C. JEFO_NIH_OD_CSS_BPSIII_PS_Revised_FE_Redacted.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR AN EXCEPTION TO FAIR OPPORTUNITY

1. Identi cation of the agency and the contracting activity Agency: Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Requiring Activity: National Institutes of Health (NIH), O ice of the Director (OD), Immediate O ice of the Director (IMOD)

Contracting Activity: O ice of Mission Acquisition Solutions (OMAS)

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved:

New Requirement Sole Source Order against Contract Number 75N98022D00031 Modi cation to Existing Delivery/Task Order/Contract Number

Pricing:

Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) Time & Materials (T&M) Cost Type

3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs (including the

4. estimated value)

The purpose of this acquisition is to procure specialized, highly skilled, and experienced Project Management support for the NIH’s initiatives to support mission-focused program priorities of the NIH O ice of the Director (OD). This includes NIH-wide projects that involve multiple Institutes, Centers, and O ices (ICOs), projects which require quickly bringing specialized expertise and project management support onboard to support the accelerated standup of new programs, management of existing programs midstream, or guiding programs to completion. The intent is to award a follow-on Task Order to Deloitte Consulting LLP. This acquisition will be conducted using an exception to fair opportunity under the authority of FAR 16.507-6(b)(3) to allow for the continuity of services in support of critical HHS and NIH priorities.

This award will have a -month period of performance, valued at in conjunction with the IGCE.

5. Identi cation of the exception to fair opportunity and the supporting rationale.

The agency’s need for the supplies or services is so urgent that providing a fair opportunity would result in unacceptable delays. RFO 16.507-6(b)(1)

Only one awardee is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services ordered are unique or highly specialized. RFO 16.507-6(b)(2)

The order must be issued on a sole-source basis in the interest of economy and e iciency because it is a logical follow-on to an order already issued under the contract, provided that all awardees are given a fair opportunity to be considered for the original order. RFO 16.507-6(b)(3)

There is an urgent need to award a follow-on task order by July 31, 2026, to ensure uninterrupted professional sta ing support for the NIH O ice of the Director, which is integral in meeting NIH’s mission but also in furthering HHS’ mission.

Due to a series of unforeseen federal and Departmental actions, a new competitive professional services sta ing contract/task order was not awarded as originally planned.

These unforeseen events include reductions in sta , uncertainty about the organizational structure of NIH’s O ice of Acquisition and OMAS, uncertainty of consolidated and centralized contracting o ices, large-scale reductions in contracts resulting in increased workload for remaining contracting o icers to terminate for convenience and close out the eliminated contracts, immediate compliance with numerous Executive Orders, and two federal government shutdowns.

To provide context for the circumstances that have necessitated a shortened procurement timeline and, consequently, limited competition, please refer to the timeline outlined below:

Due to the events mentioned above a 12-month follow-on contract was signed to ensure there was no lapse in service and to allow su icient time for the procurement of the re-competition. While the intent was to compete this fairly, the events of 2025 as described below, had a continuing e ect into scal year 2026 as priorities were ever shifting.

During the rst quarter of 2025, multiple federal and Departmental initiatives signi cantly reduced sta ing capacity in both the contracting o ices and the program o ices requiring contract support. These actions included:

• The federal hiring freeze issued January 20, 2025;

• The “Fork in the Road” Deferred Resignation noti cations issued January 28, 2025;

• The separation of probationary employees on February 14, 2025;

• The Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) o erings; and

• The Reduction in Force (RIF) noti cations issued April 1, 2025.

Multiple o ices were eliminated in entirety in the reductions. Amid these reductions, the March 20, 2025, Executive Order “Eliminating Waste and Saving Taxpayer Dollars by Consolidating Procurement” and the March 27, 2025, HHS announcement to “Make America Healthy Again” had substantial impacts to ASFR procurements. Pursuant to Departmental guidance and in coordination with the Department of Government E iciency (DOGE), ASFR was directed to review and reduce, via negotiated terminations for convenience, approximately $2 billion in contract actions, including interagency agreements for assisted acquisitions.

Additionally, the March 27, 2025, reorganization announcement indicated that the number of HHS divisions would be reduced from 28 to 15, core administrative functions would be centralized, and with those reductions, NIH’s acquisition workforce was severely a ected.

As a result of April 1, 2025, Reduction in Force (RIFs) and related sta reductions, NIH’s capacity to execute new procurement actions was further constrained.

In July 2025, NIH executed a new order under the parent contract, extending performance through July 2026. This extension preserved existing capabilities while providing time to assess NIH’s long-term organizational status and enduring requirements. At that time, the ICOs were simultaneously directed to explore alternative contract sta ing solutions, as the current IDIQ contract would terminate on August 12, 2026.

Shortly thereafter, the federal government shut down from October 1 through November 12, 2025, the longest shutdown in American history. The Contracting and program personnel funded by annual appropriations who were neither exempt nor excepted were furloughed during this period. The Contracting and program personnel responsible for the re-competition of the professional sta ing contracts were included in the furlough.

Once the continuing resolution to fund the government through January 30, 2026, was passed and the language indicated in the draft FY2026 appropriations bill indicated that NIH would be funded. Thereafter NIH resumed work on the acquisition packages to procure professional sta ing services aligned with enduring requirements and the reorganization.

In parallel, HHS implemented a department-wide procurement consolidation. OMAS, responsible for professional sta ing and IT services, was formally established on January 20, 2026.

A second, shorter government shutdown from January 31, 2026, through February 3, 2026, again disrupted procurement activities.

The cumulative delays described above have already placed these procurements at signi cant risk of service interruption. Any additional delays will result in gaps in mission-critical support.

Given the current task order’s July 31, 2026, expiration, this schedule would result in a multi-week or longer gap in professional sta ing support services for the NIH O ice of the Director. Such a lapse would be operationally unacceptable because it would signi cantly hinder NIH’s ability to further the work currently being done in support of Secretary Kennedy’s priority initiatives such as NIH-wide implementation of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) strategy, furthering our understanding of the root causes of autism, developing a real-world data network to catalyze research into chronic diseases, and piloting a nation-wide program embedding clinical research in primary care settings, among others.

Additionally, a lapse would further delay the implementation of NIH’s Replication and Reproducibility Initiative which is critical to delivering on the Gold Standard Science tenets set forth in President Trump’s Executive Order 14303, Restoring Gold Standard Science.

Accordingly, full and open competition and fair opportunity process at this time would result in an unacceptable delay in performance. A short-duration sole source bridge is required to ensure continuity of these mission-critical services while the competitive process is completed.

Even a short lapse in contractor support of a few weeks would materially a ect NIH’s ability to meet time-sensitive statutory and oversight obligations, including established response timeframes for congressional correspondence and stakeholder inquiries, OIG and GAO audits and data calls, and public-facing communications related to public health emergencies. A delay of this nature would also signi cantly increase risk that critical decisions are made without the necessary analytical, policy, and communications support, undermining NIH’s ability to execute its congressionally mandated mission.

Failure to continue with the current vendor will result in unacceptable delays which will in turn create a lapse in service. Additionally, the vendor has provided multi-year support for cross-NIH priority initiatives related to improving the health of children, reducing the burden of chronic disease, addressing the nation’s maternal health crisis, understanding adolescent brain cognitive development, enabling broader access to clinical trials in rural areas, treating addiction, and building innovative data coordination strategies. The incumbent quickly pivoted to support the Autism Data Science Initiative (ADSI), a landmark research e ort launched by the Administration to harness large-scale data resources and explore contributors to the causes and rising prevalence of autism spectrum disorder. The incumbent is also currently providing critical project management, coordination, and performance tracking services that are essential for implementation of the MAHA strategy at NIH and leveraging real-world data resources to address the nation’s chronic disease epidemic. Without continued support for these research programs by the incumbent, NIH would be unable to carry on with the same speed and level of performance across multiple e orts that underpin the Secretary’s (and by extension, the President’s) expectations to deliver on the MAHA agenda and implement the Gold Standard Science tenets as set forth in the President’s Executive Order.

Competition for this work would likely result in a gap in service at a critical moment in the multiple initiatives and programs currently underway or under development, which would inhibit NIH’s ability to meet the Secretary’s timelines and leave NIH looking to compete and potentially lose signi cant institutional knowledge and sta supporting the Make America Healthy Again strategy and Gold Standard Science.

As forementioned above if this request is not approved, NIH will lack the critical project management and specialized expertise required to continue signature programs including the Autism Data Science Initiative (ADSI), implementation of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Initiative strategy, and support other cross-NIH programs on the compressed scal year timeline, placing a $50 million research initiative (ADSI), a more than $35 million nationwide clinical research network (CARE for Health), and critical data science programming to address the chronic disease epidemic, as well as multiple other high-priority programs, at risk of delay or failure. Additionally, the loss of this contract would eliminate the only support structure for government oversight and coordination of key agency-wide programs, thereby impeding NIH’s ability to ful ll statutory responsibilities under 42 U.S.C. §282 for cross-institute coordination, priority setting, and advancing collaborative research.

Deloitte Consulting LLC is currently performing these project management sta ing services for the NIH O ice of the Director under task order 75N98022D00031_75N98025F00002 with a period of performance from August 1, 2025 through July 31, 2026. As the incumbent, there is con dence that Deloitte Consulting has the capability to meet the government’s requirements and provide the sta with appropriate clearances, institutional knowledge, and continue performance under the proposed sole source bridge without any transition period. By contrast, awarding this requirement to a di erent OASIS+ contractor at this time would require onboarding and vetting new personnel, obtaining completely new, but necessary badges and system accesses, and conducting extensive knowledge transfer, none of which could be completed before July 31, 2026. As a result, attempting to compete this requirement now would itself cause the very lapse in mission-critical services that this bridge action is intended to avoid.

The bene t to the government of awarding this one-year bridge is an e icient reduction in administrative and physical security costs and time to on-board new contractor personnel, avoidance of a gap in service, and the retention of institutional knowledge.

It is necessary to place an order to satisfy a minimum guarantee. RFO 16.507-6(b)(4)

For orders exceeding the SAT, a statute expressly authorizes or requires that the purchase be made from a speci ed source. RFO 16.507-6(b)(5)

Fair and Reasonable Price/Cost Determination by the Contracting O icer I hereby determine that the anticipated price/cost for this contract action will be fair and reasonable. This task order will be against the parent contract, 75N98022D00031. The labor category price lists for each company have been established through the over-arching contracts and have been reviewed by GSA to ensure reasonable pricing. However, HHS reserves the right to further negotiate price reductions as allowable by the .

In addition, under this sole source, the Contracting O icer will further assess price reasonableness by comparing the proposed labor categories, hours, and rates to (1) the rates and labor mix on the current task order for these services, (2) the Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE), and (3) the awarded labor category rates of other relevant awardees. Any signi cant variances will be documented and, as appropriate, used as the basis for seeking price reductions to ensure the Government pays fair and reasonable prices for the bridge period.

Any Other Facts Supporting this Justi cation In addition to the factors described above, this action is expressly intended as a short-duration bridge to a fully competitive task order to be issued under the best GWAC available. NIH and OMAS have already substantially developed the acquisition plan and requirements for that competitive action, and this sole source bridge will provide the minimum additional time needed to nalize, compete, and award the new agreement without a lapse in mission-critical services.

Agency Actions to Take or Remove Barriers That Led to Fair Opportunity Exception The Government intends to establish a competitive task order for these services against the best suited GWAC which is designed to provide federal agencies with comprehensive, non-IT professional services worldwide. A solution that is also designated a Best-In-Class (BIC) contract. The competitive task order is anticipated to be awarded prior to the expiration date of this sole source action.

12. O ice of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization I have reviewed this justi cation and nd that it adequately supports an exception to fair opportunity.

Name Position Title Email Address Phone Signature

13. OPDIV HCA Approval Required for proposed contracts over $13.5 million but not exceeding $68 million value calculated including all options

Name Position Title Email Address Phone Signature

14. Department Competition Advocate

Concur Non-Concur Name Position Title Email Address Phone Signature