Site Visit Briefing 12467020R0033.pdf

12467020R0033

Site Visit Briefing: 3/3/2020 0930 HRS

Road Construction IDIQ – Savannah River Site

Kelly B Updegraff, Contracting Officer, kelly.b.updegraff@usda.gov 803-561-4093

Ron Moseley, Contracting Officer’s Representative

This is a 100% Small Business Set Aside.

Overall Minimum Guarantee of each IDIQ contract (two) is: $25,000.00 Overall Single Order allowed under each IDIQ contract is: $250,000.00 Total Aggregate Maximum of each IDIQ contract is: $5,000,000.00

Base Year: 6 April 2020, or date of award, whichever is later, through 5 April 2021 Option Year 1: 6 April 2021 through 5 April 2022 Option Year 2: 6 April 2022 through 5 April 2023 Option Year 3: 6 April 2023 through 5 April 2024 Option Year 4: 6 April 2024 through 5 April 2025

Magnitude of this project will vary depending on the task order. For the seed project, it is less than $25,000.00.

The performance period will vary depending on the task order – a Notice to Proceed will be issued and will state the period of performance. For this seed project, the period of performance is 45 days from issuance of the Notice to Proceed.

Bonding will vary depending on the task order. For the seed project, no bonds are required.

Estimated Start Date: No greater than 10 days after the issuance of the Notice to Proceed.

Proposal due dates will be listed on the task order. Proposals for this IDIQ are due 31 March 2020 at 12:00 PM EST. Proposals for this IDIQ have been changed to now read 1 April 2020 at 12:00 PM EST.

Proposals may be mailed or hand carried to the address in Block 7 of the SF 1442 or emailed to kelly.b.updegraff@usda.gov. Email is preferred.

There are no Liquidated Damages

Offers must submit the following information to be considered responsive for this IDIQ:

1) SF 1442 (must be signed and dated)

2) BODY: CONTRACTOR INFORMATION – page 2 mailto:kelly.b.updegraff@usda.gov

3) BODY: SCHEDULE OF ITEMS – page 3

4) ATTACHMENT 1: DETAILED SCHEDULE OF ITEMS

5) AMENDMENTS (AS APPLICABLE)

Offerors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) at https://www.sam.gov and have an active account at the time proposals are due to be considered responsive.

The Prime Contractor is required to perform 20% of the work under the resulting contract.

Invoicing – Through the Invoice Processing Platform (www.ipp.gov). You can establish an account in IPP after the award of the contract if you do not already have one established from a previous award. The Department of Treasury will send you your user name and the Department of Agriculture will send you your password. IF YOU CHANGE BANKING ACCOUNTS: make sure to update your banking information in SAM and do not cancel or close your old account until you have received at least one (preferably more) payments in your new account. It is a nightmare to track down payments going to old accounts and may take you up to several months to get paid.

Progress Schedule will be submitted prior to the start of work

Only the Contracting Officer (CO) can modify the contract. Any modifications without the CO’s written permission will be at the peril of the Contractor.

Ensure all employees are being paid in accordance with the Department of Labor Wage Determination.

All construction posters must be posted in a public location and easily accessible. Posters may be found at https://www.dol.gov/whd/resources/posters.htm. Construction falls under the Davis-Bacon Act.

Technical Questions send via email to Kelly B Updegraff. Inquiry need to identify the page and paragraph in the specifications and/or the Sheet Number of the drawings the question refers to.

All QUESTIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED IN WRITING TO THE CONTRACTING OFFICER VIA EMAIL kelly.b.updegraff@usda.gov. ALL QUESTIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED PRIOR TO 25 March 2020.

TECHNICAL QUESTIONS RECEIVED AFTER THAT DATE WILL NOT BE RESPONDED TO.

THE INCUMBENT for this project is Hydra Engineering and Construction LLC of Crawfordville, FL. The IDIQ was a base year plus two option years. The maximum amount for the duration of the IDIQ was not to exceed $1,000,000.00; this was reached. Thirty (30) task orders were issued and the range per task order was from $7,000.00 to $100,000.00.

Ron Moseley and Eugene Whatley gave a brief overview of the project.

Question: What is the best way of determining how much money a contractor can actually make?

Answer: Congress dictates how much money we will receive for the year annually. Congress also tells us when we are authorized to start spending our annual budget. Although our annual budget was passed in December this fiscal year, we did not receive authority to spend the money until a few https://www.sam.gov/ http://www.ipp.gov/ https://www.dol.gov/whd/resources/posters.htm mailto:kelly.b.updegraff@usda.gov.

weeks ago. Some years we receive our budget and authority at the beginning of the fiscal year (October) and sometimes not. We cannot tell what Congress will do in the future. The best way to determine future funds for these coming years is to look at the incumbent’s past awards.

Question: Due to the small nature of road construction projects, can projects wait and be consolidated to make it worthwhile to mobilize.

Answer: It depends. There are several factors when considering this question. Some roads must be constructed immediately, regardless of the size. Some roads may wait. Some projects occur simultaneously while it may be up to six months between projects. Mobilization for the awardee is built into the cost of doing business and is not a line item so mobilization costs for a contractor living in Tennessee is vastly more expensive than a contractor living in New Ellenton.

Comment: Please clarify pricing for projects.

Response: Each project will be awarded as a firm fixed price task order and pricing per item can change from project to project. The Engineers have been building roads for years and are experts at identifying how much of each item is required to build a road. There is a 15% variable allowance per item required so if 100 tons of rock is required, between 85 and 115 tons of rock is within the acceptable variance for the established firm fixed task order. Therefore, if Project A costs $25,000.00 to complete, Project B could conceivably cost $20,000.00 (or $40,000.00) even though the projects may be similar in size and nature. Two contractors will receive an IDIQ award from this solicitation and they will compete against each other per the ordering procedure.

Question: What prevents a company from lowballing this seed project just to be one of the two awardees and later increasing their price per project?

Answer: I am expecting over 10 proposals, potentially as many as 40 proposals, for this seed project.

If a contractor lowballs their pricing and nobody else does, they will be out of the competitive range and their proposal will not be accepted. I am asking for the Detailed Schedule of Items to be returned and I will be evaluating all listed items against other proposals as well as already awarded prices of similar type projects within the local area to establish the competitive range. Additionally, if a company does lowball on the original seed project and not on later projects, the other awardee could be awarded all other task orders. If this happens, I will be contacting that company who lowballed and inform them they need to become more competitive. If they are unable or unwilling, we will have “offboarding/onboarding” written into the contract and at the annual review, I will not exercise the option year and will resolicit the project to bring in a new contractor.

Site Visit ended at 12:30 PM EST.

Kelly B Updegraff Contracting Officer