A06-LSJ-ASP AAI and TAACCCT 9-12-2024 All Signed.pdf

Control No.

LIMITED SOURCE JUSTIFICATION

Far Part 8.4 - Federal Supply Schedule

1. Identification of the agency and contracting activity

Contracting Activity Customer Agency U.S. Department of Labor U.S. Department of Labor

OASAM/OSPE Chief Evaluation Office

200 Constitution Avenue, NW 200 Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20210 Washington, DC 20210

2. Nature and description of the action being approved:

This Limited Source Justification and Approval authorizes and approves the issuance of a continuation order to Abt Associates Inc., 6130 Executive Blvd., Rockville, MD 20852, to support the mission of the Chief Evaluation Office at the U.S. Department of Labor, to conduct long term evaluations of the American Apprenticeship Initiative (AAI) and Trade Adjustment

Assistance Community College and Career (TAACCCT) grants.

The continuation order is to have a period of performance of a Base Period of 12-months, plus four (4) 12-month Option Periods. This is a Labor Hour type order and all of the work will be performed at the vendor’s work site.

3. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs

(including the estimated value):

This requirement is for the vendor (Abt) to build upon the original task orders (DOL-ETA-16- F-

00006 & DOL-ETA-14-F-00013) to use follow-up data of more than three years and up to ten years after participants exited the grant programs to conduct longer-term evaluations of the AAI and TAACCCT grants. Although the original contracts ended in 2022 and 2020, a continuation contract immediately after the contract end dates was not needed at the time because the intent was to capture the longer-term outcomes of grant participants. As such, sufficient time needed to pass to capture these longer-term employment outcomes. Abt will examine outcomes on labor market participation of both programs and whether the findings are sustained longitudinally for those participants on which outcomes were previously reported and the long-term outcomes of those participants not included in the original assessment. Having this information by industry and participant (by sub-population, in the aggregate) can inform future programming investments, continuous improvement, and technical assistance to the field. More specifically, this contract supports quantitative and qualitative analysis of administrative and other supplemental data, data collection, submission of participant data to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services;

obtaining, cleaning, and merging National Directory of New Hires data with participant data;

completion of product deliverables, and dissemination of findings.

The total Independent Government Cost Estimate for this Base Period of 12-months, plus four

(4) 12-month Option Periods, period of performance with a contract ceiling of $3.25 million

(including optional task line items). The base contract is estimated at $550,000.

4. Identification of the authority and rationale:

FAR 8.405-6 – Limiting Sources.

(C) In the interest of economy and efficiency, the new work is a logical follow-on to an original Federal Supply Schedule order provided that the original order was placed in accordance with the applicable Federal Supply Schedule ordering procedures. The original order or BPA must not have been previously issued under sole-source or limited-source procedures

This work is a follow-on to an original order placed under a Federal Supply Schedule BPA that was placed in accordance with the applicable Federal Supply Schedule ordering procedures. The original orders were competitively awarded to Abt Associates Inc. under the CEO BPA in 2014 and 2016. They were not awarded under sole-source or limited sources procedures. Under the original orders, the vendor completed a short-term outcomes analysis of the AAI and the

TAACCCT programs. The purpose of this sole-source request is to have the vendor conduct the longer-term outcomes analysis using wage data from more than 3 years and up to 10 years after participants exited the AAI and TAACCCT grant programs. Without a follow-on order, the government will not be able to leverage its prior evaluation investments of time and money, which included the vendor’s extensive data collection (which was approved under the Paperwork

Reduction Act), the vendor’s specific expertise of the grant programs and data files to conduct the analysis, and the vendor’s extensive work with grantee sites to execute data sharing agreements for participant data, which enable this new study to match those data with recent wage data to obtain credible longer-term participant employment outcomes (such as employment rates, retention rates, wage information) of ETA’s two grant programs. The AAI grant program was a $100 million grant program and the TAACCCT grant program was a $1.9 billion grant program. Findings from this new analysis support ETA in its development of future policy or grant solicitations. This study is a high priority topic identified in ETA’s Learning Agenda and also included in the DOL Evaluation Plan that was submitted to the Office of Management and

Budget.

Additionally, Abt is the only vendor that holds data sharing agreements for the participant data.

DOL does not own the participant data. The participant data is necessary for this analysis. The participant data is used to match and merge with wage data from HHS’s National Directory of

New Hires (NDNH). Although DOL can facilitate access to the NDNH data, Abt is still the only vendor that can access and submit the participant data to HHS for the data match. In addition to

Abt holding the data sharing agreements for the participant data, Abt also has deep knowledge and expertise of the participant datasets, NDNH datasets, the process for submitting input and pass-through files to HHS, creating rules on how to handle missing or duplicate data in the

NDNH dataset, merging deidentified files into a single, clean datafile for analysis, conducting the analysis, and applying their expert knowledge of AAI and TAACCCT in their findings.

5. Determination by the ordering activity that the order represents the best value far

8.404(d):

The Contracting Officer will review the Abt staffing categories and pricing in order to determine that the price proposed is fair and reasonable. The GSA FSS Contracting Officer has already determined the vendor’s GSA Schedule prices to be fair and reasonable, and this call Order contains all labor rates discounted from the CEO BPA, which was based on the vendor’s GSA

Schedule. The Contracting Officer along with the COR will ensure that the labor mix and hours proposed is suitable for this effort.

6. A description of market research conducted and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted:

Among the GSA Multiple Award Schedule (category #541611, subcategory “Program

Evaluation Services”) of firms with experience in conducting rigorous outcomes and impact analyses (such as ICF, MDRC, and Mathematica), none of these firms have the necessary participant data access privileges to conduct the outcomes analysis. Further, the firms do not have the deep knowledge and experience working directly with the AAI and TAACCCT grantees or the technical expertise of cleaning and merging the participant and NDNH datasets to successfully fulfill the Government’s requirement. Abt is the only firm that has the authority to access and use the employment and wage data for this longer-term analysis through data sharing agreements and MOUs that were negotiated over the course of the original AAI and

TAACCCT contract periods. CEO has determined that Abt would be highly qualified to conduct this particular type of project.

7. Any other facts supporting the justification:

None.

8. A statement of actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made:

None.

9. Technical certification:

The program/technical official further certifies that no conflict of interest exists in awarding a sole source contract to the vendor identified herein.

I hereby certify that the supporting data, which are the responsibility of the technical personnel, and which forms a basis for this justification, is complete and accurate.

9/10/2024

Janet Javar, Senior Evaluation Specialist Date

Contracting Officer's Certification:

I certify this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Delano Talley, Contracting Officer

_9/10/2024_

Date

Concurrence:

Sandra E. Foster

Sept 10, 2024_____

Date

Head of Contracting Activity

Approval:

Ryan P. Chandler Date

Advocate for Competition

By initialing, the following individuals have reviewed and concur with this LSJ.

CS Branch Chief Division Chief Deputy