Events
Blog
FAQs
ACQUISITION ALERT

  
    
   





End of the Year Federal Contractor Update


MUCH HAS CHANGED IN FEDERAL CONTRACTING THIS YEAR - Join Wisconsin's Federal contractors on December 10th  for a series of briefings focusing on changes and challenges.
TOPICS INCLUDE:
  • Contractor Purchasing System Review (CPSR) Audits
  • Past Performance - Essential in Winning New Contracts
  • 2015 Federal Acquisition Regulations FAR/DFAR Update
  • Contract Financing - a Very Effective Way to Fund Costs Associated with the Federal Contracts
  • Regulatory Changes Impacting Small Business
  • Updates on DoD Post-Award Contract Management
  • Federal Case Law Update
  • Bid Protests
  • Intellectual Property -Protecting Your IP in Federal Contracts
  • Federal Contractor Blog
LEARN MORE


UPCOMING EVENTS
12/01/15
Fort McCoy Open House #2
Camp Douglas

12/02/15
Doing Business with the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service & the VA
Rhinelander
Learn More 
12/02/15
Acquisition Hour: Export Controls - ITAR, EAR & Associated Requirements
Webinar
Learn More

12/03/15
The DOD Supply Chain - for Manufacturers Understanding Requirements & Obligations
Appleton


VA Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) Verification Guidelines

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is proposing to amend its regulations governing the VA Veteran-Owned Small  
Business (VOSB) Verification Program. VA seeks to find an appropriate balance between preventing fraud in the Veterans First Contracting Program and providing a process that would make it easier for more VOSBs to become verified. The Verification Program has been the subject of reports from both the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and VA's Office of Inspector General stating that despite VA's Verification Program, fraud still exists in the Veterans First Contracting Program. Some stakeholder feedback has been that the current regulations at 38 CFR part 74
are too open to interpretation and are unnecessarily more rigorous than similar certification programs run by the Small Business Administration (SBA). This proposed rule would clarify the eligibility requirements for businesses to obtain "verified" status, add and revise definitions, reorder requirements, redefine the definition of "control", and explain examination procedure and review processes. This proposed rule would additionally implement new changes-references to community property restrictions, "unconditional" ownership, day-to-day requirements, and full-time requirements would be removed or revised and limited in scope; an exception for majority, supermajority, unanimous, or other voting provisions for extraordinary business decisions would be added.

LEARN MORE 



WASHINGTON: The budget deal setting spending levels for 2016 and 2017 is less than a month old, but pro-defense legislators already want to revisit. A top aide to Sen. John McCain said the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman and his allies will "absolutely" try to revise the 2017 Pentagon topline upward. But our sources - on and off the Hill, from the left and from the right - said they'll fail.

"In six to eight months, my assumption is we'll be having this argument once again," said Christian Brose, staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee. SASC chairman John McCain, his House counterpart Mac Thornberry, and "other members of the committees will absolutely be [pushing for] moving that topline up," Brose told a Center for Strategic and International Studies conference yesterday.   
The current budget deal calls for defense spending to fall from 2016 to 2017, Brose noted. Reversing that decline will be "pretty difficult to do," but the trends are favorable, he said: "The fights that we've been having are coming out increasingly in favor of those who believe we need more defense spending."


CONTINUE READING  
 


The law firm, Cohen Seglias, recently issued the following explanation about size standards and joint ventures (JV's). 

In July of 2015, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ("USACE")
issued a solicitation for building repairs that was set aside for small business.  The size standard  assigned to the project was $36.5 million.  The firm's client, an unpopulated joint venture (the "JV") consisting of two companies, was the low bidder.  However, a day after bid opening, an unsuccessful bidder initiated a size protest claiming that the JV exceeded the size standard applicable to the procurement.  The unsuccessful bidder claimed that because the joint venture partners had indicated in the System for Award Management ("SAM") that they were "not small" under two specific NAICS codes, that this fact automatically meant that the combined annual revenue of the partners exceeded the size standard for this procurement. As we successfully argued, that is not true.

When a joint venture submits an offer or a bid on a procurement, the companies forming the joint venture are considered affiliates in connection with that procurement.  For joint ventures interested in small business set asides, the general rule is that as affiliates, the sizes of the joint venture partners are aggregated in order to determine if the joint venture is small.  However, there is an important exception to this rule.  When the dollar value of the procurement, including options, is greater than one half of the small business size standard for the NAICS code selected for that procurement, a joint venture is small so long as each joint venture partner is small under the size standard. 
 
In the size protest here, the value of USACE's procurement was $22,405,001, and the accompanying small business size standard was $36.5 million.  Therefore, the value of the procurement was greater than one half of the size standard for the procurement ($18.25 million).  Because of this, the proper method of determining the JV's size was not by aggregating the revenues of the joint venture partners, but rather by determining if the average annual receipts of each joint venture partner was greater than $36.5 million.  Neither of the joint venture partners' average annual receipts exceeded that amount in this case.  As such, the SBA found that the JV was considered a small business for the procurement, defeating the size protest.

PB&A Comment: Knowing the rules is always important - but maybe even more so in federal Government contracting.  Questions about Government contracting rules, call me at (262) 573-3396  


 
 
DLA Issues their Strategic Plan for 2015- 2022 with 5 primary goals:
  • Warfighter First
  • Financial Stewardship
  • People and Culture
  • Process Excellence
  • Strategic Engagement

DLA Strategic Plan 2015 - 2022 

 
Procurement Dictionary  

TINA - Truth in Negotiation Act - Contracting officers must purchase supplies and services from responsible sources at fair and reasonable prices. The Truth in Negotiations Act (TINA) (10 U.S.C. 2306a and 41 U.S.C. chapter 35) requires offerors to submit certified cost or pricing data if a procurement exceeds the TINA threshold and none of the exceptions to certified cost or pricing data requirements applies. Under TINA, the contracting officer obtains accurate, complete, and current data from offerors to establish a fair and reasonable price (see FAR 15.403). TINA also allows for a price adjustment remedy if it is later found that a contractor did not provide accurate, complete, and current data. Threshold was recently raised to $750K.  TRAINING on TINA - Webinar - December 16 presented by WPI.  Visit www.wispro.org for details
 
ASSIST - Quick Search is a public website that lets users search for defense and federal specifications and standards, military handbooks, commercial item descriptions, data item descriptions, MS detail drawings, Qualified Product Lists (QPLs), and related technical documents prepared in accordance with the policies and procedures of the Defense Standardization Program (DSP). In most cases, users may download documents that have been cleared for public release. Metadata and files for indexed documents are drawn from ASSIST ( https://assist.dla.mil ). Both ASSIST and Quick Search are updated during a nightly process that runs each business day. QPL data is drawn from the Qualified Products Database, which is also updated each business day.

Index of Federal Specifications, Standards and Commercial Item Descriptions - http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/100847  T he publications index provides alphabetic, numeric, and Federal Supply Classification listings for federal Specifications, federal Standards, federal Qualified Products Lists, Commercial Item Descriptions, and USDA Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications in general use throughout the federal government.  This index also provides a numeric listing of federal Specifications and Commercial Item Descriptions containing specific percentages of recovered materials.

From all of us at WPI  -  Happy Thanksgiving!