Attachment_3-Answers_to_Questions.docx
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- Attached to
- Financial Assistance Services
- Solicitation number
- NTSB-R-14-0001
- Issued by
-
National Transportation Safety Board
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Attachment 3 - Answers to Questions
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| File | Type | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| Attachment_3-Answers_to_Questions.docx | DOCX document | |
| Attachment_1-SOW.docx | DOCX document | |
| Attachment_2-Past_Performance_Questionnaire.docx | DOCX document | |
| Attachment_1-SOW.docx | DOCX document | |
| SF-18NTSBR140001-Financial_Assistance_Services.pdf |
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Attachment 3
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) NTSB-R-14-0001
“FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE SERVICES”
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
1. Is there an incumbent currently performing this work? If so, please identify and provide Level of Effort.
ANSWER: No. This is a new requirement.
2. To ensure that pricing is being evaluated across bidders on an equitable basis, please provide additional information on the number of estimated FTE’s or a cap on hours required to provide the support services. For example:
a. Attachment 1 provides for each year ‘Quantity’ and ‘Unit of Issue’. Under the Base Year, Item No. 1 Quantity shows ‘1’ and Unit of Issue is ‘EA’. Does this relate to ‘1 FTE each’?
ANSWER: No. The Quantity and Unit of Issue relates to the deliverable stated in the support description: “Review current Corrective Action Plan (CAP) and propose additional actions if appropriate”.
b. Under the option years, Quantity and Unit of Issue shows 12 months; what are the estimated hours or FTEs?
ANSWER: The unit of issue has been corrected to “12 Months” under the option years. The NTSB will pay the Contractor a firm fixed-price each month to provide a “Monthly follow-up to ensure the new processes and procedures are working”. It is the Contractor’s responsibility to review the SOW and determine their firm fixed-price to provide the monthly follow up.
3. The services being requested are non-attestation financial support services. Will NTSB consider other than Independent Public Accounting firms for this solicitation?
ANSWER: Yes.
4. With questions due February 7, 2014 and proposals due the following Friday (February 14). Will NTSB consider an extension on the proposal submission date?
ANSWER: No.
5. Attachment I, Section L (IV). Page 10 of SOW – Past Performance Can NTSB confirm what needs to be included in Part II – Past Performance of the proposal? Would NTSB like for the Offeror to include the incomplete Past Performance Questionnaire (Attachment 2) that we submit to our references?
ANSWER: If the reference submits the questionnaire, then the Offeror does not need to submit it.
6. Attachment I, Section L (IV). Page 10 of SOW – Past Performance
| If the Offeror is proposing a subcontractor, are we required to submit a minimum of two (2) past performances for the Offeror and its proposed subcontractor EACH? |
| ANSWER: If the Offeror’s past performance is not similar in scope to this requirement, then the Offeror should submit past performance references for itself and its subcontractor. |
7. 52.212-1(b)(8) Instructions to Offerors – Commercial Items
| Is the Offeror required to submit a completed copy of the representations and certifications in FAR 52.212-3? If so, where would NTSB like for this to be included in our proposal submission? |
| ANSWER: No. The NTSB can obtain the Offeror’s representations and certifications from the System for Award Management (SAM). |
8. SF-18NTSBR140001 – Financial Assistance Services (PDF document provided by NTSB)
| Is the Offeror required to submit the Standard Form 18, completed and signed, that NTSB provided with the RFP documents? If so, where would NTSB like for this to be included in our proposal submission? |
| ANSWER: No. |
9. Attachment I, Section B (II). Scope of Work, p. 5 Paragraph beginning “Specific requirements have been identified” states B. evaluate the current processes and procedures and if needed, propose improvements that will correct the weaknesses”. Attachment I, Section B(III). Deliverables, states “A. Evaluate the corrective action plan to correct the identified material weaknesses”. Could the government clarify whether there are existing corrective action plans to review and if so, how many are there? Also, how many current processes and procedures exist and what level and nature of documentation exists regarding the existing processes and procedures?
ANSWER: See answers to Questions #32 & #49.
One Action Plan – NRF#2 Action Plan
CAP: The independent auditor made 5 recommendations. The audit report is part of the Performance and Accountability report which is posted to our public web site: http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/agency_reports/PAR_2013_2012.pdf
The audit report includes definition of the material weakness, the auditors’ recommendations, and the details of the conditions that resulted in the material weakness.
Monthly follow-up: The NTSB does approximately 6 to 12 JVs per month. The NTSB also does 3 basic analytical processes (a trial balance fluctuation analysis, a trial balance abnormal balance review, and a Treasury tie-point review) as well as cash reconciliation to Treasury each month.
10. Attachment I, Section B (II). Scope of Work, p. 5 C.
| “Periodically review (at least monthly) the financial statements and the documentation of journal vouchers and analytic procedures to ensure compliance with new procedures, ensure procedures effectively correct the material weakness and report your findings”. Could the government clarify how many journal vouchers are prepared monthly and the number and nature of analytic procedures performed monthly? |
| ANSWER: See answer to Question #9. |
11. Attachment 1, Section B(III), Paragraph 1 p.6
| Can the Government clarify that only deliverables that require compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles will be required to be compliant with GAAP, and not all deliverables as indicated in the Government’s text: “The Contractor shall conform all deliverables to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles”? |
| ANSWER: Paragraph one (1) of Section B (III) of the RFP has been revised to read as follows: “Where applicable, the Contractor shall conform all deliverables to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles”. |
12. Attachment 1, Section B(III) Paragraph 2 p.6
| Does the “two-week (14-day) period for review and acceptance” count as calendar days or business days? And does this “two-week” period include any and/or all returns and/or revisions by the Government to the contractor as well as the Government’s acceptance? Is there a maximum number of revisions and submittals authorized per deliverable? |
| ANSWER: All days in the SOW are considered calendar days. The Contractor shall submit as many revisions and submittals necessary to be accepted by the NTSB. |
13. Attachment 1, Section B(V)(C) p.7
| When are contractors required to undergo Minimum Background Investigations? Will an interim clearance be provided pending the successful adjudication and background determination? |
| ANSWER: The process will be begin immediately after award. Contractor staff will not have access to the NTSB IT network or sensitive data until successful completion of the background investigation. |
14. Attachment 1, Section L(VI) p.11
| Does the Government have any specific font, spacing, margin and layout formatting guidelines or requirements? |
| ANSWER: No. |
15. General
| Is there an incumbent contractor? If so, who and under what contract? |
| ANSWER: See answer to Question #1. |
16. General
| Are all journal vouchers and process documentation and procedures maintained electronically? |
| ANSWER: Process documentation is maintained electronically, journal vouchers are not. |
17. General
| For any applicable on-site testwork, please confirm the address of the accounting/finance operations of the NTSB? | |
| ANSWER: National Transportation Safety Board | |
| 490 L’Enfant Plaza | |
| Washington D.C. 20594 |
18. General
| May we receive a copy of the finding(s) related to the material weakness of internal controls over financial reporting? |
| ANSWER: The relevant information is in the audit report which is part of the Performance and Accountability Report which is on our public website: |
http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/agency_reports/PAR_2013_2012.pdf
19. General
| May we receive a copy of the proposed CAP? |
| ANSWER: No. |
20. “The key personnel shall be the Contractor's three most senior personnel assigned to the project under this SOW” are implying that we should propose 3 resources for this effort.
ANSWER: NTSB is not proposing the number of staff necessary to perform the work. The NTSB will consider any staffing configuration the Offeror proposes.
21. Please advise the LOE required to fulfill this SOW ANSWER: This RFP will result in the award of a firm fixed-price contract. It is the Contractor’s responsibility to review the SOW and determine what their firm fixed-price would be to perform the services described therein.
22. If Contractor provides Computers, would you permit access to the financial systems?
ANSWER: No.
23. Please provide information on proposal submission, i.e., how many pages, fonts etc.
ANSWER: Proposal submission pages are addressed in Section L - III, IV, and V of the RFP. We expect you to submit a proposal in a format that our evaluators can easily read.
24. What are the evaluation criteria’s’ besides best value?
ANSWER: As stated in the RFP, the evaluation factors for award are described in Sections L and M.
25. The Form SF 18 is not fillable, could you please replace and re-post to fedbizz website ANSWER: See answer to Question #8.
26. Attachment 1 (page 2/14) - Base Year Table: Should the quantity for the monthly follow-up (item # 2) be 12 rather than 1?
ANSWER: Yes. This clerical error has been corrected in the Revised Attachment 1.
27. Attachment 1 - Key Personnel (page 7/14) - States that the key personnel shall be the contractor's three most senior personnel assigned to the project under this SOW. How many staff personnel are needed for this project? What is the level of effort? What is the budgeted amount set-aide for this?
ANSWER: See answers to Questions #20 and #21.
28. Attachment 1 Corporate Experience (page 9/14) - states that two examples of performing federal agency financial statement audits required. Since this effort is not to issue NTSB's financial statements, can this be changed to experience with federal accounting.
ANSWER: No, a critical aspect of the task is full understanding of how auditors apply the standards to ensure NTSB is doing and documenting our processes sufficiently to satisfy an independent auditor that we have corrected our weakness.
29. Is there an incumbent to this requirement or this is a new requirement?
ANSWER: See answer to Question #1.
30. Is this a new requirement? If not, who is the incumbent and how much was the previous award for?
ANSWER: See answer to Question #1.
31. What is the expected level of effort & number of FTEs per year?
ANSWER: See answers to Questions #20 and #21.
32. How many Corrective Action Plans (CAP) will be required for review in this effort? What are the titles of these CAP?
ANSWER: One – NRF#2 Action Plan
33. Are new CAP being developed this fiscal year? If so, how many and in what areas are they expected?
ANSWER: No.
34. As the government is including the development of new CAP in the option years in the Miscellaneous Follow-On section, the vendor requests that the government reconsider the NTE amount in the “Miscellaneous Financial Management Follow-On Support” in the base and option years in the pricing table. The current NTE amount is not sufficient to execute the requirements needed to effectively execute these tasks.
ANSWER: We see no reason to raise the amount. If a proposed task under this line item resulted in a Contractor proposal that exceeded the NTE amount, it would be bid competitively at that time.
35. In which section of the response will the government evaluate the vendor’s technical approach as it relates to the tasks in the statement of work? Additionally, where and how will this discussion be rated?
ANSWER: As stated in Sections L and M of the RFP, the technical evaluation factors that will be evaluated are Corporate Experience and Contractor Qualifications. As stated in Sections L and M of the RFP, non-price factors will be evaluated adjectively.
36. With the number of requested updates and clarifications, will the government consider expending the due date to two weeks after the questions are answered?
ANSWER: See answer to Question #4.
37. Would the government consider changing the requirement to a time and materials contract due to the lack of detailed tasks for the option years related to item numbers 2, 5, 8, 11, and 14?
ANSWER: No.
38. Section B Part I – Pricing Table (page 2 and 3) Base year, Item #2 “Monthly follow-up to ensure the new processes and procedures are working,” states that the Quantity is 1, where it seems that this is a monthly requirement, and therefore should be 12. Can the government confirm the quantity?
ANSWER: Review answer to Question #26.
39. Base Year 1, Item #1 states, “Review current Corrective Action Plan (CAP) and propose additional actions if appropriate.” Does the government expect the contractor to bill only for the completion and acceptance of all of the parts discussed in Section C. III Deliverables, Acceptance Criteria, and Schedule for Performance/Delivery Part A (Draft Action Plan, Final Action Plan, Draft documentation of the evaluation of the current corrective action plan and Final Evaluation Report)?
ANSWER: Yes. The NTSB expects the vendor to bill on completion of the final draft of the evaluation of the current corrective action plan.
40. Section L. V Part III states, “For evaluation purposes only, the Government will evaluate travel for all Contractors in the amount of $2,500.” Is the contractor expected to include this line and amount in the Pricing Table?
ANSWER: No.
41. What is the government expecting in the deliverable C. and C.1. (e.g. monthly status report, analytics of processes and procedures, or something else)? If this is not a status report, can the government please provide details of expected tasks for this deliverable?
ANSWER: The monthly report is a recap of the steps the vendor performed that month (such as reviewed JVs or reviewed fluctuation analysis) and the vendor’s assessment of the adequacy of the NTSB documentation supporting the JVs and analytics including specifics of insufficient documentation with suggestions on what is needed to bring it up to standards.
42. Since this contract is not a financial statement audit engagement, will the government consider Audit Remediation and/or Audit Readiness projects relevant corporate experiences to this RFP?
ANSWER: No, we are specifically seeking feedback from the Federal financial audit perspective.
43. Can the government explain the difference between the Corporate Experience and the Past Performance section as it relates to the vendor’s response?
ANSWER: The difference is for Corporate Experience, the Contractor is submitting examples of its previous experience that are commensurate with this contract requirement whereas with Past Performance, we expect you to provide the Government agency for whom the Contractor provided this previous experience and we expect this agency to submit its evaluation of this experience.
44. If the contractor teams with another firm, can the government consider corporate experiences for both companies to satisfy the 2 corporate experience requirements?
ANSWER: Yes.
45. What is the due date for the past performance questionnaires from the vendors clients to the government?
ANSWER: The same date and time that the proposals are due.
46. Can the government consider requiring only that the PM have a CPA vs. all of the personnel.
ANSWER: No, all personnel on the project require a CPA credential.
47. Can the government consider other certifications such as (PMP, CGFM, CIA, CISA) in addition to the CPA?
ANSWER: Additional qualifications are acceptable and would be considered but only to the extent they are relevant to correction of the identified weakness.
48. Is there a current incumbent contractor supporting this work?
0. If yes, can the government please provide the name of the company?
0. Is the incumbent contractor able to bid as a prime on the re-compete?
ANSWER: See answer to Question #1.
49. The government is requesting offerors to submit a FFP bid (V. Part III – Price) for CAP support services; however there is insufficient workload data or historic contractor labor hour information to determine or estimate a reasonable level of effort or labor mix for NTSB’s specific needs. Without this information only an incumbent would know this information which would create an unfair advantage in bidding this work.
a. Can the government please provide historic or projected workload data so that offerors can make a reasonable determination of the staffing level and mix needed to support this work for:
i. CAP Support
ii. Monthly Follow-up
iii. Projected Option Years support
1. CAP
2. Monthly Follow-up
ANSWER: Review answer to Question #1. There is no historic data available since this is a newly identified material weakness.
CAP: The independent auditor made 5 recommendations. The audit report is part of the Performance and Accountability report which is posted to our public web site. The audit report includes definition of the material weakness, the auditors’ recommendations, and the details of the conditions that resulted in the material weakness.
Monthly follow-up: We do approximately 6 to 12 JVs per month. We also do 3 basic analytical processes (a trial balance fluctuation analysis, a trial balance abnormal balance review, and a Treasury tie-point review) as well as cash reconciliation to Treasury each month.
50. What is NTSB’s core financial system?
ANSWER: Oracle Federal Financials (OFF)
51. Does the government expect separate volumes for technical, past performance and price? Should the vendor include the past performance section within the technical volume?
ANSWER: Yes. Each volume should be separated.
52. Should the "Base Year" , Item 2, "Quantity" equal 12 months ?
ANSWER: See answer to Question #26.
53. Should the Base Year, Item 2, Unit of Issue state MO for " Month"?
ANSWER: Yes.
54. Should the Base Year, Item 2 , Total Price equal the cost over 12 months (hours x ratex12 months)?
ANSWER: Yes.
55. Should Base year end with Feb. 2015, instead of Feb 2014?
ANSWER: Yes.
56. Should the 2nd Base year starting Mar 2015 ending Feb 2015, be changed to read Option Year and have a ending date of Feb 2016.
ANSWER: Yes.
57. During the execution of this contract, is it acceptable for the contractor and their subcontractors to keep a complete copy of their working papers and deliverables?
ANSWER: Yes.
58. Corporate Experience – The instructions require the contractor to “submit at least 2 examples of experience performing Federal Agency financial statement audits”. Will NTSB accept experience assisting Federal Agencies in Financial Process Improvement and Audit Readiness (FIAR) services including: assessing audit findings, developing and implementing corrective action plans, and remediating material weaknesses and significant deficiencies or experience with assisting Federal agencies address deficiencies identified through OMB Circular A-123 Appendix A assessments (Internal Controls over Financial Reporting?
ANSWER: See answer to Question #28.
59. Does the NTSB currently already have CAPs in place? How many existing CAPS are there?
ANSWER: See answer to Question #32.
60. Based on the information provided in the RFP, it is currently difficult to assess the level of effort required. Please provide historical data pertaining to the average level of effort in hours by labor categories.
ANSWER: See answer to Question #2.
61. Base Year table, item 2, quantity is listed as “1”. In Option Years, the same line shows quantity as “12”. Please also note that the Unit of Issue shown in the Base Year table is “EA” and in Option Years is “MO”. Please provide a modification to correct or please explain why in the Base Year only one monthly follow-up is expected to be necessary.
ANSWER: See answer to Question #26.
62. Period of Performance for Base Year shows a February 2014 end date. Please confirm that this date and the subsequent dates are typos and that the correct end date for base year is February 2015.
ANSWER: See answers to Question #52 – #57.
63. Submission of Proposals. Due to the nature of the questions above we request that the government adjust the due date of the proposal to allow at least eight business days after release of answers to the above questions so that offerors may have adequate time to prepare a complete and fully compliant proposal.
ANSWER: See answer to Question #4.
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