A bipartisan group of representatives introduced legislation that will give the same whistleblower protections to subgrantees and personal services contractors that are currently afforded contractors, grant recipients, and subcontractors.
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: The Whistleblower Protections for Contractors Act
Yesterday we discussed a bid protest case where the Army erred in its past performance rating. It gave the same past performance rating of “relevant” to Delfasco who was the incumbent and had been producing the same parts for years as it did to the eventual winning bidder, GTI, who lacked relevant past performance with respect to two necessary skills identified in the solicitation and only somewhat relevant on another skill. The GAO blew the whistle on the Army and sustained the protest (see Nonsensical Past Performance Rating).
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Misleading Discussions
The Treasury Department issued a “best value” solicitation for cybersecurity services. Blue Glacier was one of the bidders but its bid, according to the Treasury Department, was late. Bids were due at 2:00 PM (Eastern). Blue Glacier submitted its bid via email around 11:00 AM, approximately three hours before the cut-off. There was a problem however. Blue Glacier’s email bid, it was eventually discovered was quarantined in Treasury’s email filtering system due to suspected “phishing”. Blue Glacier assumed that its bid was received since previous correspondence to the same email address was received and responded to. After a couple of months and not hearing anything from Treasury, Blue Glacier contacted Treasury to inquire the status of the procurement. Treasury told Blue Glacier that it had never received its bid and was not in contention for the contract. When Treasury awarded the contract to another bidder, Blue Glacier appealed stating that:
A little over a year ago, DoD, GSA, and NASA (the FAR Councils) published a proposed FAR rule to implement small business subcontracting improvements among Government contractors. A number of commentators provided written comments and suggestions to the proposed regulations, most of them positive. Yesterday, the FAR Council’s made it formal by publishing the rules in final form.
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: New FAR Rules for Small Business Subcontracting Plans
Prospective Government contractors often panic when they hear the term “CAS” (Cost Accounting Standards). CAS has a reputation of adding onerous layers of regulations to an already overloaded regulatory system for Government contractors. Yet, with many exemptions from CAS available – the small business exemption being the most significant – very few contractors will ever need to concern themselves with Cost Accounting Standards.
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: Only 1 Percent of Government Contractors are CAS-Covered
Back in April, we published a four-part series on the use of blended labor rates to implement the new $487 thousand compensation cap that applies to all employees charging to Government contracts awarded after June 24, 2014. For a comprehensive look at the blending methodology, refer to that series Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. The Department of Defense came up with the blending methodology as a means of streamlining implementation of the lowered compensation cap while there is a mix of contracts under the old and the new caps. As a prerequisite to using a blended approach, a contractor must enter into an advance agreement with the ACO (Administrative Contracting Officer). The advance agreement includes detailed methodologies to calculate blended rates – which differ for incurred cost proposals and for forward pricing proposals.
Yesterday we discussed DOE’s decision to withdraw its proposed rules for ensuring contractor business systems are capable of providing timely, reliable information for the management of contracts and programs by contractors and the Department (see Department of Energy Withdraws its Proposed “Business System” Rules). The Department of Defense (DoD) has had similar rules in place through its FAR Supplement (DFARS) for a number of years and although the expectation by now was that DCMA (Defense Contract Management Agency) or DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency) would have reviewed or audited those systems for compliance with the standards laid out in the rules, not much has happened. A previous proposal that would require contractors to hire outside auditors to conduct those compliance reviews under the eyes and direction of DCAA were previously withdrawn as unworkable.
Back in 2014, not to be outdone by the Defense Department, the Department of Energy proposed its own Contractor Business System rules (see 79 FR 18415). These proposed rules were similar in scope to those being considered and ultimately adopted by DoD. They covered five of DoD’s six business systems: accounting, estimating, purchasing, EVMS and property management. DOE’s contractor business systems did not cover MMAS (Material Management & Accounting Systems), perhaps because DOE’s contractors are not typically in the manufacturing business. The proposed rules included compliance enforcement mechanisms that would, like the DoD rules, allow contracting officers to withhold a percentage of payments when one or more of the business systems contained significant deficiencies.
The Department of Defense Office of Inspector General recently announced that it is initiating a new peer review on the quality and adequacy of DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency’s) audit work. The last quality control report was issued back in August 2014 and covered DCAA’s system of quality controls in effect as of June 30, 2013. Federal audit organizations can receive a rating of pass, pass with deficiencies, or fail. DCAA received a rating of “pass with deficiencies”. The deficiencies related to lack of sufficient documentation where the peer review team could not discern the judgment and conclusions drawn by DCAA auditors. Additionally there were instances where the documentation did not support information in the audit report.
Source: PNWC’s Government Contracting Update: DCAA to Undergo Another Peer Review
The Inter-agency Suspension and Debarment Committee (ISDC) recently issued its annual report summarizing agency suspension and debarment activities from fiscal year 2015. The purpose of the ISDC is to help agencies build and maintain the expertise necessary to consider suspension and debarment as necessary to protect contract and program integrity. The annual report is mandated by the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).