Amendment 001 Inquiries.pdf

Hurricane Maria Mortality Investigation Inquiries

RFQ 1333ND20QNB730038-Amendment 001

PR NIST Sam-GOV Solicitation

Q1. There are two mentions that the solicitation and documentation are included in either Fedbizopps or in FBO.gov… both appear to be discontinued. Please clarify, is beta.SAM.gov the place to follow up?

A1. Beta.SAM.gov is the point of entry and access to all solicitation and subsequent amendments to this RFQ. All RFQ documents have been revised to reflect the correct access point.

Q2. On the CLIN 0001 this is for the Statement of Work (SOW). Having a CLIN 0002 for Travel and other direct costs, this would mean that the total project cost is the one included in 0001, and 0002 is to present an additional cost for travel? (As mentioned in SOW Section 4, the “firm fixed price lump”)

A2. Correct, the CLIN 0001 price represents all services and labor to execute the tasks with exception to Travel costs. CLIN 0002 represents all travel costs (Lodging, Airfare, Car Rental, and Meals and Incidentals in accordance with GSA Federal Travel Regulations, not to exceed $90,000.00).

Q3. Can the contractor decide to include CLIN 1001 or not, independently of the CLIN 0001 approval?

A3. CLIN 1001 is an optional CLIN which the Government reserves the right to exercise after award;

however, pricing is required by the offeror for CLIN 1001 and will be evaluated in accordance with the Instructions and Evaluations document. Quotations that fail to address and provide pricing for Optional CLIN 1001 will be considered unacceptable.

Q4. On the timetable. First paragraph of SOW specifies a report after completing an investigation.

This term is not consistently defined in the document. Is this after the draft report with all the results? The time in section 5 includes only 60 days. Please clarify.

A4. The reference to the report in the first paragraph refers to the reporting requirements as outlined in the National Construction Safety Team (NCST) Act (Public Law 107-231, codified at 15 U.S.C. 7301 et seq.).The final NCST technical investigation report, including technical analysis and recommendations, is required to be issued within 90 days of completing an NCST investigation. The reporting expected from the contractor, and described in Section 4.4.3, will inform the NCST report, but the two are separate products.

Q5. On section 2, Purpose. The paragraph mentions an in-depth analysis of deaths and injuries. We want to clarify that we will investigate the population of deaths only and not injuries that did not lead to death.

A5. The contractor is expected to investigate only the population of deaths, including injuries that led to deaths in Puerto Rico.

Q6. On section 2, Purpose. Indirect deaths might have occurred during the period of study that are not related to loss of functionality of a building. Just to clarify, these would be classified as non-building-related indirect deaths. Correct?

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A6. This is correct, indirect deaths that are not related to failure of buildings (including loss of building functions) should be classified as non-building-related indirect deaths. The non-building-related indirect deaths is a subset of the total indirect deaths.

Q7. On Scope in section 3. End of second paragraph. About the management of documents, it mentions the transferring of all originals and copies to NIST or their destruction. If secure storage is assured, the records might be used for further analysis, through a data use agreement, this could be extended after the end of the study. Would this be feasible?

A7. Pursuant to 15 CFR 270.310, non-NIST employee participants shall transfer the original evidence to NIST as soon as practicable. They may retain a copy, only if necessary, to carry out their duties under the investigation. Therefore, all information collected by the Contractor for the NIST investigation or furnished to the Contractor under the contract as government furnished information (GFI) must be held in the strictest confidence during the contract and all originals and copies transferred to NIST (or destroyed) at the end of the contract in accordance with this provision.

The contractor shall follow all federal laws regarding encryption of data for secure transfers (see Special publication NIST SP800-122 (https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-122/final). Once the contractor has transferred all final data to NIST, and NIST has confirmed that data deletion should take place, the contractor shall delete all data pertaining to this contract (raw and analyzed data, as well as data stored electronically and in any other forms) from their system, including all backups.

Q8. In the Scope section 3. This section states the contractor must have translation capabilities for in person meetings and for documents that may need translation for NIST personnel. Later, in section 4.5. the next to the last sentence states that the raw data shall be provided in Spanish, prior to translation. The last sentence says the final cleaned data shall be translated into English. And the following paragraph mentions that the interview data should be transcribed and delivered to NIST in English. This may refer to about 500 to 1000 hours of interview translation and verification, that may be an inefficient use of time and financial resources competing for resources needed for the substantive work. It seems reasonable to have the extracted data from the analysis of the interviews in English. Would it be feasible to consider that the data finally extracted for analysis, would be the data translated into English?

A8. For delivery, NIST requires that all raw data collected in Spanish be provided in Spanish, and that the final cleaned data be translated into English. The offerors are required to include this translation effort in their FFP quote.

Q9. Section 4. In several places, the concept “days of award” is mentioned. Could you please define how is this defined? Is this by when the contract is signed? Or notified? And does this refer to business days only? Please let us know.

A9. The phrase “within XX days of award” is defined as calendar days after the effective start date of the award. The effective start date of award will be listed in block 3 of the resultant SF 1449 award document, at the top of page 1.

Q10. Section 4.2.3. Includes a VA instrument in the appropriate language(s) for Puerto Rico. Spanish is spoken by more than 95% of the population of Puerto Rico. English is also used, as one of the two official languages of government. Developing two instruments in two languages means we would have to validate, train and develop and extract the key concepts from the interview content in both languages will create a huge load of work. Is it possible that the intent of this https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-122/final https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-122/final statement is to have the instrument translated into English only for NIST investigators who need it, but not to develop the entire application of the instrument. Is this correct?

A10. The intent of this statement is that the VA instrument be translated in English for NIST personnel.

The validation, training, and development/extraction of key concepts are expected to be carried out in Spanish, which is the language predominantly spoken by Puerto Ricans.

Q11. Section 4.4.1. on the draft report. The first bullet includes a mention of “required social autopsies.” This is the first and only portion of the SOW where that concept is included. Clinical panels or other interviews are also mentioned here. Please clarify if having social autopsies is required on CLIN 0001, or, as in the case of clinical panels, is an optional action.

A11. Social autopsies are not required on CLIN 0001.

Q12. In section 5, on deliverables, DL 12 introduced the concept “draft instruments are initially provided”. Two considerations.

a. Is this referring to DL 6?

A12a. Yes, the draft instrument refers to DL 6.

b. Once this is delivered, NIST has 20 days for providing input, and the contractor would then have to create the adjustments, and possibly conduct tests before going into the final trainings, manuals and the translation mentioned in DL 8. We would have to allow for such time after DL 7, subtask 4.2.3, and it would be more precise and feasible to consider that date for the timing for DL 12, subtask 4.4.2. Is this reasonable?

A12b. Yes, we concur that a change in the deliverables table is reasonable. We have removed two deliverables from the table and conditioned the remaining deliverables from the time of final OMB/IRB survey approval.

c. 40 days for VA interviews included between DL 9 and DL 10, seems short for supervising, validity checks and the number of interviews potentially identified.

Field work requires time for quality. Could at least 25 more days be allowed for the whole interviewing process to be done adequately?

A12c. The edits to the deliverables table described in A12b allows for this additional time.

Q13. Section 6. Payment schedule is not included in any document. Is payment done per DL? Or do we include in our document a proposed schedule to be agreed on?

A13. Per the Instructions and Evaluation Attachment to the combined synopsis/solicitation, “…for each of CLINs 0001 and 1001 the offeror shall propose a payment schedule for the order under which payments are tied to the deliverables in the ‘Deliverables’ section of the SOW, to the maximum extent practicable.” NIST’s standard payment terms are 30 days after receipt of a proper invoice and inspection and acceptance of the deliverable.

Q14. Section 7. It seems to me that the schedule for deliverables is some days shorter than the 180 days included here. Is this correct?

A14. This is correct, since some time buffers were included to account for any delays in OMB/IRB approvals, etc. The edits to the deliverables table described in A12b are a more explicit way to describe the timetable.

Q15. For Optional Task CLIN 1001.

a. This would mean an additional task with a separate budget. Is this correct?

A15a. Correct, the tasks listed under Section 18 of the SOW for Optional CLIN 1001 are separate from the “base” tasks. Offerors are to propose a firm fixed price for CLIN 1001 that is separate from the firm fixed price proposed for CLIN 0001. Please see the Instructions and Evaluation Attachment for further details.

b. The meaning of the statement “date of exercising” is not clear. Can you please be more specific?

A15b. Date of exercising is defined as the date the Government formally exercises the option line item via an SF30 form (modification form) that is signed by the Contracting Officer. The date of exercise is the date identified as the effective date on the SF30 form, once such a modification is executed. The Government may exercise this line item at any time during the base period of performance.

c. Is there a time limit to decide of this option? The statement says, “ The Government may exercise option line items, at its discretion, at time of award, or any time prior to the expiration date of the period of performance of the base period.” Does base period refer to the period of 18 months of the project to perform the tasks outlined in CLIN 0001?

A15c. The option line item can be exercised at anytime during the period of performance of the base period, which is 18 months from the effective start date of award. However, if the Government exercised this option it would anticipate doing so early on in the base period of performance.

d. It is mentioned in the Schedule that the report should include it… Would this be within the same report of CLIN 0001, or would this be a separate one?

A15d. This would be a separate report that summaries the deliverables of CLIN 1001.

e. With respect to travel pertaining to CLIN 1001, would we include that in CLIN 0002 or in CLIN 1001?

The $90,000.00 travel budget under CLIN 0002 is meant to include any and all travel costs that may be required for completion of the base and optional tasks (if exercised). Therefore, offerors should not include travel costs in their proposed pricing for Optional CLIN 1001, and the proposed price for CLIN 0002 has been pre-set at NTE $90,000.00 for CLIN 0002.

Q16. FBO is mentioned, but this is no longer functional. Is SAM.gov where this should be?

A16. Please refer to Q1/A1.

Q17. Page 6, the last statement before section II, Evaluation of Quotations, states: “The Service Contract Act does not cover bona fide executive, administrative or professional employees. Does this refer to contractor employees who are executives or contract administrators within the contractor organization? Does it refer to employees involved in project activities, whose responsibilities include research and logistical support?

A17. Service Contract Act is not applicable to this requirement. The language stated on page 6 of the Instructions and Evaluation document is removed in its entirety.

Q18. Does the firm-fixed price for the project include a contractor’s federal F&A rate?

A18. Yes, the FFP includes all applicable costs to execute the tasks within the SOW, excluding travel costs.

On NCST Clauses (Attachment 3)

Q19. Documentation on IRB if needed, this would be done during the development of the project, as usually IRB would require having the instruments to do the approval. The 2 weeks allowed in the schedule does not allow for this time. Should we include this time in the Schedule?

A19. The updated deliverables and schedule table allow for OMB and IRB approvals, as necessary.

Q20. With respect to “the right to limit assertion of copyright in data,” Specifically, it is understood that the US Government might publish reports and use the data as needed. For publication by the investigation team in specialized journals, is this understood that this can be done only with NIST approval?

A20. Pursuant to 48 CFR 52.227-17(d), the Contractor shall not use, release, reproduce, distribute, or publish any data first produced in the performance of this contract, nor authorize others to do so, without written permission of the Contracting officer.