JA22-014 Class JA for Expiring CSAs FINAL_Redacted.pdf

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND

OPEN COMPETITION (OTFAOC)

Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 6 Justification & Approval (J&A), Supporting Procurements under FAR Part 12, and FAR Part 15

Purchase Request Number: Expiring Communications Service Authorizations (CSAs) Contract Number: Multiple CSAs on Appendix A of this J&A Task/Delivery Order Numbers: Not Applicable Procurement Title: Class J&A for Expired/Expiring CSAs Estimated Value:

Statutory Authority: 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1) and FAR 6.302-1

CLASS JUSTIFICATION FOR OTFAOC

Justification for OTFAOC Number: JA22-014

Upon the basis of the following justification, I, as Head of Contracting Activity, hereby approve the use of OTFAOC of the proposed contractual action pursuant to the authority of 10 U.S.C.

§2304(c)(1).

1. REQUIRING AGENCY AND CONTRACTING OFFICE:

Requesting Agency:

Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA)/Procurement Services Directorate (PSD) 2300 East Drive, Building 3600 Scott AFB, IL 62225-5406

Contracting Activity:

DISA/Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO) Telecommunications Division (PL82) 2300 East Drive, Building 3600 Scott AFB, IL 62225-5406

2. NATURE/DESCRIPTION OF ACTION(S): The DITCO contracts for long haul telecommunications services with United States (US) regulated/non-regulated and foreign contractors on behalf of various military departments (MILDEPS), the Department of Defense (DoD), and other federal agencies at locations within the 48 Contiguous United States (CONUS), Hawaii, Alaska, US Territories and Possessions, and International locations.

DITCO acquires these telecommunications services using the streamlined Inquiry/Quote/Order (IQO) process. The IQO process is a method for acquiring telecommunication services not available or unobtainable under an existing Indefinite Delivery contract. The IQO process is for the acquisition of telecommunication services, which may include associated equipment and special construction. All IQO CSAs must be firm-fixed-price or tariffed as authorized by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) or other regulatory bodies such as a state Public Utility Commission.

Class J&A for Expiring CSAs JA22-014 contractual actions completed, and for re-awards, new service is fielded. Continuity of services through these existing CSAs is essential to support various federal agency operations. DITCO does not have insight on the criticality of the individual circuits and are unable to advise contractors to disconnect CSA’s without proper authorization from MPs. Some of these leased services knowingly range from providing commercial business lines in support of government administrative operations to critical operations related to the national security (e.g., Direct Communication Links; defense network missile silos; and military and humanitarian operations in Southwest Asia). Any break or gaps in service would have a significant impact on the mission of the following federal agencies:

Defense Contract Management Agency Defense Commissary Agency Defense Finance and Accounting Services Defense Health Agency Defense Information Systems Agency Defense Intelligence Agency Defense Logistics Agency Defense Security Service Department of Defense Department of Energy Department of Homeland Security National Geospatial – Intelligence Agency National Security Agency Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Secretary of Defense United States Air Force United States Army United States Navy White House Communications Agency

This contract action is required to allow for the extension and re-award of expiring CSAs, enabling DITCO time to acquire the needed guidance from all MPs. DITCO is continuously working with the DISA Services Development (SD) Directorate to improve the currently fielded automated tool, which will allow for proactive coordination with mission partners to determine accomplished if services are still required or should be discontinued. Initial fielding of the automated tool was in June 2018; an enhanced fielding of this tool took place in January 2020;

however, there are currently data integrity issues with the enhanced version that require correction before becoming useful in effectively monitoring existing CSAs. Correction of the deployed enhancements is ongoing, but due to complex system interfacing issues, the availability of full capabilities has been delayed. After corrections are made to the enhanced automated tool, MPs will be able to more efficiently, and within a manageable scale, track the upcoming expiration of active CSAs, allowing for timely submissions of re-award and/or disconnect requests. In the interim, manual efforts are required to track and monitor CSAs and their associated re-award/discontinue actions continuously. Although significant progress is being made in discontinuing services within their current expiration date, additional CSAs with approaching expiration dates are added, resulting in a constantly changing inventory every year.

Given the data integrity issues in the deployed automated tool and the dynamics associated with managing a large volume of CSAs, this J&A is required until such time the MILDEPs/Agencies are provided the proper tools to manage their large volume of expiring CSAs.

6. FEDBIZOPPS ANNOUNCEMENT/POTENTIAL SOURCES: No solicitation(s) will be posted to beta.SAM.gov to support the modifications to extend the Period of Performance (PoP) on these CSAs; however, re-award actions to replace these CSAs will be synopsized in beta.SAM.gov if required by FAR Part 5.

7. DETERMINATION OF FAIR AND REASONABLE COST: CSAs were initially competitively awarded with firm fixed prices or tariff pricing of which the prices were determined fair and reasonable. Tariff pricing is determined fair and reasonable as rates by a common carrier for tariffed telecommunications services are considered to be prices set by law and regulation within the provisions of 10 U.S.C. 2306a in accordance with DFARS 239.7406(a). Should any contractor pursue a non-tariff rate increase as a result of the extension of the PoP on a CSA, the Contracting Officer will determine whether the proposed price is fair and reasonable.

8. MARKET RESEARCH: This is an extension of approximately 918 existing CSAs to ensure continued support until the MPs can submit re-award or discontinue actions against the expiring CSAs and the re-award actions are completed and service fielded. It is DITCOs intent to competitively re-award services to either small or large businesses as required pursuant to a current market research report submitted concurrently with the DD2579 to the small business office in accordance with DISA Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DARS) Part 10.

9. ANY OTHER SUPPORTING FACTS: To prevent this situation from reoccurring, DITCO has taken steps to ensure MPs are notified, via multiple mediums, of when CSAs will be expiring:

Continuation of a dedicated agency point of contact and regular coordination between the appointee and DITCO; Status of Acquisition Messages (SAMs) reflect contract expiration dates upon initial award of CSAs; the Telecommunication Services Enterprise Acquisition Services Inventory and Billing Information (TIBI) system reflects contract expiration dates for individual CSAs; Bulk Inventory Reports are available on demand within TIBI for MPs to track expiration dates; DITCO sends periodic reports of expiring CSAs to MPs; and up to six Expiration Notice SAMS are now issued on Integrated Defense Enterprise Acquisition System CSAs beginning 12 months prior to expiration date. The continuous coordination with MPs and other methods listed above has led to the discontinuance of 270 CSA’s since March 2021 alone. A significant portion of the remaining CSA’s awaiting discontinue have an awarded follow-on circuit either in contractor engineering or installation; upon cutover to the follow-on solution(s), those CSAs will be discontinued. Delays in both award and cut-over of these follow-ons are mostly due to the procurement and installation of new, modernized solutions, versus like-for-like services, as legacy technology is no longer available, or is unreasonably expensive to maintain. Age and value of the CSA is considered when prioritizing the focus of discontinue efforts. In addition, as discussed in paragraph 5, DISA has fielded an automated tool within DISA StoreFront to aide MPs in monitoring expiring CSAs and document performance of required review and revalidation on all telecommunication services in accordance with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 6211.02D. Corrections to the enhanced version of the tool is in the late stages of development and will provide for customers a tool to proactively monitor expiring CSAs through the use of “stop lights”, reports, and the association of current CSAs with the status of follow-on actions, to include dates of requirements submittal and flagging of CSAs approaching expiration without follow-on actions in place. The tool provides a paradigm shift from “pushing” information to MPs to 24/7/365 availability of information.

10. LISTING OF INTERESTED SOURCES: Many different contractors are associated with these CSAs. Appendix A of this J&A identifies the potential interested sources through the telephone company symbol within the CSA numbers. Any interested sources will be identified during market research and the competitive acquisition process for the re-awards replacing these CSAs.

11. ACTIONS THE AGENCY MAY TAKE TO REMOVE OR OVERCOME BARRIERS THAT

LED TO THE EXCEPTION TO FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION: CSAs identified by MPs confirming there is a valid continuing need for continued service will be re-awarded competitively as discussed above. The necessity for this action is also set forth above.

Enclosure a/s: Appendix A