JA - Pension and Burial - Redacted.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION

1. Contracting Activity: Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of Procurement, Acquisition, and Logistics Technology Acquisition Center

23 Christopher Way Eatontown, NJ 07724

2. Description of Action: The proposed firm-fixed price (FFP) sole source action is for the enhancement of the VA.gov digital applications supporting the VA Pension and Burial programs. The proposed contractor is Coforma LLC, 1200 18th Street NW, Ste 700, Washington D.C. 20036.

3. Description of Supplies or Services: The proposed action provides support for the enhancement of the VA.gov digital applications for the Pension and Burial programs.

The goal of this work is to make it easier and quicker for Veterans and their survivors to apply for and receive these benefits, including enhancing applicant understanding and experience, as well as ensuring claims are accurate and minimally burdensome for claim adjudicators. This will continue the work being conducted under the existing Customer Experience, DevOps, Agile Releases (CEDAR) Task Order that includes conducting research, design, content creation, front and back-end implementation, testing, and support of relevant forms and features compliant with all relevant security and accessibility requirements. Implementation will require primarily building on VA.gov within vets-website and vets-api and integrating with external services and systems as necessary, utilizing capabilities in the Virtual Regional Office (VRO), and leveraging VA Notify for notifications to Veterans. Depending on prioritization of features, work may require building Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) on the VA’s Lighthouse API platform. This proposed FFP contract is for a 12-month base period. The total estimated value of the proposed action is .

4. Statutory Authority: The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition for this acquisition is 41 U.S.C. 3304(a)(5), “Authorized or Required by Statute”, as implemented by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 6.302-5. For this action, 38 U.S.C. 8127(c), known as the Veterans First Contracting Program provides the authority to directly contract with a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) or a Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB).

5. Rationale Supporting Use of Authority Cited Above: The proposed source for this acquisition is Coforma. Coforma is a certified SDVOSB and is technically qualified to support the suite of pension and benefits forms. Coforma won a competitive task order in July 2023 to perform this work and has performed successfully to date. The existing task order expires on August 1, 2024, however, the need for continued support and iteration on the forms is an ongoing need beyond this task order. Should the required support not be continued VA would not be able to provide an auto-Intent to file (ITF) function which enables Veteran benefit’s effective date to be calculated

Pension and Burials from the date a pension application was started online, this project was already begun under the current CEDAR Task Order. This means Veterans wouldn’t have the potential to receive Pension benefits backdated to when they started the application. This work impacts not only OCTO’s Pension benefits improvements, but also informs improvement of ITF for Disability claims and across va.gov for forms that use ITF. A failure to continue the required support would also delay the launch of the important Veteran facing features started under the current contract and VA would lose the experience, knowledge, and relationships the current contractor has developed. A continuation of the current contractor’s support will allow VA to utilize the experience and knowledge gained and continue the projects allowing us to complete the creation of a modernized “interview-style” online experience as a streamlined path for Veterans to report Income & Assets (21P-0969) and Medical Expense report (21P-8416). This would also delay delivery of the digitization of form components that can be reused for digitizing form 21P-534. This would also delay the completion of the modernization and service design improvements of post-relaunch Minimum Viable Product of the Pension and Burial VA.gov form experience, including key accessibility, usability, and technical updates. Lastly it would delay provision of key data visibility and tracking that would provide a vital analytics tracking capacity that will enable both OCTO and the Veterans Benefits Administration to better understand claim conversion rate.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Market research was conducted in May 2024, as discussed in Section 8. Upon the determination that a sole source award to Coforma was in the best interest of the Government, the Contracting Officer confirmed that Coforma meets all of the requirements detailed in VAAR 819.7008. Consistent with the guidelines of the Veterans First Contracting Program, the proposed action described herein will be synopsized and this justification will be posted on the Contracting Opportunities Page in accordance with FAR Part 5.

7. Actions to Increase Competition: The current task order was competed and awarded on the CEDAR Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. The contract ceiling of CEDAR is accounted for, and therefore the continued pension and burial forms work cannot be obtained via the CEDAR IDIQ. A new IDIQ, the Secure, Performant, Reliable, and User-Centered Experiences (SPRUCE) contract is planned to replace CEDAR, and is currently in the evaluation phase. Continued enhancement of the VA.gov digital applications supporting the VA Pension and Burial programs is ongoing and needed to bridge the gap between the CEDAR and SPRUCE contracts. It is expected that future needs for this work will be competed on the new IDIQ contract in fiscal year 2025. CEDAR (and SPRUCE, once awarded), are the preferred vehicles to acquire the type of software development services under this action as they are 100% set asides for SDVOSBs and the awardees have proven software development capability.

8. Market Research: Market research was conducted in May 2024. The Contracting Officer considered whether there are other capable contractors in the marketplace.

Given that the CEDAR contract is nearing its ceiling and is no longer a viable vehicle for this work, and the follow-on IDIQ contract, SPRUCE, is not yet awarded, it is not in the Government’s best interest to compete for a short-term bridge effort as it may result in a transition to a different contractor, and then a transition to a third contractor once SPRUCE is awarded. The potential for three different contractors to have to transition this work in roughly 12 months would likely result in disruptions to the services being performed. Such a disruption would severely impact VA’s ability to deliver and support the digitized suite of pension and burial forms on VA.gov which allow Veterans and their families and caregivers to apply for Pension and Burial benefits quickly, easily, and securely using digital tools, including if they are using assistive technology. Therefore, it is in VA’s best interest to award this action to the contractor currently performing the work, Coforma, with the planned follow-on action to be competed under SPRUCE.

The Veteran Small Business Certification (VetCert) database was accessed on June 25, 2024. This search concluded that Coforma is registered and certified and qualifies as a SDVOSB in accordance with the federal small business size standard for the applicable North American Industry Classification System Code 541519. It was verified on June 25, 2024 that Coforma is registered in the SAM.gov database and is eligible to receive a Government contract.

9. Other Facts: The Procuring Contracting Officer has determined that this proposed action meets all the requirements of 38 U.S.C. 8127(c) and VAAR 819.7008. This acquisition is below the $5,000,000.00 threshold, Coforma is a responsible SDVOSB for performance of the services described herein, the proposed contract can be awarded at a fair and reasonable price, and award to Coforma is in the best interest of the Government.

10.Technical/Requirements Certification

I certify that the supporting data under my cognizance, which are included in this justification, are accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

11. Fair and Reasonable Cost Determination I hereby determine that the anticipated price to the Government for this contract action will be fair and reasonable based on an analysis of historical prices paid by the Government for the same services. The contracting officer will use existing CEDAR labor rates, which have previously been determined to be fair and reasonable, to verify Coforma’s proposed price is fair and reasonable per FAR 15.404-1(b)(2)(ii).

12. Contracting Officer Certification

I certify that this justification is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Pension and Burials Control Number: VA-24-00011576

Advocate for Competition Approval

In my role as procuring activity Advocate for Competition, based on the foregoing justification, I hereby approve the acquisition of the VA.gov digital applications supporting the VA Pension and Burial programs on an other than full and open competition basis pursuant to the authority cited in Section 4 above, subject to availability of funds, and provided that the property and services herein described have otherwise been authorized for acquisition.