Industry Questions with Government Responses 20 Apr 12.docx

Government Answers to Industry Questions – 13 April 2012

0. Which contracts should be identified

0. Whether the contracts identified in the technical volume and price volume should be identical

0. The reason for the difference in required information, and how the different information will be evaluated.

Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) Identification has been removed from Price Volume paragraphs 6-9.2.6 and 7-3.3.2.3 in Amendment 0002.

a. The response to Question 1 alters the number of people that must be designated as key, which affects several portions of the Technical and Price volumes.

b. The response to Question 7 changes the order of the key personnel described in the ID/IQ PWS paragraph 2.5.3.1. It also changes how the PM for the overall effort was described.

c. The response to Question 11 provides a new requirement in the RFP regarding software licensing. This requirement, along with offerors’ responses, will need to undergo legal review.

The due date has been extended to Monday, 30 April 2012, 1300 EDT. All proposal items must be submitted by that date and time.

Page 14 of 31, Section 4a-6 ORGANIZATIONAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST states, "Both the Government and all Contractors must have the utmost confidence that acquisitions are fair and that a Contractor's judgment and recommendations are objective, impartial, and independent."

Question: Independent Public Accounting (IPA) firms in good standing with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) are required to follow standards issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) when providing audit, opinions, and/or attestation services to the Federal government. The GAO Standards (Yellow Book) Chapter 3: General Standards, Independence Section 3.03 states, “Auditors and audit organizations must maintain independence so that their opinions, findings, conclusions, judgments, and recommendations will be impartial and viewed as impartial by objective third parties with knowledge of the relevant information." A contractor's work providing audit, opinions, and/or attestation services is not an OCI issue/risk. On the contrary, audit, opinions, and attestation services require independence, which prevents OCI issues/risks (e.g. with respect to biased ground rules, impaired objectivity, and unequal access to information re: Subpart 9.5 of the FAR and Subpart 209.5 of DFARS). The response to the Air Force Q&A, Question number 16, resulted in Amendment 001 for Section 6-9.2.5 Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) Identification. However, Amendment 001 contains the words "auditing work" and Section 6-7.3.1.2 has not been amended. Accordingly, will the Air Force please consider removing the words "auditing work" from Amendment 001 and the phrase "to include the prime’s past work in providing audit, opinions, and/or attestation services to the Air Force, and those resulting from teaming arrangements" from Section 6-7.3.1.2? These changes are particularly important because the current language requires a response from an IPA firm that has performed Air Force audit, opinions, and/or attestation services, which is unnecessarily different from the response required from an IPA firm that may not have performed Air Force audit, opinions, and/or attestation services, such as the incumbent contractor.

Organizational Conflict of Interest (OCI) Identification has been removed from Price Volume paragraphs 6-9.2.6 and 7-3.3.2.3 in Amendment 0002.

6-7.3.1.2 Subfactor 2: removed end of the first bullet that stated, “to include the prime’s past work in providing audit, opinions, and/or attestation services to the Air Force, and those resulting from teaming arrangements” in Amendment 0002.

7-3.1.1.2 Subfactor 2: removed end of the first bullet that stated “to include the prime’s past work in providing audit, opinions, and/or attestation services to the Air Force, and those resulting from teaming arrangements”

0. The Contractor shall provide a single Contractor employee to oversee/lead each assessable unit and shall not have the same contractor employee overseeing/leading more than one (1) assessable unit simultaneously while in the assertion phase. Once in Sustainment, the same contractor employee may oversee/lead more than three (3) related assessable units (for instance, MOCAS, MDAP, etc.) or two (2) unrelated assessable units (for instance, Civ Pay or Funds Distribution to Base) at one time, as long as multiple oversight does not interfere with any sustainment effort. These personnel will serve as the interface with the applicable COR on a daily basis, or as requested. All Contractor personnel who manage or supervise assessable units shall possess:

· A four (4) year degree in accounting or business management related field from an accredited institution;

· A minimum of five (5) years of accounting or financial management experience including three (3) or more years of progressive experience in leading business management and/or financial management services projects

· Experience performing financial statement audits in DoD, federal agencies, or commercial Fortune 400 organizations and/or preparation of Assertion Packages.

0. All contractor personnel who supervise contractor personnel (other than those specified in 2.5.3.1.1 and 2.5.3.1.2 above) shall possess:

· A CPA by examination, licensed by the appropriate state licensing authority OR CISA for FISCAM positions (as applicable) OR an advanced degree (master’s or above), in an area pertinent to the work performed, from an accredited institution; and

· Eight (8) years of progressive experience in leading financial management services and related projects

· Experience performing financial statement audits in DoD, federal agencies, or commercial Fortune 400 organizations The answer for question #1 should read, “See changes to ID/IQ PWS paragraph 2.5.3.1.2.” The changed paragraph was paragraph 2.5.3.1.3 in the original ID/IQ PWS.

Per ID/IQ paragraph 2.5.3.1.2, “The Contractor shall provide a single Contractor employee to oversee/lead each assessable unit…” Per ID/IQ paragraph 2.5.3.1.3 in Amendment 0001, “All contractor personnel who supervise contractor personnel (other than those specified in 2.5.3.1.1 and 2.5.3.1.2 above) shall possess…”

This can be misleading. Amendment 0002of ID/IQ PWS paragraph includes a change to the beginning of 2.5.3.1.3, which now reads, “All contractor personnel (other than those specified in 2.5.3.1.1 and 2.5.3.1.2 above) who supervise contractor personnel shall possess…”

Paragraph 1.4.1 of Amendment 0001 of the ID/IQ PWS ends with, “This work will be defined in later task order(s) (not Task Orders 0001, 0002, or 0003).”

Amendment 0002 RFP paragraph 6-8.1.2 now states (added underlined text), “The remaining three (3) references may be provided for the Offeror, subcontractors, teaming partners, and/or joint venture partners considered critical to successful performance of the requirement.”

Question: RFP Section 6-7.3.1.1, Bullet 4, Sub-bullet 1 asks that each Offeror’s staffing plan: “Identifies appropriate labor categories for the entire effort and each of the initial three task orders in accordance with ID/IQ PWS paragraph 2.5.1.2 requirements (complete the table at ID/IQ PWS Appendix D, Table 9 - AF FIAR Support Labor Category Descriptions, which will be incorporated as part the contract).” ID/IQ PWS paragraph 2.5.1.2 states: “The Contractor shall possess the overall aggregate skills, expertise, and experience in each of the areas identified to successfully complete all ID/IQ and TO requirements.” In this section of the PWS, there are 21 separate and distinct “areas” identified under section 2.5.1.2, from the very specific (e.g., Foreign Military Sales) to the general (e.g., Current trends in information technology). RFP Section 7-3.1.1.1, Bullet 4, Sub-bullet 2 states that the Government will evaluate a staffing plan that contains: “Appropriate labor categories for the entire effort and each of the initial three task orders in accordance with ID/IQ PWS paragraph 2.5.1.2 requirements.”

Is it the intent of the Government that the labor categories proposed by the Offerors and presented in proposal via PWS ID/IQ Appendix D, Table 9, include reference to each and every area outlined under ID/IQ PWS section 2.5.1.2, or rather that, as the supporting narrative implies, that the Offeror acknowledge the requirement for it to possess the “overall aggregate skills, expertise and experience” presented therein? It appears unreasonable that Offeror-identified labor categories should attempt to include all 21 areas under the Labor Category “experience” section and that doing so might in fact prohibit otherwise fully qualified candidates, who may possess experience with some, but not all of these “areas”, from participating in the AF FIAR contract.

We recommend that the Government change the language of RFP Section 6-7.3.1.1, Bullet 4, Sub-bullet 1, to read: “Identifies appropriate labor categories for the entire effort and each of the initial three task orders (complete the table at ID/IQ PWS Appendix D, Table 9 - AF FIAR Support Labor Category Descriptions, which will be incorporated as part the contract).”

We recommend also that the Government change the language of RFP Section 7-3.1.1.1, Bullet 4, Sub-Bullet 2, to read: “Appropriate labor categories for the entire effort and each of the initial three task orders.”

Amendment 0002 changed referenced paragraphs and sub-bullets as follows:

6-7.3.1.1, 1st sub-bullet under 4th bullet now states, “Identifies appropriate labor categories (that would possess the aggregate skills identified in ID/IQ PWS paragraph 2.5.1.2) for the entire effort and each of the initial three task orders (complete the table at ID/IQ PWS Appendix D, Table 9 - AF FIAR Support Labor Category Descriptions, which will be incorporated as part the contract);”

7.3.1.1.1, 2nd sub-bullet under 4th bullet now states, “Appropriate labor categories (that would possess the aggregate skills identified in ID/IQ PWS paragraph 2.5.1.2) for the entire effort and each of the initial three task orders;”

The PWS requires statistical sampling as the testing method for Support Document Testing. It should be noted that the nature, amount and extent of testing normally impacts the testing method chosen, extent being the most important. The extent or “amount” of Supporting Document Testing is a function of combined risk (which results from both inherent risk and control risk) and test materiality (maximum error in a population auditor is willing to accept). Given the many elements which need to be identified to determine the amount of substantive or statistical sampling needed, it is difficult, at this time, to estimate the extent of testing that will need to be performed.

How many instances of statistical sampling will be required?

Does the Government expect only one sample per assertion or multiple samples selected? For each instance of statistical sampling can the government provide the following data so that the offeror may estimate the number of sample items that will be necessary to achieve audit readiness?

2.5.3 Key Personnel. Key personnel shall serve as the interface with Government personnel, to include the Government Program Management Office (PMO) and CORs.

2.5.3.1 Government-identified Key Personnel. Government-identified Key Personnel for this effort are provided below. The titles given for each area are indicative of the function(s) performed by these personnel and do not necessarily represent individual labor categories. For instance, ‘Statement/Project Areas Supervisors and Managers’ may be a subset of a ‘Supervisor/Manager’ labor category.

2.5.3.1.1 All Contractor senior executive support personnel who: (1) oversee the entire project; (2) provide primary interface with client management personnel regarding strategic (vice task order specific) issues; and (3) serve as the final authority in the conduct of engagements and full responsibility for the work performed, including overall project management and final review shall possess:

· A minimum of ten (10) years of financial statement audit experience OR ten (10) years of AF Financial Management experience (or combination thereof equaling ten (10) years) within the last 15 years The Contractor shall provide a single dedicated senior executive position to this requirement that in addition to the above experience, shall possess:

· A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) by examination, licensed by the appropriate state licensing authority OR CISA for FISCAM senior executive personnel;

· Experience performing financial statement audits in DoD, federal agencies, or commercial Fortune 400 organizations

2.5.3.1.2 All contractor personnel who supervise contractor personnel and/or oversee Statements (SBR or E&C of Mission Critical Assets, for instance) shall possess:

· A CPA by examination, licensed by the appropriate state licensing authority OR CISA for FISCAM positions (as applicable) OR an advanced degree (master’s or above), in an area pertinent to the work performed, from an accredited institution;

· Eight (8) years of progressive experience in leading financial management services and related projects;

· Experience performing financial statement audits in DoD, federal agencies, or commercial Fortune 400 organizations

2.5.3.1.3 The Contractor shall provide a single Contractor employee to lead/oversee for each assessable unit and shall not have the same contractor employee overseeing/leading for more than one (1) assessable unit while in the assertion phase. Once in Sustainment, the same contractor employee may oversee/lead more than three (3) related assessable units (for instance, MOCAS, MDAP, etc.) or two (2) unrelated assessable units (for instance, Civ Pay and Funds Distribution to Base) at one time, as long as multiple oversight does not interfere with any sustainment effort. These personnel will serve as the interface with the applicable COR on a daily basis, or as requested. All Contractor personnel who manage or supervise assessable units shall possess:

· A four (4) year degree in accounting or business management related field from an accredited institution;

· A minimum of five (5) years of accounting or financial management experience including three (3) or more years of progressive experience in leading business management and/or financial management services projects

· Experience performing financial statement audits in DoD, federal agencies, or commercial Fortune 400 organizations and/or preparation of Assertion Packages.

See response to Question 4 above.

See paragraph 6-8.1.1

See paragraph 6-8.1.2 and Section 6, Attachment 1

See paragraph 6-8.1.4

6-8 INSTRUCTIONS FOR VOLUME II, PAST PERFORMANCE (FACTOR 2)

6-8.1.2 Past Performance Information (PPI) Reference Sheets (Attachment 1). Submit a separate PPI sheet for each reference with a minimum of 12 months of active performance. Submit a minimum of two (2) and a maximum of five (5) references; two (2) of the references provided shall be on the Offeror. The remaining three (3) references may be provided for subcontractors, teaming partners, and/or joint venture partners considered critical to successful performance of the requirement. PPI Reference Sheets will be treated as source selection information in accordance with FAR Part 2.101 and 3.104.

Question: Regarding number 3 in the above table, Past Performance Information (PPI) Reference Sheets, are the Program Details limited to 5 pages per PPI or 5 pages total for all PPIs?

Five (5) pages per PPI. Past Performance Volume Contents Table item #3changed to read (added underlined text), “Program details for each PPI limited to five (5) pages.” In Amendment 0002.