HSCEEC08R00003Amend02.doc

1. CONTRACT ID CODE

PAGE OF PAGES

AMENDMENT OF SOLICITATION/MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT

Federal Protective Service

701 Market Street, Suite 400

Philadelphia, PA 19106

Attn: J. Clemens, (215) 521-2255, josh.clemens@dhs.gov

8. NAME AND ADD

RESS OF CONTRACTOR (No., street, county, State, and ZIP Code)

HSCEEC-08-R-00003

9B. DATED (SEE ITEM 11)

January 25, 2008

10A. MODIFICATION OF CONTRACT/ORDER NO.

10B. DATED (SEE ITEM 13)

CODE

FACILITY CODE

11. THIS ITEM ONLY APPLIES TO AMENDMENTS OF SOLICITATIONS

Offers must acknowledge receipt of this amendment prior to the hour and date specified in the solicitation or as amended, by one of the following methods:

(a) By completing Items 8 and 15, and returning 1 copies of the amendment; (b) By acknowledging receipt of this amendment on each copy of the offer submitted; of (c) By separate letter of telegram which includes a reference to the solicitation and amendment numbers. FAILURE OF YOUR ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BE RECEIVED AT THE PLACE DESIGNATED FOR THE RECEIPT OF OFFERS PRIOR TO THE HOUR AND DATE SPECIFIED MAY RESULT IN REJECTION OF YOUR OFFER. If by virtue of this amendment you desire to change an offer already submitted, such change may be made by telegram or letter, provided each telegram or letter makes reference to the solicitation and this amendment, and is received prior to the opening hour and date specified.

12. ACCOUNTING AND APPROPRIATION DATA (If required)

13. THIS ITEM APPLIES ONLY TO MODIFICATIONS OF CONTRACTS/ORDERS,

IT MODIFIES THE CONTRACT/ORDER NO. AS DESCRIBED IN ITEM 14.

IN ITEM 10A.

E. IMPORTANT: Contractor is not, Is required to sign this document and return copies to the issuing office.

14. DECRIPTION OF AMENDMENT/MODIFICATION (Organized by UCF section headings, including solicitation/contract subject matter where feasible.)

See Page 2

Except as provided herein, all terms and conditions of the document referenced in Item 9A or 10A, as heretofore changed, remains unchanged and in full force and effect.

(Signature of person authorized to sign)

(Signature of Contracting Officer)

NSN 7540-01-152-8070

STANDARD FROM 30 (REV. 10-83)

PREVIOUS EDITION UNUSABLE

Prescribed by GSA

FAR (48 DFR) 53.243

A. Paragraph A of Section 10.2 of the Statement of Work is hereby deleted in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Specific hours of supervision will not be required under this Contract. Instead, the Contractor shall be responsible for providing a level of supervision sufficient to ensure effective performance by the productive security guards over the course of this Contract. A supervision plan is due, as a contract deliverable, ten days after contract award.

B. Section III, Paragraph (2) of solicitation provision, Submission of Proposals (Best Value) is hereby deleted in its entirety and replaced with the following:

Volume II shall include the completed solicitation documents, a complete and detailed price breakdown of its proposed hourly rates with all supporting information, and the small business subcontracting plan. Offerors are required to submit fixed hourly rates for each line item listed for each proposed ordering period. The offeror’s hourly rate shall be inclusive of all the offeror’s direct costs, indirect costs and profit and include all costs associated with providing the services described in the Statement of Work (e.g. relief, training, vacation, sick time etc.). The Government shall not be responsible for compensating the contractor for costs tied to the solicitation/contract requirements, either by the contractor’s intention or by mistake. To be considered for award, rates must be submitted for each and every line item listed on the pricing schedule. FPS will evaluate the price offered by extending the unit price by the estimated total units for each performance period (base and optional ordering periods, as appropriate). The total price for each period will be added to determine a total price. Also, as part of Volume II, include your latest audited financial statements which will be utilized to assess your company’s financial responsibility in accordance with FAR 9.104-1. If your company does not have audited financial statements, please contact the Contracting Officer.

C.

The following questions and answers are hereby provided for informational purposes only:

1.

Section 7.1, Contract Manager, Page 37: Because the Government requires specific availability of the Contract Manager to Government officials, there are four States involved, and this position is so important to the success of the contract, in which City and State does the Government prefer the Contract Manager be located?

Answer: Kansas City Metro Area

2.

Section 10.2, Contract Effort Required - Supervisory Hours, Page 38. Section 10.2 indicates that “Specific hours of supervision will not be required under this Contract. Instead, the Contractor shall be responsible for providing a level of supervision sufficient to ensure effective performance by the productive security guards over the course of this Contract, as agreed to by the Government as part of the Contractor’s technical proposal…” [emphasis added]. We have several questions and comments regarding Section 10.2, including:

(a) Section 10.2 references “the Contractor’s technical proposal” as the source for the Contractor’s supervision plan. However, the Submission of Proposals (Best Value) section, at Part III, Proposal Content, indicates that the Technical Proposal is composed of only Corporate Experience, Relevant Past Performance, and Socio-Economic Plan. It does not instruct offerors to submit a Supervision Plan. Should Offerors submit a Supervision Plan in their Technical Proposal? If not, how does the Government intend to evaluate each Contractor’s proposed level of supervision?

Answer: See paragraph A of this amendment.

(b) If the Government is not requiring a specific level of supervision and does not intend to evaluate the offerors’ proposed supervision structures, the Government will be permitting offerors to structure their security forces with little or no supervision at all. Since the evaluation criteria are only Corporate Experience, Relevant Past Performance, Socio-Economic Plan, and Price, the solicitation encourages offerors to limit their supervision as much as possible. Without either a supervision plan, or pricing details and backup at the very least, the Government will simply have no way of knowing that an offer includes any level of supervision at all. We strongly suggest that adequate supervision is too vital a consideration to be left to each contractor’s individual discretion without at least some evaluation by the Government.

Answer: Solicitation is clear on its face. Also, please note the Government has the latitude to evaluate this aspect in an offeror’s past performance.

(c) Section 10.2, Item B, also indicates: “In the event that the Government determines that the supervision provided by the Contractor is insufficient to effectively manage the security guards, the Government and Contractor shall meet to discuss the Contractor’s Supervision plan and ways in which the Contractor’s performance can be improved.” Since the supervision plan is not part of the RFP or the proposal, an argument could be made that any required augmentation of the supervision plan would constitute an increase in scope, allowing a re-price. This will only increase the likelihood that offerors will submit low bids, cutting out supervision, confident that they will make it up during the negotiation over their supervision plan. The possibility of an equitable adjustment being requested after award may change a previously low bid to one that was not compared to another bidder who had “adequate” supervision in their proposal at the time. Will the Government provide parameters for all contractors to equitably price this function and/or require supporting price backup detail in order to reasonably determine “best value” to the Government?

Answer: The “best value” to the Government will be based on the established evaluation criteria in the Request for Proposals. All supervision shall be priced into the offeror’s fixed hourly rate. The risk is on the contractor to perform at its proposed fixed hourly rate. There will be no equitable adjustment based on the scenario presented above. Per the RFP: “The Government shall not be responsible for compensating the contractor for costs tied to the solicitation/contract requirements, either by the contractor’s intention or by mistake.”

3. Section 11, Training (beginning on Page 39):

(a) Do the incumbent security officers and supervisors currently meet the training requirements specified in this RFP?

Answer: Yes.

(b) Have the incumbents been trained to use secondary weapons, such as the baton and OC spray?

Answer: Yes, straight baton. No, OC spray is not a requirement under this contract, See Exhibit 2C, Uniform Items.

(c) Will the training records of the incumbent security officers and supervisors be provided by FPS to the successful offeror after contract award?

Answer: No, the incumbent contractor should provide these records.

4. Section 11.4, Weapons Training and Qualification, Page 41: Section G states: “If the weapon platform required under this Contract is different from the guard’s previous qualification, the Contractor is responsible for providing adequate weapon transition training. The training plan shall include a weapons transition training plan, if applicable.”

(a) Can the Government clarify if the current guard force is currently carrying revolvers?

Answer: Yes, .38 caliber S&W revolver, 4” barrel

(b) If so, what is the total number of hours for transition training to the new weapons platform required by the Government?

Answer: It is up to the contractor to determine the number for the transition.

5. Section 11.9, Other Special Training, Item B, Page 43: It states: “The number of training hours and the posts to which the special requirements apply will be provided when the requirement arises. The Contractor will be required to schedule the training, to compensate all security guards for off-duty training at their regular hourly rate/salary, and to ensure that all posts are manned while training is in progress.” So that all offerors can include this training in their pricing, what are the historical numbers of officers who have had to receive this training on the current contract?

Answer: It would be hard to determine since it depends on the post and if new security equipment has been installed.

6. Section 12, Medical and Physical Qualifications (beginning on Page 44):

(a) Do the incumbent security officers and supervisors currently meet the medical standards specified in this RFP?

Answer: No, the medical standards are different under the current contract than the medical standards specified in the RFP.

(b) If yes, will the SF-78s be provided to the successful offeror after contract award?

7.

Section 17.4, Suitability Adjudication, Page 53: Will the previously-granted adjudications under the current contract retain their original expiration dates under the new contract?

Answer: No, these are new suitability adjudication requirements for compliance with HSPD 12.

8. SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS (BEST VALUE), Section I, General, Volume II, Price Proposal, Page 71, and Section III, Proposal Content, Item (2), Page 74: On Page 71, it states: “This volume shall include the completed solicitation documents and a complete and detailed price breakdown with all supporting information.” The Volume II - Price instructions on Page 74 do not ask for any detailed price breakdown. What specifically should all offerors include to satisfy the “price breakdown” requirement?

Answer: The offeror should break down its proposed hourly rate and what is included in that hourly rate and the price associated with that element (i.e. other than cost and pricing data). See paragraph B of this amendment.

9. The SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS (BEST VALUE) Section I, General, indicates that a Small Business Subcontracting Plan should be included in Volume II. However, SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS, Section III, Proposal Content, indicates that a Socio-Economic Plan should be included in Volume I, the Technical Proposal. The Socio-Economic Plan requirements appear to be identical to a Small Business Subcontracting Plan, including targets as both actual dollars and percentages of total contract value. These targets would effectively place an offeror’s pricing information in the Technical Proposal if the Socio-Economic Plan is included in Volume II.

(a) Are the Small Business Subcontracting Plan and the Socio-Economic Plan intended to be one and the same?

Answer: No

(b) Should the Socio-Economic Plan be included in Volume I instead of Volume II?

Answer: No

(c) If the Small Business Subcontracting Plan and the Socio-Economic Plan are not intended to be one and the same, please clarify the requirements for the Small Business Subcontracting Plan and how it will be evaluated.

Answer: Please see solicitation provision FAR 52.219-9, Alt II. The small business subcontracting plan is not an evaluation factor and will be approved separately by DHS and SBA. The socio-economic plan is an evaluation factor.

(d) Additionally, the Socio-Economic Plan requirements includes: “If the offeror fails to provide targets for the contract and/or any of the seven socio-economic factors, the offeror's proposal will be evaluated at zero percent and/or zero dollars for the contract and/or any socio-economic factor for which a target is not provided. However, an offeror that provides no socio-economic plan in response to this factor may be rated unacceptable.”

§ Are offerors required to include participation by each and every one of the seven socio-economic factors in the Plan or be rejected as unacceptable?

Answer: No, offerors are not required to include participation by each and every one of the seven socio-economic factors.

§ How does the Government intend to evaluate an offeror’s targets?

Answer: This will be a subjective assessment based on what is proposed by the offeror.

10. Exhibit 2A (Contractor Furnished Communication Equipment Requirements), Page 4, and Exhibit 2D (Contractor Furnished Supplementary Equipment Requirements), Page 8:

(a) Exhibit 2A appears to conflict with Exhibit 2D. Exhibit 2A sets forth the communication equipment requirements to include “at a new guard post or during an emergency situation…a cell phone for the guards use until such time FPS provides appropriate communications equipment usually not to exceed 24 hours.” However, Exhibit 2D requires that a cellular phone be issued to each guard as part of the contractor-provided uniform. Please clarify.

Answer: See Amendment #1

(b) If the Government’s intention is for the Contractor to provide cellular phones to each on-duty officer, as Exhibit 2D appears to indicate, please clarify that these cellular phones may be provided per post. With over 500 officers anticipated on this contract, providing a cellular phone to each officer, whether on duty or not, would represent a tremendous expense to the Government. Providing cellular phones per post will result in each on-duty officer receiving the necessary communications equipment, without requiring the Government to pay for off-duty officer’s cellular phones.

Answer: See Amendment # 1

11. Exhibit 2B, Contractor Furnished Vehicle Requirements, Page 5: Item 1 states: “Locations provided upon award of contract.” Item 2 states a vehicle shall be furnished “…as indicated below...which shall be used for patrol...” At item 4, the RFP states: “Vehicle will be rotated out approximately 1 day per week and replaced with another vehicle (SUV or sedan) from the company’s motor pool for inspection/maintenance and to provide a more uniform wear on vehicle.” This requirement will, in essence, require the contractor to provide two vehicles, instead of the one listed in the Vehicle Requirements section. How many vehicles shall all contractors include in their pricing to meet this requirement?

Answer: There are two locations that require vehicles, one location requires an automobile as per Exhibit 2B item #3, and the other location requires the SUV or sedan per Exhibit 2B item #4.

12. Exhibit 2C, Contractor Furnished Uniform Items, Item 3 (Uniform Requirements), Pages 6-7:

(a) Jacket, winter, patrol type (Reefer style): Most jackets come in black, blue or brown. Can this jacket be black instead of dark gray?

Answer: No, requirements state dark gray.

(b) Cap Frame Style: These caps are normally black or blue. Can this be black instead of dark gray?

(c) Gloves, winter (pair): Most uniform gloves come in black. Can this be black instead of dark gray?

(d) Boot, Pair, Low Quarter Black: The term “Low Quarter” with the boots is incorrect. What is the height in inches that the Government would prefer?

Answer: Low Quarter is the correct term and the contractor shall determine the height in inches.

(e) The uniform components list specifies: Boots (1 pair) and Shoes (1 pair). Can the Government clarify if BOTH shoes and boots are required or is it a choice of one or the other?

Answer: Yes, both are required.

(f) The uniform components list specifies the contractor is to provide Body Armor to each officer. In recent FPS solicitations, this requirement has been removed via amendment. Due to the expensive nature of this item, can the Government confirm that body armor is a requirement under the contract?

Answer: Yes, body armor is required under the contract.

13. Exhibit 2D, Contractor Furnished Supplementary Equipment Requirements, Item 3 (Supplementary Equipment Requirements), Page 8: There are four items specified in this table. The fourth item is Night Vision Instrument. Can the Government confirm that this is a required item and that each building listed on the contract requires two of these items?

Answer: Yes

14. Exhibit 2E, Contractor Furnished Firearms and Ammunition, Item 3, Page 9: The RFP states: “The decocking lever must not be a combination safety-decocking lever. It must be externally frame mounted, and must not be placed within the grasping groove area of the slide.” Can the Government clarify if the weapon of choice is required to have a decocking lever?

Answer: Yes

15. Exhibit 3D, Government Furnished Supplementary Equipment Requirements, Page 14: Item 2 states “The Government shall furnish...” Item 3 provides specific items in the Supplementary Equipment Requirements table. Item 1 states: “Government does not furnish supplementary equipment.”

(a) Is any of this equipment supplied by the Government?

Answer: See Amendment #1

(b) If not, will this exhibit have references removed or clarified as to intent?

Answer: See Amendment #1

16. Exhibit 4F, Contractor-Provided Annual Weapons Refresher Training and Qualifications, Page 50: The RFP states that the contractor: “…must present and certify eight (8) hours of annual baton and/or OC Spray (as appropriate) refresher training and annual weapons qualification…may be some fluctuation in the actual time covered for each subject, but under no circumstances shall the Instructor provide less than 40 hours of training.”

(a) Can the Government specify the total number of hours required for annual baton training?

Answer: As per Exhibit 4F, the RFP states eight (8) hours of annual baton training.

(b) Also, can the Government clarify if training on OC Spray is required under this contract and, if so, how many hours of training will be required for OC Spray?

Answer: No, OC Spray is not required under this contract.

17. Exhibit 6C, Security Suitability Requirements, Page 52: No suitability/clearance requirements are noted by the Government in either of the tables listed in this exhibit. It also states that the suitability and clearance requirements are “listed in Exhibit 1.” Please specify all suitability and clearance requirements for this contract.

Answer: All individuals require DHS Suitability. Exhibit 1 list all the paperwork required for individuals to obtain a DHS Security Suitability. Section C, 17 states all the forms required to obtain a DHS Security Suitability determination. If an agency requires an additional Security Suitability determination, the location will be provided upon award of the contract.

18. Collective Bargaining Agreements and Attachments 1-3: Attachments 1-3 denote each location by a county, but they do not identify which of the CBAs specifically apply to each location. Also, the provided CBAs reference “Areas” with different wage rates and no other identifier. This makes it impossible to determine which wage rate is utilized even within a single CBA.

(a) Would the Government provide all bidders a comprehensive list as to which CBA and which rate within the CBA is applicable to each specific location?

Answer: No, due to security related information, this will be provided upon award of the contract. Attachments 1-3 indicate which locations are covered by a CBA and each CBA indicates what county is covered under the CBA. The zip code for each facility is also provided.

(b) In order to determine effective supervision and travel time between locations, will the Government provide the cities and/or addresses for each post?

Answer: Due to security related information, this will be provided upon award of the contract

19.

Collective Bargaining Agreements: Will a seniority list be provided for each Collective Bargaining Agreement to all bidders as to accurately determine vacation time, etc.?

Answer: Seniority Lists will be provided in accordance with FAR 22.1020.

20.

Collective Bargaining Agreements: Are there any pending union grievances or arbitrations that are currently active and may be applicable to the successor contractor?

Answer: The Government is not aware of any; however, it does not have a definite answer on this as this would be a matter between the contractor and the union.

21.

Will the contractor be required to store weapons onsite at any of the contract locations? If so, which ones?

Answer: Yes, if there are multiple posts at a location that require shifts, a secure area for the weapons to be kept between shifts would be provided. If it is a remote location with only one post, then the guard may be required to take the weapon home. The locations will be provided upon contract award.

22. What percentage of the current workforce consists of non-U.S.-citizens?

Answer: None, all are U.S. Citizens.