history of performance on similar projects in the past.

GAO recently confirmed it is “axiomatic” that past performance examples should align with the solicitation’s requirements.  If an offeror submits unrelated examples, it risks a downgraded past performance score.

Continue reading the article at: SmallGovCon

Building better mousetraps by adding value to technical proposals

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“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door” is the old saying, but the federal government seldom beats a path to the door of a contractor. Nevertheless, companies can win contracts by adding value to their proposals with technical discriminators.

Assuming a contractor is responsible, contract awards by federal agencies are generally determined by three sets of factors: price, past performance, and technical approach. Where contracts are awarded based on the government’s assessment of best value, distinctions among technical proposals are critical to determining the contract award. In best value acquisitions, technical discriminators, which serve to differentiate one proposal from another, are often what determine success or failure.

To increase the value of their technical proposals, contractors must make maximum use of technical discriminators. Yet, not all technical discriminators that could lend a competitive advantage to a proposal may be readily apparent. For that reason, it can be useful to look at best value assessments in other procurements. Many such evaluations are reviewed in bid protest decisions. These decisions frequently discuss the technical discriminators that agencies find significant.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=760726

You’d better ‘feed’ SAM regularly — especially before you submit a bid

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Effective October 26, 2018, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requires businesses who are pursuing federal contracts to be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) prior to their submission of a bid, proposal, or quote to a federal agency.

Think of this as the need to “feed” information about your company into the SAM database, including updates to that information, on a regular basis.

There are only a few exceptions to this new policy (exceptions may be found at FAR 4.1102).

In the context of federal contracting, SAM is essentially the federal government’s vendor database.  By registering in SAM, businesses indicate their compliance and agreement with the federal government’s standard “representations and certifications” requirements.  Updating your SAM record must be done at least annually for a vendor to maintain “active” status is SAM.

The new rule clarifies what had been ambiguity as to when vendors must be registered in SAM in order to be eligible to receive contract awards.  (See details in our earlier article on this subject here.)  With the FAR change, it’s now clear that registration must be accomplished before a vendor submits a response to an Invitation for Bid (IFB), a Request for Proposal (RFP), or a Request for a Quotation (RFQ).

If you need help with your company’s SAM registration, feel free to contact a Procurement Counselor with the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC).  All of our contact information is listed by location at: https://gtpac.org/team-directory.

If you are located outside of the state of Georgia, you can find the procurement technical assistance center (PTAC) nearest you at: http://www.aptac-us.org/contracting-assistance.

Remember: There is never a fee to register in SAM as a government contractor. PTACs are available to provide you with no-cost help to get you through the process.

 

Effective Oct. 26, you must be registered in SAM before you submit a federal bid, proposal or quote

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It’s official: If you intend to pursue a federal contract, your business must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) before you submit a bid, proposal, or quotation.  The new rule that makes this clear goes into effect on October 26, 2018.

Any wiggle room that may have existed in the past has been eliminated.  SAM registration is now imperative if you are interested in federal contracting.

It used to be that SAM registration was required before a contract could be awarded. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) at Subpart 4.1102(a) made that clear.  But that requirement was always a bit ambiguous since another provision of the FAR (Subpart 52.204-8(d)) said that bidders and proponents had to complete the representations and certifications in SAM as a condition of making their offer.  As a matter of practical interpretation, most federal contracting officers simply made sure that an offeror’s SAM registration was complete before awarding the offeror a contract.

That latitude goes away on October 26, 2018.  On that date, FAR Subpart 4.1102 is officially amended to require all entities (i.e., vendors, including joint ventures) to be registered in SAM at the time they submit an offer (a bid or proposal) or submit a quotation to a federal agency.  In essence, vendors who are not registered in SAM are ineligible to submit offers or quotes – effective October 26, 2018.

Keep in mind that the SAM registration process can take time to complete.  If you’re planning to compete for a federal contract in the future, you should complete your SAM registration as far in advance as possible.  And, if you are already registered in SAM, remember that your SAM registration must be renewed at least annually – and renewed whenever any part of your registration needs to be updated.

If you need help with your company’s SAM registration, feel free to contact a Procurement Counselor with the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC).  All of our contact information is listed by location at: https://gtpac.org/team-directory.

If you are located outside of the state of Georgia, you can find the procurement technical assistance center (PTAC) nearest you at: http://www.aptac-us.org/contracting-assistance.

Remember: There is never a fee to register in SAM as a government contractor. PTACs are available with no-cost help to get you through the process.

SAM is located at: https://sam.gov.  But before beginning the SAM registration process, you must first take care of the following:

  1. Obtain a DUNS Number by registering your Legal Business Name and Physical Address with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B).  If you don’t already have a DUNS Number, you can request a DUNS Number for FREE from D&B at: http://fedgov.dnb.com/webform
  2. Make sure you have a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) associated with the Legal Business Name registered with D&B.  To obtain information from the IRS on how to obtain a TIN, visit: https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxpayer-identification-numbers-tin
  3. Have your bank’s routing number handy, including your bank account number and your bank account type (i.e., checking or savings).  You’ll need this information to set up Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) in SAM.  The federal government makes virtually all contract payments via EFT.
  4. The first time you log in to SAM.gov, you’ll be asked to create a login.gov user account (if you don’t already have one). Going forward, you will use your login.gov username and password every time you log in to SAM.gov. Existing SAM.gov usernames and passwords no longer work.

New login required for SAM

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To do business with the federal government, you need an account in the System for Award Management (SAM).

Whether you already have a SAM account or need to set one up, you need to know there is a new login procedure.

All users attempting to login to SAM are now automatically re-directed to first create a Login.gov user account.  If you already have a SAM username and password they no longer work, and you will be unable to access your SAM account until you have created a Login.gov account.

Creating a Login.gov Account
In order to create a Login.gov account, you will need each of the following:
  1. The email address and password associated with your SAM account.
  2. Access to the same email account to receive all confirmation emails.
  3. A working telephone number through which you can receive the security code that will be sent to you from Login.gov.
Need help with any step of the SAM registration process?

Never fear!  The Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (GTPAC) will provide you with help at no charge.  Simply contact the GTPAC counselor located nearest you; our staff directory is at: http://gtpac.org/team-directory.  (Businesses located outside the state of Georgia can obtain free help from their nearest procurement technical assistance center.  Consult the national contact list at: http://www.aptac-us.org/find-a-ptac.)

Other recent changes to SAM

Each business must mail an original, signed notarized letter to GSA’s Federal Service Desk within thirty (30) days of their SAM activation or risk having their SAM registration deactivated.

Because of recent fraudulent activity associated with the SAM database, the General Services Administration (GSA) issued a rule in late March 2018 that requires all SAM registrants (“entities”) to provide an original, signed notarized letter identifying your company’s “authorized Entity Administrator.”   The notarized letter must follow a strict format.  GSA’s notarized letter template is available here: SAM_Notary_Letter_Template_4.12.18_GSA_version

In instances where businesses have federal contract awards or contract payments pending, GTPAC — and the other PTACs across the country — can offer special assistance to expedite the processing of their notarized letters.  When contacting your PTAC counselor, be sure to let us know if you are facing either of those two circumstances.

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