JA Approved REDACTED_Redacted.pdf

CUI

Control No.: MICC 2021-25

Vendor: Tatitlek Training Services Program: Support Base Services

FAR Part 6 Justification and Approval for Other than Full and Open Competition

1. Contracting Activity:

Fort Sam Houston (MICC-FSH) 2205 Infantry Post Road, Fort Sam Houston, TX 78234

2. Description of Action: Headquarters IMCOM and the Directorate of Plans, Training, requests a Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) bridge contract with Tatitlek Training Services, 561 East 36th Ave, Anchorage, AK 99503. The Government projects award for March 2021 and fiscal year 2021 Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds will be used.

This action is a follow-on to contract W9124J-12-D-0003, Task Order W911S8-18-F- 0294. This specific task order was competed among the Multiple Award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (MA-IDIQ) contract holders of the prior Support Base Services (SBS) contract vehicle, which expired on 31 March 2020.

3. Description of Supplies/Services: MICC-FSH has a requirement from Headquarters, U.S. Army Installation Management Command (IMCOM), for a performance-based bridge contract to augment DPTMS-FB support services for the execution of mobilization/demobilization and deployment/redeployment activities.

Requirements maybe tailored to the needs of the U.S. Army Garrison Fort Bliss and not limited solely to support mobilization/demobilization. This bridge contract will provide continuity until a competitive task order can be awarded against the new SBS MA-IDIQ.

The contractor shall provide personnel, management, and any other items and services not government furnished, necessary to perform functions that exceed organic capabilities in supporting the Army Sustainable Readiness Model (SRM) (formerly ARFORGEN) process. The SRM process, in an era of persistent armed conflict in the world, is typified by surges related to Active Component (AC) deployment/redeployment and re-stationing, and Reserve Component (RC) post mobilization training, deployment, redeployment and demobilization. The preponderance of work will be performed on the Fort Bliss, TX installation but occasional TDY may be required for individual(s) in support of the SRM process. The Contractor shall perform work in the following task areas:

Contract/Task Order Management Task 1: Plans Task 2: Training Task 3: Mobilization Support and Services Task 4: Security Task 5: Human Resources Task 6: Finance Task 7: Material Management and Supply Task 8: Subsistence and Warehouse Services

Task 9: Movements Task 10: Equipment Readiness and Maintenance Task 11: Billeting and Facilities Task 12: Information Management

The anticipated Period of Performance will be:

Base Period: 31 MAR 2021 to 30 JUN 2021 FAR 52.217-8: 1 JUL 2021 to 31 DEC 2021 Value: $15,244,138.86 Total Value: $22,866,208.32

4. Authority Cited: 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1), as implemented by FAR 6.302-1, Only one responsible source and no other services will satisfy agency requirements.

5. Reason for Authority Cited:

a.

be deemed to be available only from the original source in the case of follow-on contracts for the continued provision of highly specialized services when it is likely that award to any other source would result in substantial duplication of cost to the Government that is not expected to be recovered through competition or unacceptable specialized and there will be unacceptable delays in fulfilling these services through competition given the current circumstances.

Value: $7,622,069.43

b. As noted in paragraph 3 above, these highly specialized services provide augmentation support to the Army Garrison as they assist warfighters who are deploying or redeploying in support of defending the Constitution of the United States of America. For Fort Bliss, these services cover the 12 task areas previously listed above.

To execute a task order for any of these task areas requires a 60 day phase-in to recruit, train, and reach initial operating capability due to the highly specialized nature of these task areas. The current contract for these services expires on 30 March 2021.

The new SBS MA-IDIQ was awarded on 28 September 2020 but ordering against this MA-IDIQ was delayed due to a CICA stay resulting from a GAO post award protest filed on 7 October 2020. GAO denied the protest on 29 December 2020 and the CICA stay subsequently ended at the beginning of January 2021. The procurement lead time to compete a cost task order under the SBS MA-IDIQ is over 120 days. Further, any awardee from such a competition will need 60 days to become fully operational at Fort Bliss. Given these two factors, a competitive task order process would result in at least a 4 month break in services at Fort Bliss until a new vendor would become fully operational. A break in service would be an unacceptable delay in fulfilling the Army requirement at Fort Bliss. Therefore in order to ensure continuation of these critical services, the Government can only procure these services by awarding a sole-source bridge contract to the incumbent contractor. The incumbent contractor already has the necessary personnel, tools, and equipment to maintain the service from 31 March 2021 until the award of a competitive task order under the new SBS MA-IDIQ.

c. Alternatives.

1) Status Quo. One alternative to this sole-source action is to do nothing and let the services lapse until the competitive action can be competed and awarded. In this scenario, the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, and the United States of America would be left vulnerable in the event a full-scale deployment situation arises during this period. Without these services, the reserve and civilian component would be required to provide these services, and there is not enough personnel available to do this in a satisfactory manner. Deployment processing times would increase severely and soldiers would not be getting the required services they need prior to deployment or when they re-deploy.

2) Competitive Procurement. Another alternative would be to attempt a competitive action on this requirement using the new MA-IDIQ before the current task order expires on 30 March 2021. That would require: (a) a detailed review of the PWS/QASP/IGCE to ensure the requirement is communicated to the MA-IDIQ vendors appropriately (this takes approximately 4 days); (b) perform adequate market research through posting a sources sought synopsis for at least 2 weeks; (c) compiling the results of the sources sought, drafting a Market Research Report and submitting for a DD2579 through the small business office (this takes approximately a week); (d) building a Request for Task Order Proposal (RTOP) (this takes approximately a day or two); (e) soliciting the RTOP to the 16 MA-IDIQ vendors and giving them approximately 2 weeks to respond; (f) evaluating the responses (this takes approximately 5-10 days); (g) documenting the prices as fair and reasonable and developing a Task Order Decision Document (TODD) (this takes approximately a week); (h) building an award document and submitting all documents to legal for review (this takes approximately 7 days); (i) making the award and distributing and then notifying the unsuccessful offerors and providing debriefings as required (this takes approximately 3 days). As demonstrated above, even in the absolute best case-scenario, a competitive action would take approximately 65 business days. The difference between this 65 day timeframe and the 120 day PALT mentioned in Section 5, Paragraph (b) is the competitive action could take as few as 65 days if there was one Contracting Officer and one contract specialist working solely this action with no other competing requirements and/or priorities, and assuming the customer is responsive in a rapid/timely fashion. It is the experience of the Contracting Officer that these conditions never happen and therefore are not reasonable to expect, hence the 120 day PALT. With the current task order ending 30 March 2021, there is insufficient time remaining to support this alternative.

d. Impact if not approved. A break in service will negatively and severely impact the security interests. The U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, and the United States of

America would be left vulnerable in the event that a full-scale deployment situation arises during this period. Without these support base services, the reserve and civilian component would attempt to provide these services, and there is not enough personnel available to do this in a satisfactory manner. Deployment processing times would increase severely for Soldiers as the required services needed prior to deployment or upon re-deployment would be severely degraded. COCOMs would experience these delays in receiving new Soldiers in-theater to support the various missions, creating battle fatigue for those Soldiers on the front line. Additionally, once the new soldiers are ultimately sent into theater and the previous Soldiers are relieved, Soldiers would then incur unnecessary delays in the re-deployment process, creating even more strain, stress, and fatigue on Soldiers who are already weary and deserving of rest.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: The SBS MA-IDIQ contract was awarded on 28 September 2020 to 16 contractors who were found to be technically acceptable. These 16 contractors were selected from the 27 offerors who proposed. This data clearly indicates that there are multiple contractors available who can perform these services.

However, due to the CICA stay imposed from a post-award protest, the Government was unable to properly compete this requirement in the time needed. The post-award protest has been dismissed as of 29 December 2020, and the CICA stay is lifted, but there is now not enough time to conduct a competitive acquisition before the current task order expires on 30 March 2021. The Contracting Officer will issue a RTOP to the 16 MA-IDIQ contract holders as soon as possible. It is then expected that most, if not all of the 16 contractors will respond with a proposal for these exact services.

Furthermore, the Contracting Officer published the notices required by FAR 5.201 for this bridge contract and any bids or proposals received shall be considered. The notice was published on 18 December 2020 and closed on 4 January 2021. Three responses were received, including one from an offeror who is already part of the MA-IDIQ, which is discussed in paragraph 9 below.

a. Effective Competition: Because this is a sole source action, effective competition is not applicable.

b. Subcontracting Competition: Subcontracting competition will be achieved by requiring the prime contractor to provide a small business subcontracting plan with its

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The GAO protest was denied on 29 December 2020. The Contracting Officer will issue a RTOP to the 16 MA-IDIQ contract holders where a competitive task order competition will be held for these services. Because of the dollar value of this requirement, it is expected that the prime contractor will include a small business subcontracting plan with its proposal. This plan will be evaluated to ensure that the prime contractor is competing subcontracting opportunities to the maximum extent possible.

proposal.

Vendor: Tatitlek Training Services Program: Support Base Services

8. Market Research: Market research indicates that there are multiple companies that can perform these services. However, as indicated above, only one responsible source incumbent contractor for these services. In accordance with Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) 205.205-71, DFARS 206.302-1(d), and DFARS Procedures, Guidance and Information (PGI) 206.302-1(d), a sources sought was published via the beta.sam.gov website on 18 December 2020 and closed on 4 January 2021. Three vendors responded, but none of the responses were meaningful.

While there are vendors which are interested in competing for this requirement, there the current contract expires. Further, the strategy is to compete the follow-on requirement as a task order against the new MA-IDIQ for SBS services, but this process was delayed due to a CICA stay.

9. Interested Sources: A Sources Sought notice was posted on 18 December 2020 to the beta.sam.gov website with a draft PWS for these services; it closed on 4 January

Management & Consulting. FITT Scientific is one of the 16 vendors who was awarded a MA-IDIQ contract. They openly admitted that they were merely trying to garner more information for the competitive acquisition and it had no real interest in the bridge contract. The second vendor, TRDI, is strictly a custodial contractor and was only offered a generic capability pamphlet which gave zero indication of its ability to perform these broad services. To date, no other sources have written to express interest in the acquisition. Based on these responses, the Contracting Officer has a reasonable assurance that no companies are truly interested in competing for this bridge contract outside of the current new SBS MA-IDIQ contract holders.

10. Other Facts:

a. Procurement History:

Contract No. W9124J-12-D-0003 / W911S8-18-F-0294 P00022

Vendor: Tatitlek Training Services, Inc.

Awarded Value: $13,759,420.10 Competitive Status: Exception to Fair Opportunity Authority: FAR 16.505

Contract No. W9124J-12-D-0003 / W911S8-18-F-0294

Vendor: Tatitlek Training Services, Inc.

Awarded Value: $50,847,815.44 Competitive Status: Fair Opportunity

Vendor: Tatitlek Training Services Program: Support Base Services

Contract No. W9124J-12-D-0003-0003

Vendor: Tatitlek Training Services, Inc.

Awarded Value: $15,067,172.99 Competitive Status: Fair Opportunity

Contract No. W9124J-12-D-0003-0001

Vendor: Tatitlek Training Services, Inc.

Awarded Value: $125,369,933.56 Competitive Status: Fair Opportunity

b. The contractor will be required to provide a monthly Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee (CPFF) amount for each month of the period available under the authority of FAR 52.217-8.

The contractor will also be required to provide a certificate of Certified Cost and Pricing Data for both the base period CPFF amount and the period available under FAR 52.217-8.

Approval

Based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the procurement of support base services for Fort Bliss, Texas on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority of Title 10 United States Code Section 2304(c)(1) - Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.

The estimated value of the contract is $22.9 million for up to a 9 month period of performance from 31 March 2021 to 31 December 2021. The approval is subject to availability of funds, and provided that the services or property herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.