Guard_Services_Solicitation_Amendment_No._6_As_Published_in_PDF.pdf

Amendment No. 6

To

DOT Armed Security Guard Services Solicitation No. 693JK418R500007

This Amendment No. 6 provides answers to questions posed by prospective offerors. Those questions, and DOT’s answers, are as follows:

RFP, Page 2 of 156 Question: The solicitation states that transition-in will be 45 days. Our experience is a transition requiring guards to be brought up to NWDTP standards requires more time. Would the government consider a 60-day transition? Answer: No. Incumbent staff currently meets NWDTP requirements.

RFP, Page 4 of 156 Question: Regarding B.2, if all rates are fully burdened labor rates, what ODCs does the government expect to purchase from the offeror at cost?

Answer: The government does not anticipate ODCs but if there are unforeseen ODCs they will be reimbursed at cost.

RFP, Page 19 of 156 Question: Please define the Administrative Handling/Pass Through Rate.

Does it include overhead, G&A and profit components or is the government simply asking about the margin a prime might add to the cost of their subcontractors? Also, please provide a definition for the Subcontracting Pass Through Rate. Answer: The Administrative Handling / Pass Through Rate includes all of the Guard Services prime contractor's indirect cost rates and add-ons, including overhead, fringe benefits, G & A and profit components. The Subcontracting Pass Through Rate includes all of each particular Guard Services subcontractor's indirect cost rates and add-ons, including overhead, fringe benefits, G & A and profit components. DOT does want each offeror's Cost Proposal to show, explicitly, the profit percentage-rate and the profit dollar-amount that would be received by the Guard Services prime contractor and by each particular Guard Services subcontractor.

RFP, Page 32 of 156 Question: Regarding C.5.1.3, please provide a list of standard literacy tests that are acceptable. Answer: The government does not maintain a list of acceptable tests. C.5.1.3 states the offeror will submit a test for approval.

RFP, Page 42 of 156 Question: Regarding C.6.4, are current incumbents qualified to stand post under the new contract SOW or do they need additional training/qualifications? If they need additional training/qualifications, for transition planning purposes, please provide the areas that require additional support, i.e.: new medicals, new firearms qualifications, new screener training, etc. Answer: Incumbent staff is fully trained.

RFP, Page 43 of 156 Question: Regarding C.6.6.1.1, what make and model weapon is currently in use by the incumbent force? Answer: Smith and Wesson M&P 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

RFP, Page 46 of 156 Question: Regarding C.6.7.4.1, the SOW requires that all PSOs receive 24 hours of screener training. This exceeds the FPS NWDTP standard by eight hours.

Does the government have a curriculum for the training or does the contractor need to provide? Answer: The government has two different X ray machines deployed. The additional eight hours of training are for the second machine

(AS&E). The government has training material for the AS&E X Ray machines.

RFP, Page 46 of 156 Question: Regarding C.6.7.4.1, do screener training instructors need to be

NWDTP certified by FLETC? Answer: Instructors need to be fully trained and qualified to conduct all training. The Solicitation requires the instructors to be trained as an instructor, and requires that all trainers be approved by DOT.

However, not all service-providers are authorized to send their trainers to FLETC for certification. Therefore, the service-provider may send its trainer to a class other than FLETC and be qualified to train on this effort.

RFP, Page 46 of 156 Question: Regarding C.6.7.3, how many hours is computer based training? Who provides it? Answer: The Solicitation’s Exhibit 14B identifies required training and who conducts training. The government only provides that training identified in Exhibit 20.

RFP, Page 47 of 156 Question: Regarding C.6.7.5, how many hours if the recurring computer training? Who provides it? Answer: The Solicitation’s Exhibits 14I and 14J address the required screener recurrent training. All training except that training identified in Exhibit 20 is provided by the service provider.

RFP, Page 69 of 156 Question: Regarding C.13.5, do all PSOs already have PIV cards? Does DOT issue PIV cards on site? Answer: All current PSOs have PIV. DOT issues the PIV.

RFP, Page 81 of 156 Question: Regarding paragraph F.3.e, the SOW states that the PM/DPM as non-essential, but the guard force is essential. If the government is shut down for more than a day, how will the guard force operate?

Answer: The government would expect the Facility Commanders and Shift Supervisors to maintain operations during the absence of the PM and DPM.

RFP, Page 81 of 156 Question: Regarding paragraph F.3.g.1(A), the government states that the deduction would be 1/21 of the monthly amount, but if the deduction event impacted a holiday or weekend, the deduction should be considerably less, correct? Answer: Holidays and weekends would be taken into consideration.

RFP, Page 132 Question: Do letters of intent required for key personnel not currently employed by the offeror count against page limitations for Volume 3?

Answer: DOT is hereby excluding letters of intent from any and every page-count-limitation that was imposed in the subject Solicitation as originally issued. And, as a corollary, there will be no page-limit on letters of intent.

RFP, Page 132 Question: Does the stated 30-page limit apply to Tab A of Volume 3 or to all tabs within Volume 3? Answer: Because this Solicitation Amendment has separately ELIMINATED any page-limit on the resumes that an offeror submits with its proposal, this Solicitation Amendment likewise eliminates the "30-page limit" that the originally-published version of the Solicitation had placed on "Tab A Resumes" in Volume 3 of an offeror's proposal. And this Solicitation Amendment confirms that that referenced 30-page limit, as given in the originally-published Solicitation, is hereby DELETED ENTIRELY from the Solicitation, so that it also cannot and does not apply to Tabs B or C of Volume 3 of an offeror's proposal, or to any other parts of an offeror's proposal.

RFP, Page 135 Question: For Volume 5, it is requested that completed SF 30s be included. As amendments have been issued via FBO, but no SF 30s to date, please advise. Answer: The requirement for submission of SF 30's with offerors' proposals is hereby eliminated. Instead, each offeror is asked to please include, in its proposal, a pasting of all of the Solicitation-Amendments issued by DOT, along with an acknowledgement that the offeror has in fact received and read and taken into consideration all of those pasted Amendments; and that pasting and those acknowledgements will not count toward any page-limit imposed anywhere in the Solicitation.

RFP, Page 142 of 156 Question: Regarding L.3, Volume 3, Tab A, the SOW shows Key Personnel as the PM, DPM, Facility Commander, Supervisors and Trainers. That adds up to 27 resumes and only 30 pages. Please confirm that the government needs resumes for every supervisor and that it is looking for approximately one-page resumes? Answer: The Solicitation’s required resumes do include a resume for every proposed supervisor. Further, and upon reconsideration of the importance of thorough resumes, DOT is hereby excluding ALL resumes from any and every page-count-limitation that was imposed in the subject Solicitation as originally issued. And, as a corollary, there will be no page-limit on resumes.

RFP, Page 142 of 156 Question: Regarding L.8, Volume 3, Tab B, what is the page limit for the Recruitment and Retention Plan? Answer: Upon reconsideration of the importance of thorough Recruitment and Retention Plans, DOT is hereby excluding such plans from any and every page-count-limitation that was imposed in the subject Solicitation as originally issued. And, as a corollary, there will be no page-limit on Recruitment and Retention Plans.

RFP, Page 143 of 156 Question: Part A: Regarding L.8, Volume 3, Tab C, considering most of the Key Positions (with the exceptions of a few Supervisors) are full-time personnel to this contract, what information would be provided in an “other commitments” tab? Question: Part B. It is difficult to determine which Supervisors might work which schedule, but as long as an offeror provides sufficient resumes to fill the required number of hours on the post schedule, can we determine post-award who works what schedule?

Answer to Part A: Part A of that question answers itself—since, for any particular proposed individual who would be serving FULL-time on DOT's new Guard Services contract, the offeror's proposal need only CONFIRM that point and go on to aver that the individual in question would therefore have NO other commitments. Answer to Part B: The Government does not create contractor work schedules. Exhibit 1 of the Solicitation identifies what the required productive man-hours are. The work-schedule is a matter to be resolved between the new Guard Services contractor-company and its Union.

RFP, Page 144 of 156 Question: Regarding L.8, Volume 4, Tab B, the RFP states that Contract/Subcontract Experience Descriptions must be submitted by current customers. Our understanding is that PPQs are submitted directly to the government by customers, but Experience Descriptions are submitted by offerors with proposals. Please clarify. Answer: All Experience Descriptions and all completed Past Performance Questionnaires and any and all other past-performance-information MUST be INCLUDED within the offeror's formal-comprehensive-self-contained-stand-alone-hard-paper-proposal submitted to DOT, and may NOT be submitted SEPARATELY to DOT. However, any past-performance-reference-PROVIDER who desires confidentiality may SEAL its past-performance-rating in such a way that DOT would be able to detect any breaking of that seal by the offeror-company for whom the past-performance-rating was provided.

RFP, Page 144 of 156 Question: Regarding L.8, Volume 4, Tab B, would the government consider allowing three prime and three subcontractor Past Performance Questionnaires to allow for a broader contract experience sample to evaluate a team? Answer: Yes, that would indeed be allowed.

RFP, Page 145 of 156 Question: Regarding L.8, Volume 5, Tab A, the government has requested an acceptance period of 180 days, but the contract is projected to begin on Dec. 17, or 45 days from the date of submission.

Does the government expect the award date to slip substantially, and if so, for accurate pricing purposes will that time be added to the base year or be deducted from the base year making the contract shorter than proposed? Answer: DOT does not expect the new-contract-award-date to slip, at all, from the schedule envisioned in the Solicitation.

Question: “As the provided excel pricing spreadsheets do not provide a total for the various categories

(Labor, Taxes, Benefits, ODC’s, etc.) by row, should bidders add this total and then respective billing rate/hour calculated as well?” Answer: “Yes, offerors can do that, if they do not thereby hide or obscure any of the pricing-information contemplated in the Excel pricing-spreadsheet provided by DOT with the Solicitation.”

Question: To ensure equality for all bidders, will DOT provide a seniority list for the included Collective

Bargaining Agreements to accurately determine fringe benefit costs? Answer: Because the answer will be in an Excel file, DOT’s contracting officer plans to separately publish such a Seniority List, in

FedBizOpps, on approximately October 16, 2018, as Amendment No. 7 to the subject Guard Services solicitation.

Question: Volume 1 Technical Approach. C.16 Deliverables. Transition Plan and Training Plan due with proposal submission. The level of detail required for both of these plans to be compliant will require 10 or more pages each. Can these two plans be exempted from the 50-page limit for TAB A in Volume

1?” Answer: Because of the high degree of importance that DOT attaches to the Guard Services offerors’ proposed Transition Plans and proposed Training Plans, DOT is hereby exempting each of (i.e., both of) those Plans from any and every page-count-limitation that was imposed in the initially-published version of the subject Solicitation. And, as a corollary, there is now no page-limit on any offeror’s proposed Transition Plan, and there is now no page-limit on any offeror’s proposed Training

Plan.

Question: Volume 3 Personnel. C.11.1.1 Key Personnel L.8 Volume 3 Tab A resumes C.6.12 Trainer

Resume. C.11.1.1 Identifies PM, DPM, Facility Commanders, Shift Supervisors and Trainers as Key

Personnel. L.8 requires resumes for all key personnel. C.6.12 requires Trainer Resumes (Key Personnel) to be submitted after award. Are trainer resumes due with proposal submission or after award?” Answer: The Solicitation is hereby clarified and amended so as to specify that ALL resumes mentioned anywhere in the Solicitation SHALL be included in each offeror’s PRE-award proposal initially submitted to DOT in response to the subject Guard Services Solicitation.

Question: Volume 4 Past Performance. Appendix 3 Past Performance Questionnaire. Please explain the difference between the “Person/Point of Contact” and the “COR Contact” as referenced on page 1 of the questionnaire.” Answer: The COR is not always the primary POC. A Program Manager may be the primary POC and not be a COR.

Question: Section B.4 CLIN 0002, 0003, and 0004 denotes 12 months while POP is 8 months. Which is correct?” Answer: For each such CLIN, the specified “Unit” should be “8 months” instead of “12 months”, and so the Solicitation is hereby amended accordingly.

Question: Must all bidders use the DOT-provided excel pricing spreadsheet (attachment A) to summarize costs, or would DOT allow bidders to utilize their OWN accounting price buildup as long as it shows the same level of detail as in DOT’s Excel pricing sheets? Answer: “An offeror is not required to use the Excel pricing spreadsheets provided by DOT with the Solicitation. An offeror may use its own accounting price buildup so long as it shows the SAME level of DETAIL as is contemplated in the Excel pricing spreadsheet that was provided by DOT. Note, in particular, that an offeror may NOT hide or obscure the PROFIT-dollars in its proposed pricing-structure.

Question: The Government-provided Excel pricing spreadsheet does not show a column for contractor overhead costs. Can an offeror (bidder) adjust that Excel spreadsheet so as to account for various items not shown in that the Government-provided Excel spreadsheet, that are in accordance with the offeror-company’s own established accounting system? Answer: “Yes—provided that the offeror’s adjusted version of the Government-provided Excel spreadsheet is not a ruse to hide or to obscure cost-elements that were envisioned in DOT’s Excel spreadsheet, and provided further that the offeror’s adjusted spreadsheet does not hide or obscure the PROFIT-dollars in the offeror’s Cost Proposal.”

Question: Are detailed approaches required for every SOW paragraph (C.1 through C.16) in a proposal’s

Volume 1 TAB A? Answer: Yes---but for any SOW-paragraph(s) that are separately and fully addressed

OUTSIDE of a proposal’s TAB A, the proposal’s TAB A could just reference the other proposal-part(s) where the SOW-paragraph in question is addressed.

Question: On Page 4, B.2 states, “the Other Direct Costs (ODCs) which shall be reimbursed at cost”. Will all ODCs throughout life of contract be reimbursed at cost or just the ODCs during transition period which has a separate CLIN? Answer: The government does not anticipate ODCs but if there are any ODCs throughout the life of the contract they would be reimbursed at cost.

Question: B.4 Pricing and Cost Schedule CLINs 0003, 0004, and 0005 Unit reflects 12 Months, but the POP is 9 months. Will the government correct the Units to say 9 Months?” Answer: The calendar-period given for each of those Line Items (February 1, 2019 through September 30, 2019) is, in fact, eight months. And therefore the “Unit” stated, for each such Line Item, is hereby corrected to “8 Months”.

Question: Section B. states 45-day transition period. C.2.1.1 The government will allow a maximum of 30 days start up from the time of the award of the contract to the initial start of performance. Will the government please clarify successful offeror will have 45 days post contract award for transition. Answer: In section C.2.1.1 of the Solicitation, “30 days” is hereby corrected to “45 days”.

Offeror’s Question: “C.6.7.4.1 states, “All uniformed contract employees must receive 24 hours of hands-on Screener Training”. Will the government clarify if the 24 hours training is for PSOs manning screener posts or must all PSOs receive 24 hours training? Answer: All PSOs are required to be equally trained.

Offeror’s Question: Is the 24 hours hands on screener training one time or when PSO initially employed? Answer: Exhibit 14B, items 9 and 10, clearly identified the required screener training.

Question: Will the government confirm what percentage of incumbent force meets the screener training requirements of this solicitation? Answer: All incumbent PSOs are fully trained.

Question: “C.6.9.2.2 states, “Security Operations Center (SOC) Orientation Training. DOT will provide two hours training for an initial 20 contract employees, including Supervisors, who perform duties as Security Operations Center operators”. Will DOT clarify if this training is required of the successful offeror if retaining incumbent SOC personnel?” Answer: All incumbent PSOs are fully trained. This is a “Train the Trainer” format. DOT will provide the 20 hours of training to offeror employees if the successful offeror requests it.

Offeror’s Question: C.6.9.2.3 states, “the Contractor shall provide each Contract employee working under this Contract, a minimum of 40 hours job orientation.” Will the government clarify if these hours are billable to the government or contractor cost? Answer: C.6.1.14 clearly states the contractor is responsible for all costs related to mandated training and shall include such costs in their price.

Question: C.11.1.1 states, “Under this contract the Government designates the positions of

Project Manager (PM), Deputy Project Manager (DPM), Facility Commander, Supervisors and

Trainers as key personnel. Offeror’s shall submit a Key Personnel Resume as part of their proposal.” Executive Order (E.O.) 13495, “Non-displacement of Qualified Workers Under

Service Contracts,” signed by President Obama on January 30, 2009, applies to federal government service contracts. It requires that qualified workers on a Federal service contract who would otherwise lose their jobs as a result of the completion or expiration of a contract be given the right of first refusal for employment with the successor contractor. Generally, a successor contractor may not hire any new employees under the contract until this right of first refusal has been provided. (Refer to Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division Fact Sheet #67A, No-displacement of Qualified Workers Under the

Service Contract Act) Since the Facility Commanders and Supervisors are covered under the Collective Bargaining Agreement and subject to SCA regulations all incumbent supervisors must be given first right of refusal to retain their positions which makes if a futile effort to provide resumes for people not in the position and offers an advantage to the incumbent and or teaming partner who has access to incumbent supervisors to provide resumes. Will the government consider striking the requirement for key personnel resumes for the Facility Commander and Supervisors? Resumes should be required for PM, DPM and

Trainers.” Answer: “Because the required giving of a right of first refusal to Qualified

Workers does not ensure that each and every such Qualified Worker will in fact accept employment with the company that is awarded the new Guard Services contract resulting from the subject Solicitation, DOT is not relaxing any of this Solicitation’s requirements for offerors to include resumes with the proposals they submit to DOT in response to this

Solicitation. (However, as is noted elsewhere in DOT’s Answers to prospective offerors’ questions, DOT is exempting all resumes from any and all of the page-limits that were specified in the originally-published version of the subject Solicitation.”

Question, Part A: Do all current incumbent personnel (Key and non-key) meet the existing qualifications in C.5 for medical, physical, and suitability requirements or will all have to be re-qualified during the 45-day transition period? Answer to Part A: Yes, all incumbent personnel are fully qualified. Question:

Part B: If all are currently qualified, what number of incumbents must meet recurring qualification requirements during the transition period? Answer to Part B: The Government does not maintain company records, However, DOT’s best estimate is that 10 PSO’s will require some recertification during the transition period.

Question: Part A: Do all current incumbent personnel (Key and non-key) meet the existing training and certifications in C.6 or will they need to complete all training requirements during the 45-day transition period? Answer to Part A: Yes, all incumbent personnel are fully qualified. Question: Part B: If all are currently trained, what number of incumbents will need to complete refresher/recurrent training and semi-annual weapons training and qualifications and less-than-lethal weapons and computer-based screener training during the transition period? Answer to Part B: The Government does not maintain company records, However, DOT’s best estimate is that 10 PSO’s will require some recertification during the transition period.

Question: Are trainer resumes due with proposal submission or after award? Answer: C.11.1.1 requires all resumes to be submitted with the proposal. All resumes, not only for trainers but also for every other staff-person, shall be included within each offeror’s proposal submitted in response to this

Solicitation.

Question, Part A: The paragraph describing references required for key personnel does not identify the

Deputy Project Manager. Are we to include three references for the DPM? Answer to Part A: Yes, please do provide three references for the DPM. Question, Part B: If the answer to Part A is “yes”, then what qualifications of the DPM are required and must be validated by the references? Answer to Part

B: DPM qualifications are identified in C.11.3.

Question: As some “overtime” is unavoidable due to last minute call-offs, emergency, or sick and contractors must pay and therefore recover this expense within their fixed price billing rates, can contractors add this column to the spreadsheet to account for this necessary expense? Answer: No, the only overtime reimbursed by the government is government directed overtime. Call-offs and other matters impacting PSO attendance are of no fault of the government and therefore will not be accepted, by DOT, as a basis for the contractor’s attempting to charge / bill overtime rates to DOT.

Question: Must all bidders use the Government-provided Excel pricing spreadsheet (attachment A) to summarize costs, or would DOT allow bidders to utilize their own accounting price buildup as long as it shows the same level of detail as in DOT’s excel pricing sheets? Answer: While use of the Government-provided spreadsheet is a requirement for offerors’ compilation of their Cost Proposals, any offeror may enhance or adapt or modify that Government-provided spreadsheet so as to fully and fairly capture and display the offeror’s own accounting price build-up, as long as any such modified pricing spreadsheet does show the same level of detail as is contemplated in the Government-provided pricing spreadsheet.

And, in particular, please note that no contractor-modified pricing spreadsheet shall hide or obscure the profit-dollars and the profit-percentage-rates in the offeror’s cost proposal.

Question: The provided excel pricing spreadsheet does not show a column for contractor overhead costs. Can bidders adjust this spreadsheet to account for various items not shown that are in accordance with their established accounting systems? Answer: Yes—provided that any such offeror-adjustment of the Government-provided spreadsheet fully and fairly captures all of the offeror’s cost-elements and is not being used as a ruse for hiding or obscuring any of the offeror’s cost-elements, and is not being used to deliberately make it unnecessarily difficult for DOT’s reviewers to compare the elements of the offeror’s cost proposal to the elements of the government-provided spreadsheet, and is not being used as a ploy to hide or to obscure the offeror’s proposed profit-dollars or profit-percentage-rate.

Question: Does the incumbent workforce meet all the same physical (including PAT) requirements of this solicitation and if not, what are differences? Answer: Yes, the incumbent work force meets all requirements of the new effort.

Question: Does the incumbent workforce meet all the same training (including Screener) requirements of this solicitation and if not, what are differences? Answer: Yes, the incumbent work force meets all requirements of the new effort.

Question: Section C.12.1.1.4: Does the 15 minutes of guard mount include both the “pre-shift” and

“post shift” requirement for a PSO? Answer: Guard Mount only occurs before a shift.

Question: Is the level of effort for the incumbent guard force contract the same as this solicitation’s requirement and if not, what is the difference? Answer: The required productive man-hours are listed in Exhibit 1.

Question: Does the incumbent guard force possess PIV cards? Answer: Yes, the incumbent guard force does possess PIV cards.

Question: Are the individual weapons stored on site? Answer: PSO assigned firearms are stored on site.

Question: As the Government-provided Excel pricing spreadsheets do not provide a total for the various categories (Labor, Taxes, Benefits, ODC’s, etc.) by row, should bidders add this total and then respective billing rate/hour calculated as well? Answer: An offeror may do so—provided that the pricing-spreadsheets presented in the offeror’s cost proposal do fairly and clearly depict all of the offeror’s proposed cost elements, and do not hide or obscure any of the offeror’s proposed cost elements, and do not hide or obscure the offeror’s proposed profit-dollars or proposed profit-percentage-rate.

Question: Section L.1 states that the Time and Materials portion of the contract covers “any necessary

Government-approved Guard-Training”. The Government-provided Excel pricing spreadsheet fixed price portion also has a column for “Training”. Please clarify what training is T&M and which training is fixed price. Answer: This is a firm fixed price contract and all costs should be included in the offer. The only exception to Firm Fix Price is deductions for hours not provided and the addition of Temporary

Additional Services.

Question: Exhibit 21 currently does not specify the quantity for these items. To ensure equality for all bidders will these be provided or how are bidders to account for these requirements? Answer:

Quantities are determined by the individual service provider.

James H. Mowery III

Contracting Officer, DOT

October 16, 2018