LSJ 23F0474-P08 - IBM 911 VCF Extended Signed.pdf

U.S. Department of Justice Justice Management Division Procurement Services Staff Washington, DC 20530

Limited Sources Justification FAR Part 8.405-6

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity.

This justification is submitted by the United States Department of Justice (herein after Department or DOJ), in accordance with the requirements of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 8.405-6(a)(1)(i)(B). The requiring organization is the Civil Division, Office of Information Technology. The contracting entity is the Justice Management Division, Procurement Services Staff.

2. Nature and/or description of the action being approved.

The Department intends to issue a supplemental modification to extend bridge task order 15JPSS23F00000474, issued against International Business Machines Corporation’s (IBM) General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) Contract GS-00F- 005DA for support of the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund Claims Management System (VCF-CMS).

3. Description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs, including the estimated value.

The VCF-CMS supports the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund to administer claims for compensation to any individual who suffered physical harm, or to the personal representative of an individual killed, as a result of the terrorist-related aircraft crashes of September 11, 2001, or the clean-up and debris removal efforts in the aftermath.

Bridge task order 15JPSS23F00000474, was issued to provide support from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, to which IBM would continue transformation activity for the anticipated myVCF replacement system. The extension period is needed to perform the following:

• Operate and maintain the current VCF-CMS;

• CMS Data Management and Migration of VCF-CMS to myVCF;

FFP Hosting of current VCF-CMS until myVCF replacement system is fully operational.

The bridge award would be extended for an additional six months with a six-month option period to allow for potential delays in the full deployment of myVCF, the replacement system to VCF- CMS. The estimated value of this extension is $11.5M.

4. Authority and supporting rationale including, if applicable, demonstration of the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications to provide the required supply or service.

Given the need for continuity of the VCF mission-critical services, and the transition to the competitively awarded contract for completion of the development and deployment of the new my VCF system; the Department is limiting consideration to IBM as authorized by FAR 8.405-6 (a)(1)(i)(B): Only one source is capable of providing the supplies or services required at the level of quality required because the supplies or services are unique or highly specialized.

HISTORY:

The current VCF-CMS supports the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund with processing of claims. PSS issued Task Order 15JPSS18F00000167 to IBM on January 10, 2018, for further support of VCF-CMS. The initial intention of the Task Order contract was temporary to support all Claims Management System IT activities needed to support the VCF through the anticipated program shutdown in December 2022. However, as the claims increased over time, it became more apparent that a long-term solution was necessary.

Additionally, in July 2019, the Never Forget the Heroes: James Zadroga, Ray Pfeifer, and Luis Alvarez Permanent Authorization of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (Permanent Authorization Act) was signed into law (Public Law 116-34), extending the VCF claim filing deadline to October 1, 2090, and appropriating such funds as may be necessary to pay all eligible claims. With the Permanent Authorization Act extending the VCF’s mandate through October 1, 2092, the VCF is in the process of transforming from a short-term, limited funding program, to one that processes claims for many decades to come. The bridge Task Order was issued to continue performance and support transformation activities through June 30, 2024.

Civil Division continued to identify and refine requirements that will support a long-term solution. With the development of myVCF in a cloud-hosted environment and newly deployed Salesforce platform, a competitive award has been made to complete myVCF development, deployment, and modernization support, which includes future releases and completion of all transformation activities.

RATIONALE:

The work covered by this bridge extension period will ensure that the current VCF-CMS continues to function properly and reliably for claimants and the VCF team, and that the Special Master has the necessary ongoing support from IBM while the transformation project continues and until the replacement system, myVCF, is fully operational.

Transformation of the system is nearing completion and is currently under an aggressive schedule to meet Departmental release goals and dates previously announced by the Attorney General and communicated to members of Congress. A new vendor is supporting the final steps in transformation activities of the VCF-CMS to myVCF. The Civil Division believes strongly that the new vendor will require a minimum amount of time to baseline and complete the remaining transformation activities to ensure it meets the statutory requirements under which it operates, which is intended to support a population of both internal and external users.

Conducting a competition to support the operation and maintenance of the existing VCF-CMS in its current hosting environment within IBM would introduce a very steep learning curve requiring an enormous amount of time and resources to support and at an unknown additional cost for a limited time frame. There is no guarantee that an alternative team would be able to provide the necessary array of complex functionality developed and provided by IBM. To do so would require an extensive amount of training, integration and testing and other unnecessary delays and costs for support of a system that is at its end of life. Changing the VCF-CMS service provider, which is scheduled for decommissioning, would be a senseless cost to taxpayers while also introducing an extraordinarily high level of risk at a time when the VCF-CMS continues to receive almost 1,000 new claims each month and is facing a large backlog of over 12,000 claims needing to be processed.

5. Determination by the ordering activity contracting officer that order represents the best value consistent with FAR 8.404(d).

The General Services Administration has already determined that the prices under Federal Supply Schedule GS-00F-005DA are fair and reasonable. PSS compared IBM's proposal for the bridge extension period with historical prices paid under the prior task orders and a comparison to similar services available from other GSA FSS contractors to ensure that pricing is fair and reasonable. Given this, and the unique needs of the VCF-CMS system hosted by IBM, the Contracting Officer determines that the task order represents the best value to the government.

6. Description of the market research conducted among schedule holders and the results, or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

Market research conducted to date has been oriented toward replacement of the existing VCS- CMS. The Civil Division performs ongoing market research in active markets, including cloud hosting to assess pricing, available services and security standards related to various workloads, including VCF. The Division has met with multiple cloud vendors while researching this effort to confirm that current hosting prices are within the competitive market range. An RFQ for hosting was released and awarded for the licensing and hosting of the new system on the Salesforce cloud platform while a separate RFQ was issued and competitively awarded as a socio-economic woman-owned small business set aside to support myVCF development, deployment, and modernization, to include transformation activities to support go-live.

7. Any other facts supporting the justification.

The VCF is a highly visible program, with significant Congressional interest, frequent media inquiries, and interest among the 9/11 community and advocacy groups. Several congressional leaders who sponsored the 2010 James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act that re-opened the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) in 2011 and led the effort to fully fund and make permanent the VCF in 2019, have all expressed significant interest to Attorney General Garland in the implementation of the VCF’s new claims system.

With almost three individuals dying every week from 9/11-related illnesses, the VCF program office and its external stakeholders cannot abide a scenario that results in further delays to claims processing and the launch of the more modern claims system.

8. Statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers that led to the restricted consideration before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services is made.

The current legacy system that is exclusively hosted in IBM data centers limits the availability of competition amongst vendors for hosting support. The need to extend the existing task order to allow for the ongoing hosting, maintenance, and operation of the current claims system, while supporting configuration and deployment of the new system, is necessary.

Upon the launching of the new myVCF system and once all necessary data migration has been completed, the legacy VCF-CMS system that is exclusively hosted in IBM data centers will be decommissioned and archived. With the system being decommissioned and archived, and hosting support moved to a new cloud-based platform, competition opportunities for vendors and resellers of hosting services in the future will be increased.

Unlike previous iterations of the VCF's supporting IT services contract, which issued as short term/temporary requirements due to the expected closure of the program in December 2022, and considering the permanent authorization of the VCF, the agency is committed to providing a consistent and competitive approach to future IT services in support of myVCF, which should remain operational through October 1, 2092. The procurement for ongoing support and maintenance of the new claims system, myVCF was successfully executed as a competitive action.

Similar to these most recent task order awards, the acquisitions for hosting, ongoing maintenance, operations, and enhancement support to ensure the program's future operation will continue to be competed.

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9. Certifications, Concurrence and Approvals.

Technical/Requirements Personnel Certification:

I certify that the information contained in this document for which I am responsible is accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Karen L. McColman, Assistant Chief Information Officer-Resource Management Department of Justice, Civil Division

Contracting Officer Certification:

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

K. Sakura Higa, Contract Officer Procurement Services Staff, Justice Management Division

Concurrence:

Subsection 2806.304 of the Justice Acquisition Regulation requires concurrence by the Bureau Procurement Chief.

Telly Renfroe, Director Procurement Services Staff, Justice Management Division

Approval:

Subsection 8.405-6(d)(2)(3)(4) of the Federal Acquisition Regulation requires approval by the senior procurement executive of the agency placing the order.

William Taylor II, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Policy, Management, and Procurement Justice Management Division