08_DIR_ORC_ConferenceTranscript.doc

3 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HHS

4 PRE-PROPOSAL CONFERENCE OF

5 DIR OBJECTIVE REVIEW CONTRACTS

6 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2007

11 Location: U.S. Department of Health

12 5600 Fishers Lane

13 Rockville, MD 20857

1 A P P E A R A N C E S

3 Aileen Broider

4 Eulas Dortch

5 Bill Scheig

6 Frank Murphy

9 AUDIENCE QUESTIONS FROM:

10 Ashley Bettis

11 Carey Parrett

12 Bill Thompson

13 Phyllis Shearer Jones

14 George McFarland

15 Bob Goldberg

16 Margie Maisonet

17 Nycal Anthony

18 Naceema Thompson

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 Time: 1:57 p.m.

3 AILEEN BROIDER: Thank you all for

4 getting here so promptly and welcome to the Health

5 Resources and Services Administration and thank you

6 for demonstrating your interest in our procurements

7 by attending this pre-proposal conference.

8 There are two separate, but very

9 similar, procurements both for fiscal year 2008 from

10 the division of independent review for objective

11 review committee meetings, one is for face-to-face

12 meetings and the other is for teleconference

13 meetings and field reviews.

14 My name is Aileen Broider and I'm the

15 contract specialist assigned to these two

16 procurements and I would like to introduce the

17 people at our head table who will be speaking.

18 The first is Eulas Dortch who is the

19 director of the division, or the director of the

20 division of independent review.

21 Bill Scheig is in the middle, he's the

22 chief of the policy analysis and training branch in

1 DIR.

2 And Frank Murphy is one of HRSA

3 contracts contracting officers.

4 Unfortunately the contracting officer, 5 Alexandra Bonnie Garcia, who is assisting with this

6 procurement was unable to be here today.

7 We know that Bonnie was going to answer

8 questions for you, so I'm going to preface by saying

9 that if we receive questions from the audience and

10 we would like Bonnie to review them before we answer

11 them, we will provide all questions and answers in

12 writing.

13 So I hope that you understand this was a

14 last-minute event and unavoidable.

15 Before we get started, I'd like to make

16 you aware that this conference is being recorded, so

17 we request that none of you record on your own.

18 In order for the recorder to capture the

19 entire dialogue, we request that during the question

20 and answer period, we ask that you speak at, one at

21 a time, we'll pass around a microphone, that you

22 introduce yourself with your name and your

1 organization and we want you to know that the entire

2 transcript will be posted on the Federal Business

3 Opportunities Website.

4 We also request that you turn off all

5 cell phones and if you have not yet signed in, I

6 think most of you have, there is a sign-in sheet in

7 the back that we'd like you to sign your name.

8 As you can see by the agenda, there will

9 be a presentation by the program. We're going to

10 change things a little bit. We had Stephen Zangwill

11 who is our chief contracting officer and our

12 division director for the division of procurement

13 management. He was also unable to be here, so Frank

14 is substituting for him.

15 So we're going to go straight through, 16 we're not going to have a break today.

17 If for any reason someone has to leave

18 before the proceedings are over, we ask that you

19 stand at the back and you'll be escorted back to the

20 lobby.

21 The main purpose of this pre-proposal

22 conference is to open up communication between HRSA

1 and the vendors and we look forward to exchanging

2 information and hope that whatever information we

3 provide to you will assist you in proposing a

4 solution to our procurements.

5 I'd like to now introduce Mr. Eulas

6 Dortch.

7 EULAS DORTCH: Good afternoon.

8 (Good afternoon.).

9 EULAS DORTCH: I welcome you all so and

10 it is, indeed, a pleasure to see so many of you and

11 it's an indication of how much interest there is in

12 these two procurements.

13 We at HRSA value the independent review

14 process and we're glad that there's so much interest

15 in helping us carry out that, that function.

16 I wanted to share with you a little bit

17 about what HRSA is and where we fit in the process

18 and then go into a little bit of the DIR portion of

19 our activities here.

20 HRSA, as you know, is a major Agency in

21 the Department of Health and Human Services. Many

22 of the programs you may know are those afforded by, 1 carried out by bureaus that we have that execute

2 programs in maternal and child health and HIV and

3 AIDS and World Health activities, Bureau of Health, 4 Bureau of Primary Health Care programs, so we have a

5 myriad of programs all targeted at helping the

6 uninsured, underinsured and promoting access to

7 services in communities where there is a lack.

8 So that's part of the general mission of

9 the Agency. We have a commitment here in HRSA to

10 assuring that the objective review process that is

11 carried out on competitive announcement, that that

12 is done in a fair and equitable way and that is the

13 mission that we are charged with here in DIR to

14 carry out.

15 The commitment is strong. It's one that

16 is valued from the highest ranks of this

17 organization and we feel compelled to do our best to

18 carry that out.

19 The centralized review process was

20 introduced a few years ago where we no longer have

21 the individual bureaus executing their own

22 independent objective review processes, but a

1 standardized one has been developed. We now use

2 standard review criteria, so all applicants respond

3 to a similar kind of guidance.

4 There are approximately 100 programs

5 implemented in the Agency throughout the course of a

6 given year that have to go through the competitive

7 review process.

8 That represents somewhere between 4,000

9 and 5,000 applications each year that get processed

10 through the independent review unit that we operate

11 in.

12 The model that we exercise here, because

13 they vary, as you know, from Agency to Agency and

14 department to department, but the model that we

15 exercise here for independent review is one in which

16 we engage three primary reviewers to review

17 applications.

18 Those primary reviewers are responsible

19 for reading from cover to cover those applications

20 and extracting critical information from that, those

21 applications to be then discussed in a broader

22 panel. The panel will vary in size, but generally

1 can range up to between six and twelve people, 2 perhaps.

3 But it is the collective group of that

4 panel that ultimately weighs in on and develops the

5 ultimate strengths and weaknesses of that

6 application and participate in the scoring.

7 There are other departments where that's

8 tweaked a little bit different, but that's the model

9 that we exercise here in HRSA.

10 Our process is also a paper process

11 currently. It is, has not moved to the next level, 12 but we hope, we're hopeful that one day in the not

13 too distant future it will where applications will

14 be reviewed online by reviewers, but currently they

15 are not. They are -- it is a paper process in which

16 we capture the applications through the grants.gov

17 process, we make copies of those documents and then

18 we provide them to the reviewers for their use.

19 In a future time I'm sure we will be

20 preparing our reviewers to be able to do that in a

21 different way. Electronically is the direction that

22 we hopefully are going to.

1 So our mission is to carry out these

2 100 plus reviews in an objective and fair way and to

3 do so in a timely way, because all of our guidances

4 are issued at different times during the fiscal year

5 and have to be awarded by different award date.

6 So each review has, in essence, its own

7 schedule and it is critical for DIR to make sure

8 that we carry out our piece of that action so that

9 awards can be made at the designated time.

10 Now, the most important part of our

11 process is the engagement of reviewers. It is, it

12 is a requirement that we get outside expertise to

13 look at these applications and what we've done here

14 at HRSA is to establish a reviewer database that has

15 currently somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,500

16 reviewers who have skills that range from the -- to

17 satisfy the needs of the various programs here that

18 we operate here in HRSA.

19 It is a growing pool and we're

20 constantly trying to get more people in there

21 because it does something for us that is critical in

22 this process, and that is it allows us to be able to

1 staff with qualified people each of the panels or

2 objective review committees with the skill sets

3 needed to evaluate and consider those applications

4 objectively.

5 Part of our responsibility, of course, 6 is to make sure that those reviewers are equipped

7 and understand the rules and the principles that are

8 at play in the process, that they are not to compare

9 applications, that they are to operate with

10 confidentiality as they carry out our review

11 difficulties.

12 So, it's our responsibility to make sure

13 and it's part of the whole attempt that we make to

14 be sure that this is an equitable process to all

15 applicants who are eligible to compete.

16 Our reviewers are required to score the

17 applications, but in this particular Agency, we

18 establish the review criteria that each applicant

19 must respond to, each bureau in the development of

20 that guidance establishes the points, the weights to

21 be given to each of those, each criterion, and it is

22 the responsibility, our responsibility to assure

1 that the reviewers assign scores consistent with

2 that guidance.

3 So, there is an ongoing link to that, so

4 it's important for us to educate reviewers and part

5 of our responsibility in this Agency to -- in this

6 office to do that.

7 The implementation of the review process

8 here at HRSA and as we execute it in DIR includes

9 essentially three types of reviews.

10 We do face-to-face reviews, which are

11 the more typical ones that many of you may be

12 familiar with, but where reviewers are identified, 13 they are sent applications, they review those

14 applications at a home location or office location, 15 wherever they might be. Generally they're given

16 somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 days to

17 review those applications. They are charged with

18 developing strengths and weaknesses associated with

19 those applications, consistent with the criteria

20 laid out in the guidance, and they do preliminary

21 scoring of those.

22 As part of the face-to-face review

1 process, they are then brought here to Washington

2 for a formal meeting where, as panels, they will sit

3 and discuss each of those applications with the

4 primary reviewers presenting their findings to the

5 larger panel and then engaging in a, in a discussion

6 to ferret out the major strengths and the major

7 weaknesses of each application with appropriate

8 supporting documentation.

9 That's a critical piece for us because

10 we want there to be substance to the decisions that

11 are made in that process.

12 So they will convene here in the

13 face-to-face format at one of the local area hotels, 14 generally the meetings run anywhere from two to five

15 days, as a max, and at the end of that process, they

16 are able to generate a summary statement and score

17 for each of those, those applications.

18 The second model that we use and it is a

19 growing model that we use a bit more extensively, or

20 are trying to, anyway, because part of our charge is

21 to do these reviews not only in a qualitative

22 fashion, but also in a cost efficient manner, we are

1 using Web-based telephone reviews as a second means

2 of carrying out these competitions.

3 The difference in the review model is

4 essentially that instead of having to by train or

5 rail or car come to Washington, they are able to in

6 their own settings connect with us via phone and via

7 computer to discuss and deliberate those

8 applications, the strengths and weaknesses just as

9 in the face-to-face format, okay. And again, they

10 result in scoring and a collaborative or agreed-upon

11 summary statement for each of the applications under

12 consideration.

13 The third option is a field reader model

14 and the difference in that process as we still send

15 out the applications to reviewers, they are given a

16 similar timeline to complete those applications and

17 transmit them back to us. The difference is there

18 is no planned engagement or discussion between the

19 reviewers with regard to their various findings on

20 those applications.

21 The only time that there is an

22 engagement would be where there are such significant

1 differences or variances in the outcomes of the

2 three reviewers who were assigned the particular

3 application that it merits some follow-up in the

4 form of a phone call back to those, those reviewers, 5 those targeted reviewers.

6 In the first two models, we have as part

7 of that process a formal debriefing post the

8 discussion -- the meeting to derive from that

9 process the good and the bad that may have come out

10 of that process.

11 So formally we have a time set aside at

12 the end of each meeting to ask the reviewers to give

13 us feedback on whether the guidance, itself, that

14 they looked at and had to make use of was

15 appropriate, whether the worksheets that they were

16 provided were appropriate, whether travel

17 acquisitions were appropriate, where connectivity to

18 Internet and/or phones were problematic. It's an

19 array of things and whether or not they think the

20 process that we use ought to be changed.

21 We're interested in their feedback

22 because they are valuable to us, they're valuable

1 commodities to us and their input and their, their

2 decisions, their recommendations are of value.

3 We take, capture that information and

4 make use of it in our own debriefings back here in

5 DIR and with the particular bureaus that, whose

6 programs we will have taken through that process.

7 We don't do that in the field review

8 model, but in the others there is a formal time set

9 aside for deliberation on that.

10 Participants in our review process are

11 pretty standardized. We have, in DIR, a person that

12 we classify as a review administrator. That person

13 is charged with the execution of that review, 14 coordinating with various other offices here at HRSA

15 responsible overall for the identification of

16 reviewers who need to staff the reviews, for looking

17 at conflicts of interest, concerns and making sure

18 that they are addressed and adhered to as people are

19 assigned to review applications, planning the and

20 coordinating the location for the meetings, whether

21 they be internal in the case of Web-based reviews

22 here at Parklawn or whether they be at hotel

1 lodging.

2 So they are critical for coordination

3 with our contracting staff to make sure that that

4 process is carried out.

5 They are, overall, responsible for the

6 ultimate product in the, in this review process that

7 we engage.

8 Other people who are in attendance at

9 all of those meetings include our grants management

10 staff. They are a component of another part of the

11 Office of Federal Assistance Management, but their

12 primary responsibility is to attend the meetings and

13 respond to questions and answers that reviewers may

14 have with respect to questions around budget. They

15 are ultimately responsible for allowable costs and

16 the like, but should reviewers in their

17 deliberations about particular applications have

18 questions about appropriateness and reasonableness

19 of costs, then they can rely -- call upon our grants

20 staff to address those, those issues.

21 We also have obviously a program staff

22 in attendance at those meetings who are responsible

1 for clarifying, making sure that questions that are

2 raised are adhered to, that adhere to policies and

3 standards and regulatory requirements, that

4 reviewers are on target when they make certain

5 statements or issues, interpretations relative to

6 our standards.

7 That's a, a critical piece in our

8 process because they are the writers of the

9 guidance, they are the interpreters of the guidance.

10 If there are issues in that process that are

11 difficult for reviewers to contend with, then it is

12 important that our program staff would be aware of

13 that and make the appropriate clarifications and

14 that better assures that all applications will get a

15 fair hearing. So they will always be in attendance

16 at our, at our meetings.

17 We also have at those meetings a person

18 that we classify as a chairperson on a review

19 committee. The chairperson basically oversees and

20 coordinates the meeting, processes the applications

21 as to what order they occur, is a monitor of the

22 dialogue that goes on with the, between the

1 reviewers and the development of the final summary

2 statement and is an arbiter of whether or not

3 information may be inappropriately brought in for, 4 to the discussion that should be excluded.

5 They are sort of a timekeeper, they're a

6 referee, they are a facilitator, so it's a key role

7 that we rely upon and the people who serve in that

8 capacity are also people who are competent and

9 skilled in the particular program area so they not

10 only have the facilitating capabilities, but they

11 also have the substance to give oversight to that

12 process.

13 So they're a critical player in our

14 review meetings and of course the reviewers and I

15 talked about their responsibility, reading the

16 application, making sure the content is captured, is

17 accurate, and so we, they're the players at the

18 meeting.

19 The other folks at the meeting

20 essentially are our contractor staff and Bill is

21 going to talk about in just a bit the contractor's

22 responsibility under this process and give you some

1 details about how that, how that functions.

2 The ultimate product that we produce and

3 that we're looking for out of our implementation of

4 the DIR process is the development of a rank order

5 list that is useful to program staff in deciding how

6 best to assign funds. That rank order list is a

7 critical document that they, is valued at this

8 organization, that they must adhere to, unless they

9 have substantial reasons for deviation.

10 It runs to the notion that we give

11 substantial credence to the value of outside

12 reviewers and their expertise to comment and give

13 this Agency guidance and recommendations about where

14 it ought to expend its funds.

15 So the rank order list is a critical

16 document that we rely upon, contractor staff to pull

17 together for us, and the other document that we

18 produce in this process is the summary statement. A

19 summary statement is an official statement that

20 identifies the strengths and weaknesses of each

21 application consistent with the criteria set forth

22 in the guidance.

1 It is important that, that that document

2 be accurate, that it be, it's clearly written as we

3 can, can get with a collaboration of input from

4 10 to 12 reviewers, but it needs to be on point.

5 Its objective is that it provides two major

6 purposes, one is it is feedback to the program

7 staff, the grants and management staff will have to

8 look at those statements to extract from those, 9 perhaps, conditions or requirements that they may

10 impose even if they chose to award a grant to a

11 given applicant, that that document represents a

12 source of input for their use.

13 So it's important that it be accurate

14 and well stated. The document is also important and

15 critical to us because it will be given back to all

16 of those applicants who applied for funds under this

17 program so that they have an opportunity to look at

18 the comments that the reviewers found to be of

19 significance in deriving the score that they gave to

20 that particular application, if for no other

21 purpose, for use during future application

22 opportunities.

1 That's essentially the overview of the

2 process that we use here at HRSA and I know there

3 are going to be time -- there will be time for

4 questions, but Bill is going to now address the

5 general issue of contractor role that I'm sure you

6 all are interested in, so.

7 BILL SCHEIG: Thank you, Eulas, and I

8 will be remiss if I didn't join the chorus and say

9 welcome everyone who came out this afternoon and I, 10 too, am thrilled that we have this level of interest

11 in our work here.

12 My name is Bill Scheig, I'm the branch

13 chief of what is titled the policy and training

14 branch. What I really think of us as is the support

15 arm of DIR that provides any and all services

16 necessary to the review administrators in the

17 conduct of the reviews.

18 And I stand here today in front of you

19 because it is from within my branch that the project

20 officers for these contracts will be chosen and it

21 was from within my branch, along with the hard work

22 by a number of other people, that the statements of

1 work were actually drawn up for these procurements.

2 I'm going to share some stuff with you

3 for just a second so you might know a little bit

4 more about me. I have my own quirks, my own way of

5 doing things and looking at the world and in the

6 aggregate, I refer to them as Bill Scheig's

7 methodologies or, for short, BS methodology.

8 And one of the things that the people in

9 the front row might have noticed is when I sat down, 10 the first thing I did was I picked up the agenda and

11 I always do that to see if what they say I'm going

12 to talk about is what I thought I was going to talk

13 about when I came in here, because it's not

14 necessarily so in all cases, and we're pretty close

15 in this case. I wasn't too far afield from what

16 they wanted me to talk about.

17 The second thing that I do is that I'm

18 constantly rewriting what I'm going to say as I

19 prepare to speak, based on either what I hear, what

20 I see going on, sometimes a random thought and so I

21 always say with some sincerity that I can't wait to

22 see what I'm going to say when I get up and speak to

1 a group because it's never exactly what I came in

2 the door thinking I was going to do.

3 And the third thing I want to share with

4 you is that, and this came to me as I was reviewing

5 the material for today's meeting, that I have always

6 found, and this is a confession I make, that reading

7 about and listening about objective review processes

8 is as dry as last year's corn flakes, from my

9 perspective. And it's always, and when I've thought

10 that, that's true, it's reminded me of what I felt

11 like when I used to read Hamlet back in high school, 12 which they seemed to have us do every other year for

13 some reason. We were always reading Hamlet and I

14 never could understand what the fascination was.

15 But like objective reviews, once you saw

16 the play performed, all of a sudden it made a great

17 deal of sense and when you see an objective review

18 take place, all of a sudden this all makes a great

19 deal of sense. And like a really good play, like

20 Hamlet, an objective review involves the

21 interactions of a lot of very complicated

22 characters, all striving towards a story.

1 Now in the case of Hamlet, the story is

2 your parents will drive you crazy. In the case of

3 the objective review, we're telling a story to every

4 single applicant that has sent in a proposal for

5 that particular program and the story that we're

6 telling is that your application has been reviewed

7 by a group of people who are knowledgeable in that

8 field, who are not tainted by bias, have no known

9 conflicts of interest, that as a group have arrived

10 at a consensus opinion of how to score your

11 application and what its strengths and weaknesses

12 are.

13 And that is what we are all about and

14 what these procurements are all about is to help us

15 manage the details of making this operation a

16 success. That's what we do.

17 Another BS methodology is that I always

18 assume that if you've been given something to read, 19 you'll read it. And in this case, the statement of

20 work goes into what I hope is clear and concise

21 detail of exactly what all the responsibilities will

22 be for the contractor on those procurements and

1 they've been cleverly organized and named into

2 sections called pre-review, review, post review and

3 close-out, lest there be any confusion about which

4 is which.

5 Some of the things that we highlight and

6 want everyone to think about as they look these

7 through is in the pre-review portion of this

8 process, this is where we're looking for reviewers

9 and chairpersons, if chairpersons are needed, that

10 are available and qualified to conduct the review.

11 You will assist us in making those

12 selections. If travel arrangements, lodging and

13 meeting rooms are necessary, you will make those

14 arrangements. You will be responsible for

15 assembling the materials that we tell you that we

16 need to go out for that particular review and

17 mailing them out. You will be responsible for

18 preparing the roster for panels, if there are more

19 than one panel on the review, with our guidance and

20 putting those together. You will be responsible for

21 tracking all of the materials that need to be sent

22 back by the review participants prior to the review

1 and those items that need to be consolidated, you

2 will be responsible for consolidating.

3 When we get to the actual review, 4 itself, you are going to have to provide the staff

5 to assist us in conducting that review. You are

6 also going to be responsible for helping us monitor

7 the quality of the review and look out for any

8 indications of any bias or impropriety in the

9 proceedings that are going on. You're going to be

10 responsible for collecting and securing all of the

11 materials and maintaining the confidentiality of the

12 review.

13 If it's appropriate and, by the way, 14 we'll always provide a task order that tells you

15 exactly what services we need, if it's appropriate, 16 you'll be assisting in arranging the going-home

17 transportation for the reviewers if we're talking

18 about a gathering of a face-to-face meeting and

19 finally, you'll also be responsible for making sure

20 that the schedule of deliverables is the same as we

21 initially planned and making any adjustments and

22 re-affirmations of understandings at that point.

1 And all of that is a lot of work, but

2 that's not really the most important part. The most

3 important part comes in the post review phase where

4 the rank order list and the summary statements that

5 Eulas just spoke about need to be prepared and these

6 really are the products of the review and are the

7 things that this whole process is geared to, because

8 this is what then makes the funding process

9 possible.

10 There's administrative stuff that needs

11 to be done post review, you have to make sure that

12 all the reviewers receive their honorarium, that all

13 expenses are paid and you need to report back to us

14 how much this thing costs within 60 days.

15 And then finally, as close-out, there's

16 an official folder that contains all the

17 documentation and any data clean-up and collection

18 that we need to do on the reviewer population that

19 we worked with.

20 And that is just an overview. That's

21 the highlights. The details are therein on the

22 statement of work.

1 But what we're doing is we are enabling

2 HRSA to meet its mission by providing funds to the

3 public through the grant process and the products

4 represent the, kind of the midpoint of that funding

5 process, the determination of how the application's

6 actually scored. But it's the objectiveness and the

7 lack of bias and the fairness of the review is

8 really what we're trying to accomplish and it's the

9 story and the message that we're trying to send to

10 the public.

11 And these contractors are integral to

12 that process and I'm done.

13 AILEEN BROIDER: The solicitation for

14 the face-to-face meeting was published on the

15 Federal Business Opportunities Website last

16 Wednesday, December 5th, and included were the

17 statement of work, the request for proposal and all

18 the attachments.

19 Also posted on FedBusOps on December 5th

20 was a draft statement of work for the teleconference

21 and the field review. That will be, the

22 face-to-face will be one contract and the

1 teleconference and the field review will be the

2 second contract.

3 For your information, we hope that a

4 final, the solicitation will be posted next week, so

5 I'm sure some of you are curious about that and I

6 wanted to mention that up front.

7 Did you want to go now? Okay.

8 FRANK MURPHY: As Bill Scheig so

9 appropriately put it, he looks at the agenda to see

10 what he's supposed to be saying and then goes ahead

11 and says whatever he wants to say anyway. I looked

12 at the agenda to see what I'm supposed to be

13 addressing and realized I could say absolutely

14 anything because I'm not on the agenda.

15 I am your pinch hitter today. The

16 contracting officer had something that came up, she

17 couldn't be here and our director of procurement

18 management couldn't be here. I'm the chief of the

19 contracts operations branch, the other contract

20 branch. Alexandra Garcia issued this solicitation, 21 but what I wanted to do is just to explain what a

22 pre-solicitation -- a pre-proposal conference is all

1 about, how we will handle the solicitation and what

2 we have out there.

3 FAR 15201 addresses pre-proposal

4 conferences and they're meant to give the Agencies

5 background to a solicitation. Now we're having this

6 information or this presentation recorded for the

7 purpose of releasing a transcript that we will, will

8 post on the Website in case you didn't, you missed

9 something. I noticed everyone taking notes. Notes

10 are a good thing, but you may see all of this again.

11 We have a solicitation that was posted

12 out there on December 5th. It made you folks aware

13 of this pre-proposal conference. It also allowed

14 you to submit questions to us and the question due

15 date is December 17th for the first solicitation.

16 There is also a statement of work that

17 is posted out there which is open for comment. It's

18 not in full solicitation form and when Aileen

19 Broider was saying that they would be issuing

20 another solicitation, what she was referring to was

21 the solicitation for that portion.

22 Eulas and Bill had mentioned the areas

1 in which they are supporting. We intend on issuing

2 an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract

3 for each one of the solicitations. We intend on

4 issuing -- they're currently set up as best value

5 types of selection process for the indefinite

6 quantity contract, at least the first solicitation

7 is, for a particular area. You want to look at the

8 statement of work for the general services that are

9 being, being provided, you want to look at the

10 second statement of work if you have any comments.

11 The -- your questions and answers may

12 result in amendments to the solicitation or

13 adjustments and we are going to be open for

14 questions about this. I have to apologize, I'm a

15 pinch hitter, I got tapped at about 11:00 today, 16 they said hey, there's a pre-proposal conference, I

17 said huh?

18 These events are important. They are

19 important to give the vendor community background

20 information and that information is supplemental to

21 the written statement of work information.

22 If you have any questions about this, if

1 you think of any questions on the way, way home, you

2 can certainly submit them to us. Eileen's E-mail

3 and -- is in, on the cover page of the solicitation.

4 These are also -- the first solicitation is a small

5 business -- 100 percent small business set-aside.

6 It will establish, result in an award that will

7 establish ceiling, hourly ceiling rates in different

8 labor categories. We're using those hourly ceiling

9 rates as a way to determine best value. There's the

10 quality of the proposal, there's evaluation criteria

11 that are built into the solicitation, there's even a

12 hypothetical case built into the first solicitation.

13 If you have questions about that, you

14 can certainly contact us. Does anyone have any open

15 questions right now?

16 Boy, we're good. Must have the perfect

17 solicitation.

18 Okay. Yes.

19 ASHLEY BETTIS: I have a -- my name is

20 Ashley --

21 AILEEN BROIDER: Excuse me, we would

22 like everybody to speak into the mics. She's coming

1 around, so.

2 ASHLEY BETTIS: Hi, my name is Ashley

3 Bettis. I'm from McFarland and Associates and I

4 have a question.

5 Specifically in the RFP on page 42, it

6 says that there's going to be three separate

7 volumes, technical, business and past performance.

8 FRANK MURPHY: Uh-huh.

9 ASHLEY BETTIS: However, on page 45 it

10 says that past performance is Part F of the

11 technical, which is volume one, so I just wanted to

12 clarify if there were actually three separate

13 volumes or if past performance is part of volume

14 one.

15 FRANK MURPHY: We will have to look into

16 that. Off, as I said, offhand, generally we have

17 two separate volumes. The evaluation criteria on

18 this has a technical scale of 1 to 95 and then has

19 5 percentage points allotted to past performance, so

20 it, we would have to look into that specific

21 question.

22 AILEEN BROIDER: Maybe just to, to

1 clarify, the past performance comments from the

2 three different previous contractors are to be

3 submitted to us separately and they're also due on

4 December -- on January 17th, the date that the

5 proposal is due, so does that answer?

6 ASHLEY BETTIS: That, yeah, I did see

7 that as well. I was just wondering if there was a

8 separate piece that was specifically supposed to be

9 part of the technical proposal as it was Part F

10 there, in addition to what the RFP, the attached

11 comments that were to be submitted to you.

12 AILEEN BROIDER: No, that's, that's it.

13 ASHLEY BETTIS: Okay.

14 CAREY PARRETT: Hi, my name's Carey

15 Parrett and I'm with LCG, Inc. I have two

16 questions.

17 The first one has to do with transition

18 plan. Is there a transition plan that's already

19 been put together by the current contractor, was

20 that part of what they are expected to do or was

21 that part of what would be in the proposal from us?

22 AILEEN BROIDER: I'm sorry, they can't

1 hear you. Is the mic on?

2 CAREY PARRETT: Hello, sorry. Hey. My

3 name's Carey Parrett, LCG, Inc, and the first

4 question deals with a transition plan.

5 Is there a current transition plan put

6 together by the contractors that are in place or is

7 that something that would be put together by the

8 contractors that are bidding?

9 BILL SCHEIG: This is called default.

10 There's two ways to answer that.

11 Strictly speaking there is no current contractor

12 since this scope of work has been written very much

13 differently than the one that supports the services

14 currently.

15 What we've done and what we envision is

16 is that since it's a task order contract, when, when

17 a new contractor is selected and comes on board, we

18 will be directing them through the process of how to

19 initiate.

20 CAREY PARRETT: Okay, and the second one

21 was just subcontractors, subcontractors, would they

22 be considered in the evaluation with the prime, 1 their experience?

2 BILL SCHEIG: The answer is absolutely.

3 CAREY PARRETT: Okay.

4 FRANK MURPHY: It's also you have to

5 keep in mind that it's a small business set-aside

6 and there's a percentage that the prime has to

7 perform, 51 percent via the prime.

8 We do -- we have received questions, 9 many questions and we are going to post those so

10 that some of this deals with the issue you just

11 asked about, if there is an incumbent, and there

12 isn't an exact incumbent, but this will be, these

13 questions will be posted. Okay. Yes.

14 BILL THOMPSON: Yeah, hi, I'm Bill

15 Thompson from Information Ventures and in the

16 solicitation there is a, there are a number of items

17 that are referred to for regulatory compliance.

18 Will they be made available to offerors before

19 proposals are due?

20 FRANK MURPHY: Well, if at all possible, 21 we will try to do, attempt to do that.

22 BILL THOMPSON: Will they be posted, you

1 know on your Website someplace or on anything like

2 that for review in --

3 FRANK MURPHY: You're talking to the

4 pinch hitter here, okay, so I, I, but we, we

5 frequently do that, if there are references that are

6 referenced in the statement of work, we can either

7 give you the Website to research it or to physically

8 post it. Some, some references, I mean in my

9 contract experience we've had references that

10 pre-date the electronic age and they, we allow

11 contractors to come in and view the item, but I --

12 it's usually not the case any longer.

13 But if, if you could submit that, the

14 specific references --

15 BILL THOMPSON: Sure.

16 FRANK MURPHY: -- then we would make an

17 attempt to answer that and if we can provide you

18 with a Website, we will do that. If we can or if

19 it's one of our documents, we'll try to post it as

20 an attachment to the announcement.

21 BILL THOMPSON: Can I ask another

22 question?

1 FRANK MURPHY: Sure.

2 BILL THOMPSON: In the statement of work

3 there is reference to collaborative meetings. Are

4 they the same as the face-to-face meetings?

5 BILL SCHEIG: I could be really rotten

6 and say no. The only difference between a

7 collaborative and a regular face-to-face meeting is

8 that sometimes through circumstances that we can't

9 control the amount of time available to move from

10 publishing the guidance to having to make an award

11 is truncated to the point that it's not possible to

12 allow the reviewers several weeks to prepare prior

13 to getting together in a meeting to discuss.

14 In those cases we bring them in to town

15 early and they form essentially three-person triads

16 and they actually review the proposal -- the grant

17 proposals on days one and two and then discuss them

18 on three and four.

19 BILL THOMPSON: Thank you.

20 FRANK MURPHY: Yes.

21 PHYLLIS SHEARER JONES: Good afternoon, 22 I'm Phyllis Shearer Jones from Elan International.

1 I was just wondering, are you going to post the

2 attendee list of -- hello, okay. Good afternoon, 3 I'm Phyllis Shearer Jones, Elan International, I was

4 just wondering, are you going to post the attendee

5 list from this pre-proposal meeting on to the

6 Website?

7 FRANK MURPHY: We can, if it adds value, 8 and I guess we could scan it and, I mean we --

9 AILEEN BROIDER: What is your reason?

10 FRANK MURPHY: If you want us to do

11 that, we can do that.

12 PHYLLIS SHEARER JONES: Usually it's, 13 this is also a good networking session for us among

14 each other.

15 FRANK MURPHY: Sure. Sure.

16 GEORGE McFARLAND: George McFarland, 17 McFarland and Associates.

18 I was wondering if you could say

19 something about the answer to question number 17.

20 In the list of responses to questions, I, I looked

21 at the answer and I wasn't sure that I still

22 understood what the basis for the answer and it has

1 to do with rental and leasing of equipment.

2 I'm just trying to find, figure out

3 what's the thinking about, it seems to be a

4 requirement, but, but not billable, if I, if I'm

5 interpreting it correctly.

6 FRANK MURPHY: Well I don't know without

7 being specifically attuned to the statement of work.

8 If it is a requirement of the statement of work as a

9 direct cost, then that is fine.

10 Normally under contracts if they are

11 general office equipment, your general operational

12 equipment, they are items that are in the overhead.

13 If it is for setting up a specific meeting and it is

14 part of the meeting expense of setting them up, then

15 it, it might be something that would be required by

16 the individual task order. But --

17 BOB GOLDBERG: Bob Goldberg from

18 Information Ventures.

19 Could you elaborate on the ways in which

20 the present contract does differ from what the

21 previous contractor was doing; in other words, I

22 recognize the statement that there is no incumbent

1 because it's not the same activity. Could you

2 describe a little bit the way in which it's changed?

3 FRANK MURPHY: I'll really unprepared to

4 do that.

5 BOB GOLDBERG: I didn't mean you.

6 Presumably --

7 FRANK MURPHY: You have two contracts

8 branches and so I'll defer to our program staff.

9 BILL SCHEIG: Yes, and I'm going to

10 defer to a written response because it's not a

11 straightforward, it's a straightforward answer but

12 there's many parts of it.

13 I can tell you generally that this

14 statement of work is a lot more specific in areas

15 than the previous one and the contract instrument, 16 itself, is different than the one we used in the

17 past. The prior one was not truly an IDIQ, but let

18 me, let us write all that out so that there's no

19 fuzziness about the answer.

20 BILL THOMPSON: Bill Thompson, 21 Information Ventures.

22 I just wanted to confirm that there will

1 be only one contract award under this IDIQ?

2 FRANK MURPHY: Well I had that question

3 this morning. I opened up this document, the

4 provision at the current time, the provision for

5 multi awards FAR 5221627 is not in there and in the

6 evaluation criteria there's no reference of a multi

7 award.

8 The, we can make -- the contracting

9 officer can make a determination on whether to do a

10 multi award schedule or do a single award. There is

11 a multi award preference when certain conditions

12 apply, FAR 16504, but in this case because of the

13 nature and the rapid-fire nature of these meetings, 14 a single award or taking, addressing the issue with

15 one award may be the appropriate thing.

16 If you have, if you have an issue with

17 that, submit it to us and we would, we'll talk to

18 our legal counsel about that.

19 BILL SCHEIG: And if I can clarify --

20 oh, well, never mind.

21 FRANK MURPHY: See, one of the, the

22 determining factors for single or multiple award are

1 scope and complexity of the contract requirement, 2 extent and duration and frequency of the task orders

3 and I, as was mentioned, there will be many

4 rapid-fire kind of task orders issued.

5 In the past we did these with, with

6 single orders off of larger mechanisms and we did a

7 whole years worth on a single order, but what we're

8 doing is making our task orders correspond more

9 directly to the specific meetings and stuff like

10 that.

11 So the complexity of the individual

12 orders will not be gargantuan and the duration would

13 not be extremely long, so.

14 It's a choice. I mean we could consider

15 multi choices and there are pros and cons to each

16 variation, but the way it's currently written, it's

17 not written with the clause for multi award or the, 18 in Section M the description for multi award.

19 BILL SCHEIG: And now that I've given it

20 to a woman and they can fix it because they can

21 follow the directions, I just wanted to clarify that

22 we are envisioning two separate procurements here, 1 one for face-to-face and one for teleconference and

2 field.

3 FRANK MURPHY: And as two separate

4 procurements, they would be evaluated independently, 5 they could be the same or different contractors.

6 There is no, no correction between the two. Two

7 separate solicitations, I should say.

8 MARGIE MAISONET: Hi, Margie Maisonet

9 from the Federal Practice Group.

10 The statement of work for the

11 face-to-face states that in 2007 about 100 reviews

12 were done, 45 percent face-to-face, 45 percent

13 teleconference and 10 percent field review.

14 Do you have any idea if roughly the same

15 will hold true for 2008, percentage wise?

16 EULAS DORTCH: The percentages are about

17 the same. We are, the way we arrive at -- derive

18 that whole process is we negotiate with each bureau

19 once they identify which programs they intend to

20 compete in an upcoming year and we go through a

21 dialogue with them to define whether or not the

22 program, itself, represents modifications in it that

1 would be significantly different that would require

2 or be beneficial to the Agency to have it occur in a

3 face-to-face format. And as we look at some of

4 those programs, some of our programs range in

5 complexity as well as scope and volume and in some

6 programs they tend to lend themselves to actual

7 direct engagement. And every time there is any new, 8 nuances or change in a program, we give way to

9 programs wishes to have those in a face-to-face

10 format.

11 The trend is in the other direction.

12 What we've negotiated so far this year is pretty

13 much in line with the 207 agenda, but I would

14 suspect in future years that's going to move more

15 and more in the direction of Web teleconference as

16 the preferred and least-costly method for conducting

17 these reviews.

18 NYCAL ANTHONY: Good afternoon, my name

19 is Nycal Anthony from Alliances for Quality

20 Education and I had a couple of questions.

21 One, with regard to there are pros and

22 cons to multiple IDIQ awards. You mentioned some of

1 the pros, what are some of the cons is my first

2 question.

3 The second, with regard to the number of

4 days for face-to-face reviews and the honorarium, I

5 understand there are three days, but are there two

6 days, additional days provided honorarium prior to

7 their face-to-face time?

8 FRANK MURPHY: Well one is purely an

9 academic issue, contractual academic issue, your

10 first question. The -- actually the pros to having

11 a single award is the, you don't have to go through

12 an individual competition with each task order.

13 The con to that is you don't get a

14 refreshment of a whole new group -- or a new vendor.

15 You look at the capacity of the total workload and

16 what that would do, whether a small business could

17 take on this, this amount of workload. You also

18 look at what we would be putting you folks through

19 with the issuance of each task order.

20 When we would be doing a best value

21 purchase on each task order, when you only have one

22 IDIQ holder, what you do is you get costing

1 proposals, but you don't have to go into the extent

2 that you have to go into on the best value when you

3 have multiple schedules because you look at the

4 quality of their technical approach and things like

5 that. So it, where that line is where you cross

6 over from a single to a multi, it's, it's not

7 written in stone, it's kind of a subjective thing.

8 The single awardee would obviously have an easier

9 administrative process for addressing these;

10 however, it means that only one awardee for each

11 solicitation would happen.

12 Currently the, we had some large task

13 orders that handled the annual work in each one of

14 these categories, so we're not taking something that

15 was multi and putting it into a single one. We're

16 pretty much staying consistent with the single

17 vendor, however we had an issue with the costing out

18 for quantity, costing out for number of meetings and

19 we said geez, you know, we have an instrument that's

20 not quite accurate or reflecting how many meetings

21 we're doing in that annual year.

22 We had a competition for, these are all

1 hypothetical for 20 meetings and only used 10 of

2 them. It doesn't -- you know, we had a misleading

3 type of thing.

4 So we're trying to correct some of that.

5 EULAS DORTCH: There is a, while we may

6 average out about 100 programs in a given year, 7 that's not necessarily how we start out and in the

8 planning process that's not necessarily what

9 Congress makes available for the programs to

10 actually establish a competing program. So that

11 number can vary widely and we also have great

12 variations in the number of forecasted applications

13 that might come in sometimes versus what actually

14 comes in.

15 For the most part, though, we've nailed

16 that down pretty good and we think this process will

17 work, work for us well.

18 On the other question that was raised

19 had to do with, I think your question was getting at

20 the issue of whether we pay for review or reading

21 time and we do not. Essentially the cost is based

22 on the 350, but we, per day for the time that they

1 are present at a meeting. We generally propose that

2 or present that to our reviewers, however, on the

3 idea that we know we've projected this to be a

4 two-day meeting, we know that it's going to be --

5 that that's going to turn out to be 700 bucks, but

6 in a given case that might be, there are many

7 reviewers who have reviewed for other programs where

8 there's an amount paid for reading time prior to the

9 start of the meeting.

10 What we present in our offer to

11 reviewers is there is a review occurring on these

12 days for which there is a reimbursement on an

13 honorarium basis of X, so we specify the amount.

14 Not necessarily attributing it to a day, but for

15 your purposes it's 350 per day based on the number

16 of days we project that they will be here in

17 Washington engaged in the review process.

18 BILL THOMPSON: Bill Thompson, 19 Information Ventures. Just a follow-up on that.

20 How many applications or reviewers

21 typically ask to review?

22 EULAS DORTCH: Applications, the

1 standard is six to eight and it may vary sometimes

2 on some programs if they are unusually complex. We

3 have a standard number of pages in the Agency of

4 80-page applications. There are a few times when

5 that number turns out to be less than that and

6 certainly we adjust the number of applications that

7 are assigned to a reviewer when they are

8 substantially less than that.

9 There are very few instances where

10 programs are allowed to exceed that number and in

11 fact there's only a couple programs where that

12 occurs routinely and so that, that's a different

13 standard and we make an adjustment for the

14 assignment in that area.

15 ASHLEY BETTIS: Are you all limiting --

16 sorry, Ashley Bettis, McFarland and Associates, are

17 you all limiting proposals to those who are present

18 at the pre-bidders conference?

19 FRANK MURPHY: No, not at all, and as we

20 said, this, the transcripts from this pre-bidders

21 conference will be posted.

22 AILEEN BROIDER: Last chance for any

1 questions before I give you some parting

2 information?

3 Yes, okay. This lady.

4 NACEEMA THOMPSON: Naceema Thompson, 5 LCG.

6 A point of clarification, please, you're

7 receiving all electronic applications via grants.gov

8 and the potential contractor will then --

9 AILEEN BROIDER: I think you need to

10 speak up.

11 NACEEMA THOMPSON: You're going to be

12 receiving all applications electronically through

13 grants.gov; is that correct?

14 EULAS DORTCH: That essentially is

15 correct. We do get a number of paper applications

16 because of exceptions granted, waivers that are

17 granted because some applicants have difficulty

18 getting through that portal.

19 NACEEMA THOMPSON: Then can you describe

20…