Interior Dept. | The Contracting Education Academy

May 3, 2019 By AMK

GAO: Agencies must consider information gathered by reverse auction providers

What are federal contractors supposed to do when FedBid (now Unison) requests additional information related to a proposal and the awarding agency ignores that information in its awarding decision?

GAO recently held that the agency must consider all information gathered by reverse auction providers.

In BCW Group, LLC, B-417209, 2019 WL 1398813 (Comp. Gen. Mar. 27, 2019), BCW protested the Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs’ award to another offeror. The award was the result of a reverse auction conducted by FedBid, on behalf of the agency.

The reverse auction was for work related to procurement, installation, and maintenance of Promethean ActivPanels, or other similar products. BCW’s bid included a general verification that it complied with “all terms listed by the Buyer[,]” but the bid did not specifically state that it included the required one-year maintenance. At the close of the reverse auction, a representative of FedBid reached out to BCW asking the following:

Is your bid price correct, complete (meaning all items requested are included in your bid) and inclusive of all costs the Buyer would incur if your bid is selected?

In response, BCW confirmed that the price included, among other things, “once a year maintenance for 3 years on the panels I install.”

The agency subsequently reviewed the five submitted bids and chose a different offeror because BCW’s offer, although lower priced, did not specifically mention the required maintenance. The agency did not review the exchange between FedBid and BCW, where BCW confirmed that maintenance was included in its offer, because the contracting officer was “not aware that FedBid” had the post-bid exchange with BCW regarding the maintenance issue. BCW protested that its lower priced bid should have been accepted because it met the procurement requirements.

Keep reading article at: www.smallgovcon.com/gaobidprotests/gao-agencies-must-consider-information-gathered-by-reverse-auction-providers

March 6, 2017 By AMK

Federal agencies sometimes struggle with creating postings on FedBizOpps

The Ides of March came early — at least for one employee of the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command contracting office.

While March 15 is known as a rather notorious day in history, March 1, 2017 may now take on special significance as well (at least among federal employees) as the day that a contracting official in Seattle apparently couldn’t figure out how to delete a posting from FedBizOpps (FBO), the website where virtually all federal contracts valued at $25,000 or more are posted daily.

Unable to delete a contract posting, the contracting official simply titled it, in all caps: “DON’T KNOW HOW TO DELETE THESE.”

**This is a screenshot of the FedBizOpps posting created on Mar. 1, 2017 by the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command.**

The words “DON’T KNOW HOW TO DELETE THESE” appear in the place where the title of a solicitation or contract award normally appears. In this case, the posting indicates that the contract was awarded on December 2, 2013, and it was a sole source award.

The FBO notice also indicates that the contract was for architectural and engineering services, and that the contract number is HSCG50-14-R-PKUGH1.

In fairness, the contracting office at the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command isn’t the only contracting office that sometimes struggles with FBO postings. Last August, the Denver-based National Park Service contracts office of the U.S. Department of Interior advertised a contract opportunity for “ASSES & DEVELOP LEADERSHIP TRAINING RDI.”

***Presumably, the National Park Service wanted an assessment of their leadership training program performed when they created this FedBizOpps posting on Aug, 29, 2016.***

The Coast Guard’s FBO posting can be seen at: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=97fab27175e8c6b4216141611cbfce48&tab=core&_cview=0.

The National Park Service’s FBO posting is at: https://www.fbo.gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=5fbc373ae5c98756189e3c2277541fbb&tab=core&_cview=1.

May 2, 2016 By AMK

An excess of multiple-award contracts is creating new problems for government

For the better part of the past decade, procurement shops throughout the federal government couldn’t seem to stop themselves from creating new contract vehicles.

There’s something alluring about seeding and cultivating a multiple-award contract (MAC), with dozens of companies clamoring to participate and the promise of hundreds of millions of dollars blooming under a vehicle of your creation. Since 2005, thousands of multiple-award indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) programs have sprung up, many with multi-billion-dollar ordering ceilings.

The contract vehicle garden is now overgrown. Supply clearly exceeds demand.

Just look at IT services. The 10 largest contract vehicles have $17 billion in annualized ordering capacity. But those vehicles hosted under $12 billion in actual orders last year, leaving 37 percent excess capacity. Examples of underutilized contracts abound. The Interior Department’s cloud computing IDIQ has a $1 billion annualized ceiling. It attracted just $27 million in spending in fiscal 2015, according to federal procurement data.

The excessive excess capacity won’t last.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.govexec.com/excellence/promising-practices/2016/04/excess-multiple-award-contracts-creating-new-problems-government/127645

December 30, 2014 By AMK

House lawmakers call for OFPP to issue reverse auction guidance

House lawmakers are pressing the Office of Federal Procurement Policy to update the Federal Acquisition Regulations to detail how best agencies should use reverse auctions.

Reps. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) and Sam Graves (R-Mo.), chairmen of the Veterans Affairs and Small Business committees, respectively, wrote to Anne Rung, OFPP administrator, Dec. 4, asking for a FAR case to be opened immediately to address reverse auctions.

“As you may well know, while our two committees recognize that reverse auctions, when properly used, may deliver savings to the taxpayer, we have long been concerned that some are misusing this tool to evade competition and compliance with other procurement regulations,” Graves and Miller wrote in the letter obtained by Federal News Radio.

Graves and Miller highlight findings from the December 2013 report from Government Accountability Office as well as recent GAO bid protest decisions detailing agency struggles with reverse auctions.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/517/3765084/House-lawmakers-call-for-OFPP-to-issue-reverse-auction-guidance

April 4, 2014 By AMK

Scam targets GSA schedule holders using spoofed federal email addresses

The General Services Administration’s schedules program has been victimized by spear phishing attacks costing vendors more than $1.5 million, and law enforcement officials say, is increasing.

GSA alerted Schedule 70 and 75 vendors Wednesday that since July 2012 the FBI, the Environmental Protection Agency and GSA inspectors general have been investigating a series of fraudulent orders placed online to GSA vendors from criminals posing as federal contracting officials, according to an email to Schedule-70 and 75 vendors, which Federal News Radio obtained.

The hackers ordered HP printer toner cartridges using official federal employee email credentials but fake phone telephone numbers and stolen credit cards.

Law enforcement officials now say scammers are targeting orders for laptop computers, though it’s unclear if these two cases are related. But GSA said “there are some significant similarities and we’re following up on investigative leads to make further determinations.”

Keep reading this article at: http://www.federalnewsradio.com/490/3595717/Scam-targets-GSA-schedule-holders-using-spoofed-federal-email-addresses

What are federal contractors supposed to do when FedBid (now Unison) requests additional information related to a proposal and the awarding agency ignores that information in its awarding decision?

The Ides of March came early — at least for one employee of the Coast Guard’s Shore Maintenance Command contracting office.

For the better part of the past decade, procurement shops throughout the federal government couldn’t seem to stop themselves from creating new contract vehicles.

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