Exception to Fair Opportunity Redacted.pdf

This is a Request for Exception to Fair Opportunity Memo (Justification and Approval) from the Department of Veterans Affairs for a sole-source award to Pitney Bowes.

The Department of Veterans Affairs' Network Contracting Office 6 proposes to award a new, firm-fixed-price, sole-source task order to Pitney Bowes for a metered mail/mailing system to support mail operations at the Salisbury VA Medical Center (VAMC), Charlotte Health Care Clinic (HCC), and Kernersville HCC. The procurement includes cloud services, multi-carrier shipping, and an inbound tracking system. The justification cites 38 U.S.C. 8127(c) under the Veterans First Contracting Program as statutory authority for the sole-source exception to fair opportunity, noting that Pitney Bowes is the only vendor on contract offering a FedRAMP-authorized, SaaS-certified inbound tracking system. The rationale supporting the sole-source determination emphasizes that the existing facilities currently operate Pitney Bowes' systems and require cloud-based software hosting with Personally Identifiable Information (PII) protection capabilities. Market research across the SBA Small Business Search, eCMS, SAM.gov, and ADDS-UP identified no competing sources meeting the technical requirements. The contracting officer certified the justification on 8/26/26, and the one-level-above approval authority (Branch Chief, Network Contracting Office 6) approved the exception on the same date. The total estimated contract value is redacted from the document.