Wouldn’t you like to know five things about size protests and appeals?
Click here to read the answers to these questions: http://smallgovcon.com/five-things/size-protests-and-appeals/
As the incumbent contractor, you’re excited to bid on the successor contract. The day it’s posted, you dash to fbo.gov, pull up the solicitation, and breathe a sigh of relief: the contract is still exclusively a small business set-aside.
But wait! Under the assigned NAICS code your business doesn’t fall below the size standard.
Can the agency change the NAICS code from one iteration of the contract to another? Sure, so long as the selected NAICS code meets the regulatory standard.
In NAICS Appeal of STG, Inc., SBA No. NAICS-5936 (2018), OHA considered a solicitation, issued by the Department of the Army, for “[n]on-personal information technology (IT) services and support requirements.” The contracting officer assigned the procurement NAICS code 541513, Computer Facilities Management Services, which carries a $27.5 million size standard. STG, the incumbent contractor, disagreed with that selection. It contended that the NAICS code, assigned to the existing contract, was the correct one, namely NAICS code, 517110 (now NAICS code 517311), Wired Telecommunications Carriers, with a 1,500-employee size standard.
Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/uncategorized/yes-an-agency-can-change-the-naics-code-from-one-iteration-of-a-contract-to-the-next/
In Exceptional Software Strategies, Inc., B-416232, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently addressed the obscure rules for when a disappointed offeror must request a debriefing.
It’s generally well known that, in procurements where offerors may have a right to debriefings, a disappointed offeror must submit a written request to the contracting officer within three days after receipt of written agency notice that the company’s proposal has been excluded from the competitive range (FAR 15.505(a)(3)).
If an offeror misses the deadline, it does not necessarily mean it won’t get a debriefing, but any debriefing will not be “required.”
In Exceptional Software, on Thursday, March 15, the National Security Agency (NSA) provided the protester with written notice that its proposal was excluded from the competitive range and provided a brief rationale for that exclusion. Under FAR 15.505(a)(3), the offeror then had three days – until Monday, March 19 – to request a debriefing. (When the third day falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline always moves to the next business day.) On Monday at 4:59 p.m., the offeror submitted its written request for a debriefing, which the NSA provided on April 2. Four days later, the offeror protested.
Under the GAO’s debriefing exception, a protest is timely if it is filed either within 10 days after the protester knew or should have known of the basis of protest, or within 10 days after the close of a required debriefing.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=728628
Ready or not — federal agencies are increasingly utilizing “other transactions authority” (OTA) to craft agreements that are not subject to traditional procurement laws and therefore should, in theory, allow the government greater access to innovative solutions.
While the goal of OTA procedures may be to avoid bottlenecks inherent in procurement under the Federal Acquisition Regulation, in the end they may result in valuable contracts with the government. As with any such contracts, it is inevitable that disputes will arise during their formation and administration.
While there is very little precedent relating to protests of OTA awards or claims arising under OTA-awarded contracts, there are some fundamental principles and analogous decisions that suggest how this early history of OTA protests and claims may unfold.
This article attempts to portray the current landscape for protests of OTA awards and contract claims arising during performance of an OTA agreement.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=721778
Unless an agency designates different business hours, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) says that a government agency is deemed to close at 4:30 p.m. local time–not 5:00 p.m., as it would be easy to assume.
In a recent case, the 4:30 p.m. closing time cost an unsuccessful offeror a chance at a GAO protest because the offeror’s debriefing request, sent to the agency at 4:59 p.m., was deemed untimely.
The GAO’s decision in Exceptional Software Strategies, Inc., B-416232 (July 12, 2018) involved an NSA solicitation seeking to award up to six IDIQ contracts for the definition, prototyping, development, and production of visualization and presentation tools. Thirteen offerors, including Exceptional Software Strategies, Inc., submitted initial proposals.
The evaluation panel determined that ESS’s proposal was unacceptable under one of the non-price factors. On Thursday, March 15, 2018, NSA informed ESS that its proposal had been excluded from the competitive range. The letter explained that ESS had been found unacceptable, and the reasons why.
Keep reading this article at: http://smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gao-agency-closing-time-is-430-p-m-not-500-p-m/
Every unit of government has rules about how it purchases goods and services. As a vendor, your success in doing business with government agencies is dependent upon your knowledge of those rules.
The federal government follows the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), and many federal agencies also issue FAR supplements. Similarly, each state government has its own purchasing procedures.
In the State of Georgia, the Department of Administrative Services, through its State Purchasing Division (SPD), maintains the Georgia Procurement Manual (GPM). The GPM governs how state government entities purchase needed goods and supplies. It also provides information to suppliers about how to conduct business with the State of Georgia. SPD periodically revises the GPM to incorporate legislative changes, new automated processes and best practices.
In May of this year, the GPM was updated in several important ways, including the supplier protest process as well as internal procedural updates, such as new automated processes for state procurement staff to submit certain reports and requests to SPD. You can see a summary of the changes here. A brief overview of the new supplier protest process follows.
GPM Section 6.5 defines how suppliers may challenge certain purchasing actions by state entities, such as: solicitations, proposed sole source contracts, proposed purchases through consortia or cooperative purchasing agreements, the results of a Request for Qualified Contractors and the state’s proposed or actual award of a contract.
SPD has updated the supplier protest process to:
Changes became effective May 18, 2018. You can listen to a recorded webinar on the changes to the Georgia Procurement Manual here: GPM changes. (Presentation begins at the 9:55 mark.)
The General Services Administration must reimburse global contractor Booz Allen Hamilton for the costs of a recent bid protest due to delays in agency responses, the Government Accountability Office determined.
In a decision from its general counsel dated May 7 but released only in redacted form last week, the congressional watchdog ruled in Booz Allen’s favor in two of three provisions of its complaint against competitor Raytheon over computer resource engineering support for the Army’s Software Engineering Directorate.
The cost-plus, fixed-fee task order for the contract solicited in December 2016 was worth between $582 million and $690 million and was limited to the firms in GSA’s One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) pool for indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts. “The contracting officer, who was also the source selection authority, selected Raytheon’s proposal for award based on its total assessed value,” which was lower than that of Booz Allen, the ruling noted.
Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/contracting/2018/06/booz-allen-wins-corrective-action-gsa-army-software-contract/148906
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a decision on May 22, denying in part and dismissing in part Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation’s much-watched protest of the Air Force’s solicitation to replace the UH-1N helicopter. The decison deals an early (if light) blow to contractors in their fight against the Air Force’s recent data rights grab.
The GAO, in Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., B-416027; B-416027.2, May 22, 2018, ultimately endorsed one provision requiring broad delivery of both technical data and software necessary for operations, maintenance, installation, and training activities (defined in the solicitation as “OMIT Data”), but Sikorsky’s protest did not go down without first getting an important concession from the Air Force. This concession, and the GAO’s discussion of whether OMIT Data includes source code, are the key takeaways from Sikorsky, and we will discuss them in some length here. Before we do, some stage-setting is appropriate, in particular because the clauses at issue are confusing.
For more than 20 years, contractors and government personnel have used “OMIT data” as a familiar shorthand for the data called out in DFARS 252.227-7013(b)(1)(v) as “Necessary for installation, operation, maintenance, or training purposes (other than detailed manufacturing or process data),” and, importantly, in which the Government is entitled to unlimited rights. In this parlance, OMIT data by definition include neither “detailed manufacturing or process data” (DMPD) nor computer software. Unsurprisingly, the Air Force caused some consternation recently when it bucked this convention and began including in its solicitations for major weapons systems a provision defining “OMIT Data” to include all types of computer software and, in some cases, DMPD. (We distinguish this OMIT Data, specially defined by the Air Force, and the colloquial OMIT data.) Sikorsky was the first to file a formal challenge.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=706316
As the Senate Armed Services Committee last week began its markup of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, a contractors group was pushing committee leaders to reject a Pentagon proposal to curb time-consuming bid protests.
Seeking to eliminate what some senators call “frivolous” protests and what acquisition officials call “forum shopping,” the Defense Department this spring pressed for limiting the ability of contractors who unsuccessfully sought an award and are rejected by the Government Accountability Office to then continue their protest at the Court of Federal Claims. The plan would limit the so-called “second bite at the apple” in the court to within 10 days of knowing (or when they should have known) they had the basis for a protest.
Keep reading this article at: https://www.govexec.com/contracting/2018/05/contractors-oppose-proposed-limit-federal-bid-protests/148368/
Responding to a request for proposals is time consuming and, yes, tedious at times. However, your proposal is your opportunity to demonstrate to the government: 1) that you understand their need, and 2) that you can meet, and perhaps exceed, their expectations. Consequently, it is not enough to tell them that your business can do the job. You must provide concrete evidence that you have what it takes to meet their demands.
While reputation, prior experience, and good will may get you additional business in the private sector, this is not true in government contracting. Even companies who have exceeded performance expectations for years must provide details commensurate with the RFP in order to maintain their position as the government contractor providing the service. Finally, a key difference between private sector work and government contracting is that the government’s decision is almost always subject to scrutiny. Consequently, even if your proposal satisfies the government and you win the bid, you still run the risk of losing the award due to a properly filed protest, if the reviewing body determines you shouldn’t have received such high scores.
Below we offer some tips, based on years of defending award winners, protesting awards to others, and hands-on experience in government contacting. In our work, we have seen certain detrimental mistakes repeated – time and time again. While proposals include some subjective criteria, by implementing these tips, you can increase your chance of achieving a higher score which, in turn, increases your chances of an award, and increases your likelihood of surviving a protest later.
Keep reading this article at: https://www.bidprotestweekly.com/5-must-know-tips-for-preparing-a-bid-addressing-the-key-points-in-your-proposal-to-the-government
