Draft_Instruction_to_Offerors.pdf

ATTCHMENT B

INSTRUCTIONS TO OFFERORS

Promise Neighborhoods Program Technical Assistance for Grant Related Activities and

Performance Data Collection

The Government intends to award one firm fixed price contract for the work outlined in the attached Statement of Work (SOW). The offeror is expected to demonstrate a thorough understanding of the performance objectives, tasks, and requirements specified in the SOW. The proposal should address the requirements in the SOWs and state how the offeror will meet those requirements and shall not simply repeat the language in the SOW. Although the intent of each task is expressly stated in the SOW, it is up to the offeror to propose the most effective method for performing the tasks and the most feasible timeline and dates for all key activities. Offerors are encouraged to exercise independent judgment with respect to the best methods of satisfying all of the objectives identified in the SOW.

The Government intends to award one contract/delivery order issued to the Contract holder. The Department may award a contract/delivery order on the basis of the initial proposal received without conducting discussions. Therefore, each initial submitted proposal should contain the Offeror’s best terms from a technical and price standpoint.

It is understood that your proposal will become part of the official contract file; therefore, it will not be returned. The Government is not obligated to pay any cost for the preparation and submission of a proposal. The Contracting Officer is the only individual who can legally commit the Government to the expenditure of public funds in connection with this acquisition.

L.10 PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS

Each offer shall consist of two separately packaged proposals: (1) a technical proposal, and (2) a business proposal. All information necessary to judge the technical soundness and management capabilities of the offeror will be contained in the technical proposal. The business proposal will contain all information related to the determination of the price associated with each of the project’s tasks. The technical proposal will not contain any reference to specific costs or prices, but resource information (e.g. staff hours) may be included so that the offeror’s understanding of the scope of the work may be evaluated. The authors of each section shall be clearly identified in the proposal’s Table of Contents.

The cover of the proposal and the header of each proposal page should contain the title “Promise Neighborhoods Program Technical Assistance for Grant Related Activities and Performance Data Collection.” The Government will evaluate proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria set forth in Section M

The technical proposal should be limited to a maximum of 25 double-spaced pages using font size no smaller than 12 points. Specifications pertaining to font and spacing do not apply to tables, figures, or exhibits. Any pages over 25 shall not be considered. Please note that all that the cover page, introduction, and table of contents are included in the 25 page limit. The page limit excludes resumes and letter agreements from subcontractor or partners if any. Offerors shall not put substantive materials in the appendix in order to subvert the page limit.

Technical Proposal

The technical proposal shall contain:

1. Table of Contents. The proposal should include a Table of Contents as a means of quickly accessing important points of discussion in the proposal.

2. Introduction. The Introduction should briefly describe the offeror’s overall plan for achieving the objectives of this order, the scope of work, intended products, and the applicability of these products to the objectives. Additionally, the introduction shall include a short summary of the offeror’s qualifications and unique strengths relevant to this activity.

3. Technical Approach. The technical proposal shall not simply rephrase the Government's SOW, but rather shall provide convincing rationale to address how the offeror intends to meet the Government’s needs, to include identifying the proposed labor categories, identifying the necessary technical experience required to successfully complete this work, demonstrating understanding of the SOW in terms of concept, purpose, importance, salient operational procedures, inherent problems, and ideas for solutions, and, describing in detail how the offeror will effectively, efficiently, and correctly develop the deliverables within the timeframe identified in the SOW.

As part of this response, interested offerors shall also identify how they intend to address the stated tasks/subtasks in the SOW, their proposed milestone schedule(s), how teaming partners will be utilized (if any), and what is the approach for collecting and analyzing data.

4. Management Approach. The offeror shall provide a description of the organizational structure that includes the appropriate number of hours for each deliverable, the proposed management plan indicating that the work will be timely, effective, and cost-efficient, the amount of time staff members will contribute to the program, the tools/methods used to assess staff productivity is clearly defined, and the necessary resources for each task. Additionally, the offeror shall demonstrate an administrative framework for maintaining quality control over the implementation/operation of the project, ensure that the quality control processes/methods are logical, effective, and ensure high quality materials, ensure that the quality control tools/methods are adequate, logical, and reflect a sound management approach, and the processes described to ensure work products are adequately reviewed. The project requires that the offeror have in place an effective management system that enables tasks to be completed on schedule. This section should describe the specific processes that will be implemented to monitor task progress and quality assurance and how the offeror will coordinate and communicate with OII, and any identified subcontractors.

Business Proposal

It is anticipated that this contract shall be awarded as a Firm Fixed Price contract. The staff-loading chart included in the technical proposal shall be consistent with the information provided in the business proposal.

The business proposal shall include the following sections:

1. The business proposal shall provide a complete and separate price build-up for the Promise Neighborhoods (PN) that includes identification of proposed labor categories by named individuals, their functional category, level of effort, effective hourly rate, extended labor price (i.e., labor hours x hourly labor rate), other direct costs (including the identification of any applicable indirect cost and how it is applied to other direct costs), and profit on other direct costs in accordance with the rates incorporated in the contract awarded to your firm. Profit on the labor costs should be embedded in the effective hourly rates proposed, so that the proposed labor rates are “loaded.” The price shall be presented by task and/ subtask. The proposal shall describe any applicable assumptions used to formulate the price build-up and a narrative justification of all costs. Offerors are to justify any indirect rates/other direct costs by explaining what its purpose is and providing evidence of its reasonableness.

2. A summary of price and a grand total for each sub-component and an overall summary of the price and grand total for the entire award.

3. Offerors shall propose and submit a separate payment schedule for each competition based on the deliverable schedule within the Statement of Work (SOW) The offeror shall submit a proposed payment schedule. These should be submitted as separate Microsoft Excel files (or separate sheets in the same Excel file). The individual amounts should add up to the total task order amount. The payment schedule need not reference due dates and can generally follow a simple format such as:

Statement of Work

Description of Payment Trigger (Deliverable or Milestone Achievement)

Payment Amount

Total:

The payment triggers should be based on accomplishments (e.g., submitting a deliverable, or meeting a milestone), as opposed the passage of time (e.g., monthly).

Other Administrative Details The proposal shall include:

• A list of the names and telephones numbers of persons authorized to conduct negotiations and the proposed contract administrator for the award;

• A statement to the effect that the offer is firm for a period of at least 90 calendar days from the date of receipt of offers specified by the Government; and

• The business proposal shall include a Conflict of Interest Certificate (as provided in the contract).

• If subcontractors are proposed, a separate price buildup (by task) should be submitted for each proposed subcontractor, and these prices should also be included in the prime's total firm-fixed price. In the master buildup for each task order, it should be clear which costs are associated with the prime contractor and which costs are associated with subcontractors.

• If subcontractors are proposed, FAR 52.219-14(c) (1) requires that “At least 50 percent of the cost of contract performance incurred for personnel shall be expended for employees of the concern.” The small business primary contractor must perform at least 50% of the labor for each task order, as measured by dollars (not hours). For each task order, the

Conflict of Interest Plan

The offeror shall submit a Conflict of Interest plan, providing details on its policies and procedures to identify and avoid potential organizational or personal conflicts of interest (or apparent conflicts of interest). The plan shall also address procedures taken to neutralize or mitigate such conflicts, if they have not been or cannot be avoided. The plan shall indicate that such policies and procedures are operative throughout the period of performance of the contract or task order. The policies shall address, at a minimum, gifts, outside activities financial interests, or other significant connections or identifications that would establish, or give the appearance of establishing, a conflict of interest. A method for periodically reviewing financial interests of employees, subcontractors and consultants, and their immediate families, in order to assess actual or apparent conflicts of interest shall be included in the plan. In this clause, the term "potential conflict" means reasonably foreseeable conflict of interest.

The thoroughness, completeness and effectiveness of the plan shall be evaluated as part of the offeror’s overall proposal. The plan shall be incorporated into the contract awarded to the successful offeror.

Submission Instructions

All questions in response to this solicitation must be received at or before 11:00 am Eastern Time on September 8, 2017. Questions shall be submitted electronically to the points of contact listed below:

• Colin Alleyne, Contract Specialist (Email: Colin.Alleyne@ed.gov)

• Ryan Battad, Contracting Officer (Email: Ryan.Battad@ed.gov)

The technical and business proposals shall be submitted as separate volumes (see details below) but may be submitted in the same email. The subject line of the email should be “Proposal for ED-OII-15-R-xxx ([Name of Firm]).” Proposals shall be named as follows: (Name of Firm and

Proposal Type [Technical or Business]).” The technical and business proposals must be received at or before 11:00 am Eastern Time on October 2, 2017. Proposals shall be submitted electronically to the points of contact listed below:

• Colin Alleyne, Contract Specialist (Email: Colin.Alleyne@ed.gov)

• Ryan Battad, Contracting Officer (Email: Ryan.Battad@ed.gov)

The Department’s email system cannot accept emails larger than 20MB.

The technical proposal and the business proposal must be submitted as separate documents, because the Technical Evaluation Panel is not permitted to view proposal prices while conducting a technical review. When possible, the technical proposal and its appendices should be combined into a single document. Any pages over the described page limits will be redacted from contractor proposals prior to review by the Technical Evaluation Panel. The business proposal shall be submitted MSWord or PDF, but the offeror may also submit supporting Excel documents.