(DRAFT) PWS LPIMS.pdf

LEGACY PIMS ACTUARIAL SUPPORT SERVICES

Performance Work Statement (PWS)

1. INTRODUCTION

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) was established to develop and administer the pension plan insurance programs as provided in Title IV of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974. PBGC’s primary mission is to encourage the continuation and maintenance of voluntary private pension plans for the benefit of their participants, provide for the timely and uninterrupted payment of pension benefits to participants and beneficiaries under plans to which Title IV applies, and maintain PBGC insurance premiums at the lowest level consistent with carrying out its obligations under Title IV.

ERISA established two insurance programs to be administered by PBGC. The single-employer (SE) program covers plans maintained by one employer, or by a group of employers, but not pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement. The multiemployer (ME) program covers plans that are collectively bargained and cover the employees of two or more unrelated employers.

Each insurance program is operated and financed separately from the other, and assets from one cannot be used to support the other.

2. BACKGROUND

The Pension Insurance Modeling System (PIMS) is a tool developed by the Policy, Research and Analysis Department (PRAD) to model the SE and ME pension plan universes. The current SE PIMS and ME PIMS models in conjunction are referred to as Legacy PIMS. A newer PIMS model (“T-PIMS”) has recently been deployed into Production but is not currently being utilized as the PIMS System of Record. The scope of work for this contract only applies to the current Legacy PIMS. This scope of work also includes decommissioning of the Legacy SE PIMS during this contract’s overall Period of Performance.

Single-Employer (SE) PIMS The single-employer program is the largest of the two programs, insuring about 19.4 million workers and retirees covered by about 23,000 plans as of September 30, 2024. SE PIMS is a stochastic (i.e., random) simulation model that PBGC uses to evaluate its exposure and likelihood of future claims and to quantify the amount of risk facing the single-employer insurance program. SE PIMS portrays PBGC's future financial condition as a function of a variety of economic parameters. Additional information about SE PIMS can be found on Attachment 1 – SE PIMS Fact Sheet. SE PIMS has over 60,000 lines of computer code written in the C++ programming language as well as a user-interface and post-processing that is written in c#. SE PIMS is the most complex system of Legacy PIMS.

Multiemployer (ME) PIMS ME PIMS is a stochastic (i.e., random) simulation model that PBGC uses to evaluate its exposure and likelihood of future claims and to quantify the amount of risk facing the multiemployer insurance Program. It is also used to satisfy PBGC's statutory requirement under Section 4022 of ERISA to conduct quinquennial studies of the multiemployer insurance program to determine the adequacy of multiemployer premium rates and benefit guarantees.

ME PIMS was developed by PRAD during 2018 for versatility flexibility. This model is developed in Excel. The calculations are completed in Excel-based formulas, with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) components to improve efficiency and reduce run-time. ME PIMS was designed to allow users to easily make changes to the model and to adapt to the Technical Assistance requests received from Capitol Hill. ME PIMS relies on data from the Form 5500 database, primarily from the Schedules MB and H/I. Projected benefit payment cash flows for plans are developed in part using other supporting spreadsheets that calibrate to the Current Liabilities and Current Liability Normal Cost with sample census distributions.

3. SCOPE OF WORK

The contractor shall support PIMS through the architecture for the production environment.

The SE PIMS production environment is comprised of 11 cloud servers under Microsoft Azure, running on Windows Server 2022 Datacenter. While one of the server acts as APPS server, other 10 servers are used as drones. These are connected to an MS SQL Server and exposed to the user through their individual Windows 11 Desktop. The Development and QA environments are comprised of 53 cloud servers under MS Azure, running on Windows Server 2022 Datacenter, with a MS SQL server on the back end. This drone farm is exposed to the user via Windows 11 VDI desktops. From a user desktop within PRAD, the user can perform the following tasks:

1. View/edit data

2. Submit jobs

3. Review progress of jobs

4. View/Print results

5. Compare job results/settings

6. Execute post-processing using SAS, a statistical analysis tool used by PRAD staff as a supporting tool and found outside the PIMS boundaries

Once a user opens the PIMS manager and submit a job, PIMS will update the queue database with a job request. The PIMS Agent service, which uses a service account and password, then polls all the pending jobs in the queue and assigns them to different CPUs. From there, the assigned drone server calls an execution file to calculate the job. The database servers upload the dataset at the beginning of the job to send back to the drone server. From there, calculations done within PIMS produces output files and stores them in job-specific output directories. These output directories are in the application/file server.

Most of the code is written in C++. The codebase itself contains active code as well as old code that, while is no longer in use, remains in the code base. SAS is used by PRAD as a statistical tool. For some SAS programs, the output is automatically converted into excel for additional graphs and reports for the end user.

3. REQUIREMENT

The Contractor shall provide support for the Legacy PIMS Models in two regards:

1) The Contractor shall support SE Legacy PIMS. This includes writing new code to reflect adjustments to new pension rules and regulations, budgetary changes and congressional requests. It also includes managing, evaluating, and interpreting technical results completing actions. Actions such as editing codes to reflect changes based on congressional requests, processing stochastic scenarios to analyze the impact of the changes to PBGC’s financials, and conducting scenarios where legislative proposals and change to pension laws affect PBGC projected outcomes. The Legacy SE PIMS system is also anticipated to be decommissioned after the new SE TPIMS system becomes the System of Record, and the decommissioning activities are incorporated into this requirement.

2) The Contractor shall assist PRAD on the technical programming and evaluation of work performed with the ME Legacy PIMS model, including but not limited to Technical Assistance requests from external stakeholders and assistance on the PRAD report deliverables.

Work hereunder will be directed to the Contractor by work assignment(s).

Section 3.1 Actuarial Services, Actuarial Expertise, Actuarial Studies and PIMS Related Projects

3.1.1 Annual actuarial evaluations of PBGC's expected operations and financial status required under Section 4008 of ERISA.

3.1.2 Quinquennial studies of the multiemployer insurance program to determine the adequacy of multiemployer premium rates and benefit guarantees required under Section 4022 of ERISA

3.1.3 Analyses of legislative, regulatory, and/or policy proposals to determine the impact on PBGC's financial position.

3.1.4 The production of input to the annual and mid-session financial forecasts for PBGC's President's Budget submissions to DOL and OMB

3.1.5 Other special reports and analyses as requested by PBGC management or other Executive or Legislative branch staff.

Section 3.2 Operation and Maintenance (O&M) to the Legacy PIMS Models

3.2.1 Contact users and provide technical support to ensure issues are resolved timely. Effectively communicate with the users to provide the status of the open issues.

3.2.2

Conduct analysis of problems reported by users and recommend functional and/or technical improvements, including the addition of business and technical features to existing software.

Provide alternative solutions to improve the related processes and assist in exploring possibilities of using new features, functions, and modules.

3.2.3 Participate in root cause analysis in order to resolve production and user support issues effectively.

3.2.4 Effectively respond to questions about the system outages and errors. Resolve technical issues with Information Technology Infrastructure Operations Department (ITIOD), production SQL Database Administrators (DBAs), network support, other PBGC teams, and other systems.

3.2.5 Provide support to ITIOD to resolve application production issues.

3.2.6 Support system administration duties as needed.

3.2.7 Support application and system audits from external and internal auditors.

3.2.8 Participate in corporate-wide IT initiatives such as System Security Plan (SSP) updates and assist with PIMS System Assessment and Accreditation (SA&A) process leading to the attainment of an

Authority to Operate for ME PIMS and SE PIMS.

3.2.9 Provide technical support to PBGC as needed. Examples include, but are not limited to, testing and migration of applications to future versions of software, database and operating systems on servers.

3.2.10 Retire applications. The Contractor may propose processes, and methods for retiring and archiving applications, as long as they do not conflict with the current PBGC guidelines for decommissioning systems and are approved by the COR and ITIOD.

3.2.11 Plan and participate in Disaster Recovery (DR) testing for the PIMS applications; develop DR testing scenarios; work with users and DR team to execute DR tests and document results if requested.

3.2.12 Support activities for transitioning applications from/to other teams.

3.2.13 Support other PBGC teams responding to questions related to PIMS and/or related applications.

3.2.14 Provide other production support as needed, such as troubleshooting, debugging, identifying problems/errors, making corrections and improving efficiencies of PIMS and implementing changes in laws, policies and regulations as they occur.

3.2.15 Ensure compliance with the PBGC infrastructure changes and ITIOD roadmap and infrastructure requirements.

3.2.16 Provide ongoing expert advice to PRAD in all areas of both Models, including their operation and capabilities.

3.2.17 Support the IT and Business Program Managers in conducting the annual operational analysis.

3.2.18

Decommissioning: Upon request of the COR, the contractor shall take all steps required to decommission the system and/or components. This includes archiving code and documentation, coordinating removal/uninstall of code and components from all IT environments and ensuring data back-up and archiving as well as working with PIMS Transformation Contractor related to any data migration for the transition to the new PIMS system.

3.2.19 Support for:

3.2.19.1 Giving ongoing expert advice in the operations and capabilities to users on all areas of the PIMS and related systems

3.2.19.2 Maintaining a "problem log" of reported PIMS problems. The "problem log" is an up-to-date list of PIMS system problems which have been reported to the Contractor either by application users or by the Contractor's own personnel.

3.2.19.3 Determining the scope and cost (in time and dollars) of proposed modification or corrections to the existing PIMS system.

3.2.19.4 Making corrections to the PIMS system as requested and approved by the Subject Matter Expert (SME) and the COR according to an agreed upon schedule.

3.2.19.5 Providing corrections to documentation according to an agreed upon schedule.

3.2.19.6 Providing subject matter expertise in the current workings of PIMS and current PIMS technology to IT groups and PIMS Transformation team including working with PIMS transformation contractor.

Section 3.3 System Modification to Legacy PIMS

3.3.1

Perform and complete project initiation, planning, research, analysis, design, development, and testing and implement any approved system modification and requirements to the existing application in compliance with the IT processes including Information Security Risk Management Framework and Information Technology Solutions Life Cycle Management (ITSLCM) Framework

3.3.2 Schedule and coordinate the releases with the integrated project/program team and deliver the releases on time and within budget.

3.3.3 Deploy high quality software releases in production and minimize downtime in production due to quality issues.

3.3.4 Leading the effort to analyze, prioritize and conduct meetings to determine system modifications.

3.3.5 Ensure the design is interoperable with other integrated systems and meets Enterprise Architecture (EA) guidelines and other PBGC standards.

3.3.6 Coordinate extensively with all stakeholders such as OIT, PRAD, Security and Privacy teams, and other applicable divisions and systems within PBGC and the Federal Government.

3.3.7

Deploy all software system modifications through releases according to established PBGC Software Configuration Management Procedures and Change and Release Management Policy, Processes and Procedures and PBGC security policies to ensure the agency standards are accurately captured and incorporated into the releases.

3.3.8 Conduct appropriate system level tests (e.g., unit testing, parallel testing, regression testing, integration testing, performance testing, load testing, functionality testing) to modify the quality of software releases. The Contractor may use automated testing tools.

3.3.9

Support and assist application users in User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of the application, including, but not limited to, (1) the preparation of test plans, test cases/scripts and test results,

(2) the use of automated testing tools, and (3) the development and maintenance of operation system documentation and procedures.

3.3.10 Effectively coordinate the notification of the deployment of releases to users, stakeholders, Service Desk, COR, and other impacted parties in a timely manner to provide impacted parties time to prepare for the release.

3.3.11 Providing system modifications that include the design, programming, testing and implementation of major upgrades or significant new modeling capabilities based on user requirements developed by PRAD.

3.3.12 Propose system modifications and corrections for both Models

3.3.13 Implement system modifications or corrections to both Models as approved by PRAD management and in accordance with an agreed upon implementation schedule.

Section 3.4 Planning, Scheduling, Tracking, Managing, Reporting

3.4.1 Understand priorities and align their team with changing priorities.

3.4.2 Follow the Change Management process outlined in the Team Workflow and Separation of Duties chart below.

3.4.3 Assist in development of project schedules and project baselines for identified projects to include releases or any activity where resources are deployed to make changes to or support applications in this Task Order.

3.4.4 Assist in conducting scope management to ensure project scope is baselined and changes to scope are managed through the project lifecycle. Establish and follow procedures for release management and change control, including an impact assessment

3.4.5 Assist in conducting schedule management to include establishing a resource-loaded and baselined schedule in PBGC’s approved project management system (currently Microsoft Project Online, a.k.a. P3M).

3.4.6 Assist in conducting cost management to ensure baselined costs are maintained and managed throughout the project lifecycle to include reporting on burn rates and associated cost measures.

3.4.7 Maintain relationship and partnership with all integrated system leadership for systems both internal and external to the project IT applications/systems.

3.4.8 Assist with facilitating the work required and enable an adequate level of communication with the Government.

3.4.9 Assist in preparing ongoing, periodic project status reports as defined by the Federal IT Project Manager.

3.4.10

Follow the ITSLCM framework and PBGC IT FAR Supplement Clauses in developing the schedule and ensure the schedule includes the deliverables, milestones, planned durations for each task, project start and end dates, resources, work breakdown structure of activities, and other specific information needed to track the projects. The Contractor will work with the subject matter experts and other stakeholders in eliciting requirements

Section 3.5 Issue and Risk Management

3.5.1 Include risk management strategies, based on PBGC Risk Management Policy, in the Project Management Plan.

3.5.2 Identify and track risks that may impact the project and PBGC systems and identify mitigation strategies in BISD’s system of record (currently P3M).

3.5.3 Identify and track issues and work to resolve to ensure system operations and release remain on-schedule.

Section 3.6 Status Reporting

3.6.1

Regular and ad hoc reporting is required to ensure all PBGC project stakeholders are aware of project and system status. Tools shall be kept up to date to enable status reporting and status views at any time by the PBGC team. The Contractor shall provide regular status and ad hoc reporting to the COR, IPT, and executive sponsors for all contractor activities.

Section 3.7 Integrated Project Team (IPT)

3.7.1 Coordinate and facilitate IPT governance bodies to enable decisions on system changes and to provide a venue for dissemination of system information.

3.7.2 Provide status on system operations and changes.

Section 3.8 Meeting Participation

3.8.1 Develop agendas and circulate those agendas ahead of any meetings organized by the contractor.

3.8.2 Develop meeting materials when the contractor is presenting.

3.8.3 Facilitate meetings that allow for in-person and/or remote participation via teleconference, Skype and/or other remote participation tools.

3.8.4 Record and provide minutes of all meetings conducted or attended as part of this contract work and deliver those minutes for participant review and comment.

3.8.5 Participate in meetings as required for other PBGC efforts that may impact or be impacted by this contract.

Section 3.9 System Documentation and Documentation Maintenance

3.9.1

Develop or update PBGC documentation, including manuals (e.g., operations, system administration, system maintenance, user and training) and plans (e.g. system integration and site implementation). Documentation shall follow the latest approved standards at the time of the execution effort and delivery of the system. The Contractor shall develop documentation and/or update existing ITSLCM documents that are required as a result.

3.9.2 Maintain and revise PBGC system and business process documentation in accordance with changes made to PBGC.

3.9.3 Comply with PBGC standards and guidelines for all documentation.

3.9.4 Update all system documents when changes occur in the application or process.

Section 3.10 Transition Support

3.10.1

Transition In - Upon award, the Contractor shall begin an effective transition of work from the incumbent. The contractor shall assume full responsibility for an orderly phase-in of operations that minimize the impact to PBGC. The contractor shall ensure that transition activities are transparent to the current operations and do not disrupt or adversely affect the current day to day operations. The transition in period shall not exceed 60 days after contract award. The plan should address all work to be assumed from the incumbent and the tasks required to accomplish successfully taking on the scope of work including onboarding, technical access, transfer of documentation, transfer of all knowledge and any other activities required.

3.10.2

Transition Out - The Contractor shall accommodate transition for at least two (2) months of its functions to PBGC or a new contractor upon re-compete of this contract. The Contractor shall deliver all documentation, information for the operation and maintenance of the PBGC systems, and provide communications, training, and support to PBGC to ensure a successful transition of PBGC to another vendor. The Contractor shall develop a Transition Strategy detailing the steps necessary to transition operations and maintenance to PBGC, another PBGC selected vendor and any documentation or activities for releases work that may be underway. At completion of the contract, all licenses revert to PBGC. All documentation shall be maintained and kept current during the transition period by the Contractor.

The contractor shall ensure compliance with applicable federal regulations, standards, PBGC policies, processes, procedures, and directives in the performance of this contract.

5. SCHEDULE OF DELIVERABLES

PRAD, COR, and the IT Project Manager shall use deliverable quality, accuracy, and timeliness to assess contract performance.

(TBD)

6. PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENT SUMMARY

The government shall evaluate the contractor's performance under this contract in accordance with the quality standards defined in the Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan below. The Contractor shall maintain the quality assurance plan (QASP) to ensure performance in accordance with the performance standards awarded under this contract.

(TBD)

7. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE

Base Period – September 1, 2025 – August 31, 2026.

Option Period 1 – September 1, 2026 – August 31, 2027 Option Period 2 – September 1, 2027 – August 31, 2028

8. HOURS OF OPERATION

Primary core hours that the contractor shall be available are Monday-Friday 8:00 AM-5:00 PM.

Hours of availability may be altered with prior approval by the COR.

Operations support personnel should be available during Core Hours and for tier-3 on-call needs. The contractor shall follow FAR and PBGC policy regarding holidays and inclement weather in coordination with the COR.