DOT Mentoring Solicitation Amendment No. 1 in PDF as published.pdf

Amendment No. 1 to

DOT Mentoring Program Solicitation No. 693JK424R500007

This Amendment No. 1 provides answers to questions posed thus far by one or more prospective offerors.

1.Question: Pursuant to the solicitation, the DOT is seeking proposals for a web-based system to select, match, and connect mentoring partnerships. Typically, web-based systems or similar software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings are commercially available through annual subscription licenses, necessitating fixed-firm pricing proposals rather than time and materials pricing. To ensure a strongly competitive solicitation process, would the DOT be willing to amend the solicitation to allow for the submission of, and awards based on, firm-fixed-pricing proposals?

1.Answer: Yes. This Amendment No. 1 removes the subject Solicitation’s previously-specified Time-and-Materials structure, and substitutes, in lieu thereof, the year-by-year Pricing-Tables given between horizontal lines below in this Answer 1. Accordingly, each offeror’s Cost Proposal submitted to DOT in response to this Solicitation shall be based upon, and shall price out, the precise numbers of estimated-by-DOT year-by-year mentorings shown in the pricing-tables given below. And each offferor’s Cost Proposal shall also include a filled-in-by-offeror Fixed-Price-per-mentoring, for each particular type of mentoring and for each project-year specified in the pricing-tables given below. And each offeror’s Cost Proposal shall also multiply each such filled-in-by-the-offeror

Fixed-Price-per-mentoring dollar-figure, by DOT’s displayed estimated number of such mentorings, in order to derive and to display, in the right-most column of the pricing-table, an estimated-and-proposed-by-the-offeror total price for the specified type of mentoring for the project-year in question. But all offerors must understand that only the per-mentoring dollar-price-figures implanted by the offeror into those pricing-tables will be fixed. And all offerors must further understand that the estimated-and-proposed-by-the-offeror total-price-dollar-figures, to be displayed by each offeror in the right-most-column of the pricing-tables given below, will only be ceiling-price dollar-figures whose ultimate attainment or non-attainment, during the post-award administration of this Solicitation’s resulting contract, will depend on how many specific mentorings DOT directs this Solicitation’s resulting contract-awardee to actually present. And all offerors shall further understand that the resulting contract-awardee’s labor-costs and indirect-costs and administrative-costs and materials-costs, incurred in the contract-awardee’s performance of the contract awarded from this Solicitation, shall be recovered by the contract-awardee, if they are recovered at all, solely through the contract-awardee’s billing, to DOT, of the Fixed-Price-per-mentoring dollar-figures implanted by this Solicitation’s winning offeror into the Pricing-Tables given below, and further implanted into the winning offeror’s Cost Proposal submitted to DOT in response to this Solicitation.

Base Year:

Column A Mentoring Type (Specific TYPE of Mentoring for a Particular NAMED- OST-Employee

Column B Estimated Per-Year NUMBER of Such Particular Mentoring Projects for a NAMED OST Employee

Column C Offeror’s Proposed FIRM-FIXED PRICE Dollar-Figure for Each Such Particular Mentoring Project for a Particular NAMED OST Employee

Column D Offeror's Proposed Estimated Total CEILING-Cost, Including Profit (Column B x Column C)

Standard Mentoring 150 partnerships $ $

Enhanced Mentoring 150 partnerships $ $

Option Year One:

Column A Mentoring Type (Specific TYPE of Mentoring for a Particular NAMED- OST-Employee)

Column B Estimated Per-Year NUMBER of Such Particular Mentoring Projects for a NAMED OST Employee

Column C Offeror’s Proposed FIRM-FIXED PRICE Dollar-Figure for Such Particular Mentoring Project for a Particular NAMED OST Employee

Column D Offeror's Proposed Estimated Total CEILING-Cost, Including Profit (Column B x Column C)

Standard Mentoring 175 partnerships $ $

Enhanced Mentoring 175 partnerships $ $

Option Year Two:

Column A Mentoring Type (Specific TYPE of Mentoring for a Particular NAMED- OST-Employee)

Column B Estimated Per-Year NUMBER of Such Particular Mentoring Projects for a NAMED OST Employee

Column C Offeror’s Proposed FIRM-FIXED PRICE Dollar-Figure for Such Particular Project for a Particular NAMED OST Employee

Column D Offeror's Proposed Estimated Total CEILING-Cost, Including Profit (Column B x Column C)

Standard Mentoring 200 partnerships $ $

Enhanced Mentoring 200 partnerships $ $

1 Standard Mentoring: A structured approach for mentors and mentee representing a diverse range of grade levels and educational and professional backgrounds from across the department that follows a formal framework and established guidelines. It includes best practices, feedback mechanisms and resources on topics such as but not limited to: Building High Performing Teams, Leadership Vitality, Managing

Change. Live training would not be included in Standard Mentoring.

2 Enhanced Mentoring: A structured approach for mentors and mentee representing a diverse range of grade levels and educational and professional backgrounds from across the department that follows a formal framework and established guidelines. It includes best practices, feedback mechanisms, networking opportunities, live virtual training sessions on topics such as Building High Performing Teams, Leadership

Vitality, Managing Change, and ongoing support and resources such as newsletters via a web-based platform. It further involves virtual strategic and action planning sessions, speed mentoring events, brown bags, mid-point energizer, mid-point and end of year evaluations, end of program review and celebrations. It involves a mentor, who is more experienced or knowledgeable, guiding and supporting a mentee in their personal or professional development.

2.Question: In the RFP, there is a preference for live training and support for the mentors and mentees. Typically, with providers of web-based programs, there are both ongoing training and support resources and live training available to program participants.

Additionally, in some cases, training can be delivered as part of the engagement on an ongoing and/or on demand basis. Would these types of resources be allowed for this program or is it only live instructor led training?

2.Answer: Yes, the type of resources mentioned in the question—including ongoing training, support resources, and live virtual trainings—are allowed and desired for the mentoring program. However, all offerors must understand that live virtual training sessions would be included only in the “Enhanced Mentoring” specified in the Pricing Tables set forth above in this

Solicitation Amendment No. 1, and all offerors must understand that live training sessions would not be included in the “Standard

Mentoring” specified in the Pricing Tables set forth above.

3.Question: Pursuant to section 4.0 item “e”, the RFP makes reference to virtual training via Zoom or MS Teams. Given our experience with federal mentoring programs often requiring IL4 or Govcloud hosting, does DOT require this level of hosting for their program? If so, will program participants be required to login via their MSTeams.gov or are they using the standard MS Teams and Zoom? Additionally, will participants participating in the web based platform require their .gov email address or personal email address?

3.Answer: Zoom or MS Teams used by the vendor should be secure and compliant specifically suited for government. Program participants will be required to log in using their MS Teams or Zoom government accounts and are required to use their government email addresses to access the web-based platform.

4. Question: Regarding Security Accreditation: Section H.4.1.5 requires that within six months of contract award the contractor submits written proof of security accreditation. The questioner currently possesses an IL-4 Provisional Authorization and is in the process of pursuing FedRAMP certification (although the questioner is currently FedRamp compliant). The questioner seeks the following clarification on the security accreditation required under Section H.4.1.5:

1.

2.

3. Considering that the Department of Transportation (DOT) is a federal entity, is FedRAMP

4. the only security accreditation expected, or will there be a DOT specific security accreditation process?

5.

6.

7.

8. If FedRAMP is required, would the DOT be willing to extend the 6-month

9. timeline, provided that the FedRAMP certification process is actively underway at that time?

10.

11.

4.Answer:

A.Recent post-award experience with contracts issued by OST from other procurements has shown that a contract-awardee-company’s attainment of needed contractor-employee-security-clearances and security-accreditation can sometimes take several months, as counted from the date on which the contract was awarded. And this Mentoring procurement’s cognizant DOT contracting officer sees no compelling reason(s) to be more-optimistic here in this current acquisition.

B. But it is the contracting officer’s expectation that DOT would work with this procurement’s resulting contract-awardee-company in making any reasonably-justified adjustments to that resulting contract’s de facto work-starting-date, provided that the contract-awardee demonstrates, to the satisfaction of DOT’s contracting officer and DOT’s cognizant Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR), the fact that the contract-awardee is putting forth an earnest and good-faith effort to attain all needed contractor-employee-security-clearances and security-accreditation.

C. This Answer 4 intentionally avoids any attempt to make a concrete prediction about whether FedRAMP will turn out to be the only Security Accreditation needed by this Solicitation’s resulting contract-awardee. (But see the FedRAMP-observations given below in part D of this Answer 4.)

D. A high-ranking manager in DOT’s Office of Security has recently offered, to this Mentoring procurement’s contracting officer and COR, the following general thoughts, which may or may not hereafter turn out to be specifically applicable to this Mentoring solicitation’s resulting contract:

The company submitting Question 4 mentions that it is currently IL-4 Provisional Authorized and FedRAMP complaint. These are IT-related certifications indicating the system's ability to handle non-public, unclassified data.

Given the IT-centric nature of IL4 and FedRAMP, it's essential to involve the Office of the Chief Information Officer

(OCIO) to provide expertise and guidance concerning this question. [But it is the contracting officer’s expectation that any such coordination with the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) would occur only after the awarding of the Mentoring contract that results from this Solicitation.]

• The IL4 recognition proves the cloud service offering meets security requirements for processing and storing non-public, unclassified data, including controlled unclassified information (CUI). With such data, the unauthorized disclosure of information can have a serious adverse effect on organizational operations and assets, or individuals.

Although IL4 does not contain classified data or data associated with national security, substantial safeguards are still required. These safeguards include access controls, identification and authentication, encryption, auditing, and monitoring.

• The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a government-wide program that standardizes the evaluation, authorization, and monitoring of cloud computing services used by federal agencies. FedRAMP certification is required for cloud service providers (CSPs) that offer cloud services to federal agencies and for federal agencies that share sensitive data on the cloud.

On the Personnel Security (PERSEC) side, all employees and contractors must be cleared by the PERSEC Office prior to working on any contract and before receiving a DOT issued PIV Card. There are several factors that could impact the time frame to clear an individual which include but are not limited to, obtaining required documents from the individual, obtaining fingerprints, adjudicating any findings during the investigation and if the individual is going to access classified information, normally the preliminary suitability can be completed within 2 weeks if there are no issues found.

5.Question: The questioner stated that it was unable to find a record of DOT’s incumbent Mentoring contract in the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS). And so the questioner asked DOT for help in finding that FPDS record.

5.Answer: If searching in FPDS for The Training Connection’s incumbent Contract No. 6932K420C500004 turns up no results, then an enquirer should try searching in FPDS under Contract No. 47QREA23D001Q .

This Amendment No. 1 provides no further answers or clarifications regarding the subject Mentoring Solicitation.

James H. Mowery III

Contracting Officer, DOT

July 31, 2024