The General Services Administration plans to consolidate dozens of its buying schedules across product areas including IT and services to reduce duplication and overlap, the agency announced Nov. 27.
Following a size determination, any person adversely affected by that determination may file an appeal with the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals. To be timely, the appeal has to be filed within 15 calendar days from the date the person receives the determination. If not timely-filed, the appeal will be dismissed.
With winners announced, the prospect of having to compete with Amazon for high technology talent in the Washington, D.C., area has many government contracting leaders seriously concerned. The business development organization is not immune from this technology talent grab either.
Source: Your next BD hire might already be working for you — Washington Technology
By all appearances, A&D General Contracting was a fairly successful Government contractor performing construction work for VA (Veterans Affairs) and the Army Corps of Engineers in California. Together in joint venture with another company, (Action Telecom), they pursued and were awarded more than $11 million in contracts set aside for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSB). The problem was, neither A&D or its owner Andrew Otero qualified for those set-aside contracts.
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Secret Side Agreements and “Rent-a-Vet” Schemes
We wonder how many companies survey their workforce and think that there is no way they could be in noncompliance with any form of employment discrimination. They might conclude that since they employ a ton of this minority and a ton of that minority and plenty of women employees, what could go wrong? Plenty, as one Government contractor found out. If you’re a Government contractor, beware of “routine compliance evaluations” by OFCCP (Labor Department’s Office of Federal Compliance Programs).
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Too Many Minority Employees?
The OFPP (Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP), Cost Accounting Standards Board (CAS Board) published notification of planned meetings this month and January 2019. The public notification is required but the meeting itself is closed to the public. The last meeting of the CAS Board was more than seven years ago – October 5th, 2011.
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: What? The Moribund CAS Board is Meeting?
Despite conflict of interest laws and regulations, the phenomenon of military officers who head straight for the defense contracting industry, and contractor executives confirmed for high level Defense Department jobs, never seems to stop. In the view of Mandy Smithberger, director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, it might be getting worse than ever. She joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin for more.
Source: Former military officers embrace contracting despite ethics concerns
On December 19, 2014, then-President Obama signed the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act into law. The 2015 NDAA eliminated the statutory basis for federal agencies to award women-owned small business set-aside contracts to self-certified companies. In essence, then, the 2015 NDAA effectively eliminated WOSB self-certification.
The GSA (General Services Administration) issued a solicitation to procure information technology services. GSA required that offerors submit proposals in seven volumes. and a “document Verification and Self Scoring Worksheet. In the scoring worksheet, offerors were required to claim points for meeting specific criteria in the solicitation and for every claimed point, offerors were required to include supporting documentation in the appropriate volume of the proposal. GSA also set forth specific substitution rules for points claimed by joint-ventures.
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Bid Protest – Plain Reading of Solicitation Prevails
The Government will award contracts to responsible prospective contractors only and no award can be made unless the contracting officer makes an affirmative determination of responsibility (see FAR 9.103(a) and (b)). Why is contractor “responsibility” so important? Because the award of a contract to a supplier based on lowest evaluated price alone can be false economy if there is a subsequent default, later deliveries, or other unsatisfactory performance resulting in additional contractual or administrative costs (see FAR 9.103(c)).
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Contractor Responsibility Determinations