An agency erred by failing to conduct a price realism analysis for a time-and-materials contract with fixed-price fully-burdened labor rates.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO acknowledged that a solicitation of this type does not always require that the agency engage in a price realism analysis, but found that the terms of the particular solicitation called for such an analysis–and that the agency acted unreasonably by ignoring the solicitation’s requirement.
I am back in Kansas after a trip to Texas, where I spoke at the 18th Annual Government Procurement Conference. My presentation provided an overview of recent legal developments of importance to small government contractors, as well as a look at potential changes on the horizon. In between sessions, I met lots of engaging industry and government representatives in the exhibit hall and enjoyed listening to a great roster of speakers over lunch.
A big “thank you” to Gregory James and his team at the Cross Timbers Procurement Center for sponsoring this great event and inviting me to participate. Thank you, also, to the many other speakers who shared their knowledge and guidance about a wide range of government contracting topics. And, of course, a big thank you to the hundreds of government contractors, government representatives, and others who attended the conference.
An agency improperly downgraded a proposal simply because the proposal’s full-time equivalents (FTEs) differed from the agency’s undisclosed internal estimate.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO concluded that an agency’s “mechanical” evaluation of the adequacy of an offeror’s proposed staffing by reference to an undisclosed government estimate was improper, because the estimate was not disclosed to the offeror and the agency failed to give the offeror an opportunity to address the differences between the offeror’s proposed staffing and the government estimate.
Reverse auctions would be prohibited for many small business procurements under a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015, which has been passed by the House of Representatives.
Under the bill, reverse auctions would be disallowed when the government seeks to award a “covered contract,” so long as the contract is suitable for small businesses or is set-aside under one of many small business preference programs.
Small businesses were awarded 23.39% of prime contracting dollars in Fiscal Year 2013, a jump of more than a percentage point from FY 2012 levels–and above the 23% government-wide goal for the first time in several years.
According to the recently-released SBA Procurement Scorecard, the government exceeded its goals for SDVOSBs and SDBs, but failed to hit its targets for HUBZones and WOSBs. Despite these shortfalls, the SBA gave the government an overall “A” rating for its FY 2013 performance.
August will be a very exciting and busy month as I will be speaking at government contracting events in Texas, California and Oklahoma.
My first stop is the Government Procurement Conference in Arlington, Texas on August 6. I will be giving a brief morning keynote on recent legal developments in government contracting, followed by an in-depth breakout session on the same subject. My next stop will be sunny San Diego, California. On August 12, I will be presenting a workshop on GAO Bid Protests at the Navy Gold Coast Conference. I will stick around San Diego through August 14th, when I will present a session on joint venturing and teaming, sponsored by the San Diego Contracting Opportunities Center. My final August stop will be the Indian Country Business Summit in Norman, Oklahoma on August 26 and 27. My workshop will focus on teaming agreements.
Please let me know if you will be at any of these great events. See you there!
A large business was appropriately awarded a “Marginal” score for small business participation based on the large business’s history of failing to meet its small business subcontracting goals.
In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that the procuring agency properly assigned the large business a low score based on the large business’s history of unmet subcontracting goals, even though the large business apparently pledged to subcontract a significant amount of work to small businesses under the solicitation in question.