SOW_Attachment_A.pdf

ATTACHMENT A

ADMINISTRATIVE AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

FOR COASTAL FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMS

C.1 1352.211-70 STATEMENT OF WORK/SPECIFICATIONS (MAR 2000)

The Contractor shall furnish the necessary personnel, material, equipment, services and facilities

(except as otherwise specified) to perform the following Statement of Work/Specifications.

C.1.1 BACKGROUND

Guiding the conservation and wise management of the nation’s coastal resources is a primary function of the federal government’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

(NOAA). This is accomplished through a variety of mechanisms, including collaboration with other federal agencies, state and local coastal resource management programs, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions and private industry. The NOAA Office for Coastal

Management (Office) has offices in Charleston, South Carolina and Silver Spring, Maryland with several regional offices located throughout the United States, including Hawaii and the Gulf of Mexico. The Office brings federal, regional, state, local, international, private, and nongovernmental entities together in strategic short- and long-term partnerships to direct knowledge, technical capacity, and financial resources to important coastal and ocean issues.

Current programmatic directions reflect the Office’s primary interest in addressing priority issues identified by constituents and partners, Congress, the Administration, the Department of

Commerce, and NOAA-wide strategic planning teams. The Office emphasizes three priority outcomes: healthy coastal ecosystems, resilient coastal communities, and vibrant and sustainable coastal economies. Products and services are tailored primarily to meet the needs of the coastal resource community. As part of the emphasis on coastal issues, the Office pursues strategies that will improve general understanding, as well as the ability to manage, protect, and utilize valuable coastal resources.

C.1.2 OVERALL SCOPE OF SERVICES

Coastal Fellowship Program

Since 1996, the Office has coordinated the NOAA Coastal Fellowship program. This program provides professional on-the-job education and training opportunities for post-graduate U.S.

citizen students in coastal resource management and policy and provides specific technical assistance for state/territory coastal zone management (CZM) programs. Highly qualified, recently graduated master’s, doctoral, and professional degree recipients (fellows) are matched with state/territory CZM programs around the mainland U.S., the Pacific and the Caribbean for two years. State/territory CZM programs provide project proposals in a competition for placement of one of the fellows. All states and territories with federally approved coastal zone management programs (there are 34 approved CZM programs) are eligible to submit one project proposal annually for the program. The States include Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Also included are the territories of American Samoa, Guam, Puerto

Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Up to six states/territories are selected to host a fellow each year. For two years, selected fellows work on the substantive state/territory-level coastal resource management issues identified by the selected states/territories’ proposals. Past projects have included creating and conducting user capacity assessments of prime tourist sites in the Mariana Islands, developing a methodology to evaluate and prioritize dredging projects in Delaware’s inland bays, promoting tourism to support coastal economies in Illinois, and improving effectiveness of Puget Sound shoreline armoring regulations. Since its inception in 1996, the program has matched 123 post-graduate students with 26 State/Territory CZM programs.

Interested fellowship candidates apply to their local state Sea Grant program who then can nominate up to three candidates for consideration by a national review board, which consists of representatives from the NOAA National Sea Grant Office, a state Sea Grant office, the Coastal

States Organization, a current state mentor, and a current or former fellow. This board selects up to twelve finalists who are brought to Charleston, South Carolina in late April or early May for a one-week matching workshop where they are interviewed by the state/territory hosts. At the end of the workshop, a fellow is placed with each of the host states/territories. Fellows begin their two-year fellowship in August each year. For more information on the program, visit the web site at www.coast.noaa.gov/fellowship.

Through this program, the Office develops long-term relationships with the state agencies that receive the technical assistance of the fellows. This technical assistance helps to fulfill the mission of the Office to provide technical assistance to state/territory coastal zone management programs on issues of high priority. The fellowship program develops future coastal managers for local, state, and federal government (72% of former fellows have successfully secured positions within government service as a result of their fellowship).

Digital Coast Fellowship Program

In 2012, the Office initiated a second two-year fellowship program, the Digital Coast Fellowship

Program. This program was modeled after the Coastal Fellowship program, but instead of placing fellows at state/territory CZM offices, this program places three fellows with our Digital

Coast partners. Digital Coast is a NOAA-sponsored website, managed by NOAA’s Office for

Coastal Management and first released in 2007. It was developed to meet the unique needs of the coastal management community. The website provides not only coastal data, but also the tools, training, and information needed to make these data useful. The Digital Coast Partnership is a group of eight national organizations that represent the primary website users and keep the effort focused on customer needs. They work with NOAA to ensure coastal managers have the relevant data, tools, training and information needed to make informed decisions about our nation’s coastal resources. The eight partners include: American Planning Association, Association of

State Floodplain Managers, Coastal States Organization, National Association of Counties, National Estuarine Research Reserve Association, National States Geographic Information

Council, The Nature Conservancy, and Urban Land Institute.

While the Coastal Fellows are selected each year (so that at any one time, there are up to 12 coastal fellows, six in their first year and six in their second), Digital Coast Fellows are selected every other year (in the even years). Just like the state/territory hosts for the coastal fellowship program, Digital Coast Partners submit a proposal to host a fellow, and three partners are competitively selected. Finalists for the Digital Coast Fellowship are drawn from the same pool of nominees submitted by state Sea Grant offices. In the even years, the pool of finalists selected increases from 12 to 18 to allow for the selection of up to three Digital Coast fellows at the matching workshop for a total of nine selected fellows (six Coastal fellows and three Digital http://www.coast.noaa.gov/fellowship.

Coast fellows). The three Digital Coast Fellows are considered as part of the same cohort as the

Coastal Fellows and are provided with all the same professional development opportunities, pay, and benefits (with one exception, see C.2.d).

To date, nine Digital Coast fellows have been selected. They have worked on a variety of projects such as supporting coastal communities for enhancing resilience through the

Community Rating System, assessing and raising awareness of county coastal management policies and disaster spending, and bringing coastal communities online to the Digital Coast.

Other Information

For the majority of fellows, they reside at the host site for their entire two years. In very rare instances, a fellow will reside in a location outside of the host site, either temporarily or for the duration of their fellowship, due to extraordinary circumstances such as a family emergency or health reasons. In these cases, the fellow will coordinate requests and approvals with the host, the contractor, and NOAA.

If a fellow goes out on extended leave, due to an extraordinary situation such as a medical condition or birth or adoption of a child, the fellow will be allowed to extend their fellowship by the number of weeks they are on leave.

All fellows are required to work full time, no part-time work is allowed.

Most fellows are expected to start on or around August 1 but their exact start date is negotiated with the fellow, host, the contractor, and NOAA.

C.1.3 REQUIREMENTS

The program requires the contractor to administer all the pay and benefits (including health insurance and paid annual and sick leave) to the Coastal and Digital Coast Fellows.

The selected contractor shall have the ability to administratively manage the fellows who are located in different locations across the U.S. and in the Pacific and Caribbean Islands. The administrator must also have the ability to provide expert professional development services

(such as leadership, management, and facilitation) to the fellows through annual training (see #3 and #6 below) and career counseling and be available to answer fellow’s professional development questions. The contractor must have a network of contacts in universities and the ability to widely advertise the program to locate interested fellowship candidates.

C.2 SCOPE OF WORK

1. The contractor shall administer the Fellowship programs to include:

a. Payment of an annual salary of $34,000 (gross) to each fellow. The salary may be adjusted in the future based upon the salary of other comparable fellowship programs.

The federal government provides $26,500 annually while the host state provides the other

$7,500 annually. In the second year of the fellowship, those fellows that qualify (based on where their office is located) may be provided with a locality pay or a cost of living adjustment. The adjustment will be based on the current Federal Employees General

Schedule Locality Pay Tables.

b. Arrangement and payment of medical insurance (100% by the contractor), worker’s compensation insurance, state and federal income tax withholdings, and FICA withholdings to each fellow. Keep in mind that some fellows may be located on a

Caribbean or Pacific Island so medical insurance may need to be addressed a separate way for them. Worker’s compensation and liability insurance coverage shall also be provided for fellows that may be going out on state-operated boats or driving state-owned vehicles.

c. Arrangement for and payment of annual and sick leave; minimum 15 personal days off per year, and 10 federal holidays. Note that in those instances where a state holiday exists that is different from a federal holiday, the fellow can either swap a federal holiday for the state one, or telework from home on the state holiday. Also note on those days where host site workers are not working due to inclement weather or due to mandatory host furlough days, fellows shall have the ability to telework from home.

d. Reimbursement for professional development travel (transportation including airfare, rental, or mileage for personal vehicle, lodging, per diem, and miscellaneous expenses) to also include professional development courses and textbooks. Fellows are provided a professional development travel allowance of up to $2,000 per fellow ($1000 per year).

In addition, Coastal Fellows are reimbursed for three required meetings over the two years, and Digital Coast Fellows are reimbursed for five required meetings over the two years. This is the only difference in benefits between the two programs. The Digital Coast

Fellows are required to attend several other additional programmatic meetings in addition to the ones required by the Coastal Fellows. These reimbursements are billed to the government as ODCs.

e. Relocation allowance of $1,000 per year. This money is used to help move the fellow to their host site in the first year and then move the fellow from their host site at the end of the fellowship.

f. Reimbursement to newly selected fellows to cover their airfare (or mileage if driving) to make a visit to their host site. The site visit normally occurs in May, June or July prior to the fellow’s start of the fellowship in August. The contractor will be responsible for only reimbursement of travel expenses related to getting to and from the site visit. All other expenses associated with the site visit will be covered by the host and reimbursed directly from the host to the fellow. NOAA will not be responsible for paying any other costs associated with the fellow’s visit to their selected host site.

g. Reimbursement of travel for all fellowship finalists (up to 12 in the odd years and up to

18 in the even years) to attend the matching workshop in Charleston each April/May.

2. The contractor shall have a mechanism in place to accept matching funds from the host.

Each year the hosts are required to provide $7,500 towards the fellow’s salary and expenses associated with the above. This money must be transferred directly to the contractor from the host. The host may provide $7,500 per year or provide $15,000 in the first year to cover both years.

3. The contractor shall provide a qualified representative, such as the Professional Development

Trainer, to be a reviewer for both the host (state and Digital Coast partners) and candidate (to identify fellow finalists) proposals. NOAA will identify other reviewers for the host and candidate proposals.

4. The contractor’s Professional Development Trainer shall provide separate two-hour training sessions at the matching workshop in April/May each year (to be held in Charleston) to provide mentor and mentee training to the mentors and finalists. This training shall describe the mentoring relationship and the expectations of being a mentor or a mentee. The training is held on the second day of the workshop. In addition, the trainer provides a two-hour communication style training to the matched fellow and mentor on the last day of the workshop after the match has taken place. The Professional Development Trainer shall provide a one to two hour refresher mentor training, virtually, to the first year mentors at the end of year one of the two-year fellowship. This training shall be a refresher for the fellowship mentors, to remind them of the mentoring relationship and the expectations of being a mentor.

5. The contractor’s Project Manager shall attend the matching workshop in late April/early May each year (to be held in Charleston) to answer questions from fellow finalists on the contractor’s role in the administration of the fellowship. This will include information on salary pay schedule, reimbursement mechanisms, and health benefits. The individual who attends needs to be the Project Manager, the person who the fellows will directly interact with throughout their two years.

6. The contractor’s Project Manager shall attend the biennial (on the odd years) summer meeting of the fellows (which occurs in Charleston) to answer any questions the fellows may have on fellowship administration.

7. The contractor’s Professional Development Trainer shall provide an eight-hour to ten-hour course(s) on professional development and career planning to the fellows during their biennial (on the odd years) summer in Charleston. This course shall be tailored to the needs of the fellows. This individual must then be available to follow-up with the fellows as needed via phone or email to answer questions, review resumes, and offer information and resources.

It is not anticipated that this follow up will exceed four hours per fellow.

8. The contractor’s Project Manager shall attend the required winter conferences the fellows attend each year. These conferences are the Social Coast Forum (in even years) and the

Coastal GeoTools conference (in odd years). Currently the Forum is held in Charleston, but the location may change in the future. Currently, GeoTools is held either in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina or Charleston, but the location may change in the future. The fellows attend the conferences and following the Social Coast Forum, the fellows stay for an additional day for a fellows meeting (since there is no summer meeting of fellows on the even years).

9. The contractor’s Professional Development Trainer shall provide a three-to four-hour course on professional development and career planning to the fellows during their follow-up winter meeting in Charleston following the Social Coast Forum (held in the even years). This course shall be tailored to the needs of the fellows.

10. The contractor shall assist with publicity and marketing of the fellowship to universities by providing information to web sites, e-mail list serves, and university contacts throughout the

United States. It is expected that the contractor will have established relationships with universities and e-mail list serves, and access to appropriate web sites for posting of fellowship information. NOAA Office for Coastal Management will provide copies of all marketing material, such as brochures, flyers, and posters to the contractor to use for publicity and marketing of the fellowship program.

10. The contractor shall provide an annual report to include status of each fellow: their start date, expected end date, notable achievements over the past year, concerns or issues and how they were addressed (or planned to be addressed); recommendations on professional development needs or training of the fellows; and other activities or issues over the past year including a list of fellowship meetings attended contractor roles and responsibilities at those meetings, and recommendations for future interaction with fellows.

C.3 DELIVERABLES AND REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

Following is a schedule of deliverables, including administrative deliverables, required during the period of performance of this contract:

Item Description Quantity Due Date Deliver To Reference

1 Annual Report

1 60 days prior to the end of each contract year

COR and

Contracting

Officer

SOW

C.2.10

C.4 FELLOWS TERM OF PERFORMANCE

The fellowship program provides the fellows a 24-month opportunity. Historically thirty-five percent (35%) of the fellows have left earlier than their 24-months. Of those ones that have left early, they have left, on average, 4.5 months early. As a result, the government reserves the right to decrease the number of fellows anytime during the performance of the contract without incurring additional costs.

C.5 SECURITY REQUIREMENTS

The contractor shall meet security requirements of the DOC IT Security Program Policy and

Minimum Implementation Standards. Information can be accessed at http://www.osec.doc.gov/cio/ITSIT/DCC-IT-Security-Program-Policy.htm.

The designation for the contract is Low Risk IT. The C&A requirement of Clause 73 do not apply and a Security Accreditation Package is not required.

http://www.osec.doc.gov/cio/ITSIT/DCC-IT-Security-Program-Policy.htm