**Contracting Officer's Representative**

**Refresher Training - Day 2**

**A Telecast Originating from the BLM National Training Center in
Phoenix, Arizona**

**April 4, 2002**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast.

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

\[ Willie Nelson\'s \"on the road again\" \]

Announcer: Live from the Bureau of Land Management National Training
Center in Phoenix, Arizona, the BLM Satellite Network presents
Contracting Officer\'s Representative Refresher Training, or, the road
to successful contract performance through consistent contract
administration. And now, the host of your program, Denise Bickler.

D. Bickler: Good morning, everyone and welcome back to the second and
final day of our satellite training for COR Refresher Training. As I
said yesterday, the Interior Department requires that CORs receive 24
hours of initial training and 8 hours of refresher training every three
years. Don\'t forget that at the end of today\'s broadcast, you\'ll need
to successfully complete the test located on the BLM website to be
recertified as a COR and, again, passing is 70%. The test will be
available until close of business on April 11th. Now, joining me again
today and I\'ll try to say it right today, because I\'ve practiced all
night long, are Gwen and Liz. That would have just gone right by, you
guys, but you had to make an ordeal about it so everybody knows now.
Almost slipped one through. So are you both ready? Did you get a good
night\'s sleep and ready to go again?

G. Moore: We\'re ready to go.

D. Bickler: Great. Well, before we get into the instructional segments,
let me quickly review a few things. Like yesterday, there will be two
15‑minute breaks during this broadcast, and we will be taking calls,
faxes and using the push‑to‑talk system throughout today\'s show for
your questions and exercises. We\'ll let you know when to call in, and
the green light‑red light rule still applies for using the push‑to‑talk
since it seemed to work so well yesterday. When the red light appears in
the upper right portion of your screen, we will not be answering
questions, but if the green light is on, ask away. As a reminder, in
order to control phone traffic, I\'ll be using my special little hand
props to let you know if two people have called in at the same time. We
will yield to the first caller, and I will get to everybody that calls
in. Now, yesterday we got a few phone calls and we found out there were
some problems with connections for push to talk. So I am going to give
you the phone number again to the NTC operator that can help you out
with that. We\'ll ask, please call. The push to talk is making this
broadcast exceptionally wonderful. I know I\'m enjoying it. The phone
number is\.... today we\'re going to discuss solicitation review. , site
visits, conducting pre‑work meetings, documentation, contract
modification, Variation In Quantity, labor law compliance, standards of
conduct and to conclude the broadcast, Joe Federline, the Group Manager
for the Bureau of Land Management property and Acquisition Management
will join us on video from Washington D.C. to talk about current
management issues related to contracting. So let\'s get things started
today with a few questions that came in from yesterday\'s broadcast and
the first one we\'re going to answer, they\'re obviously anxious for an
answer because they faxed it twice now and this comes from theian 81
lands national parks folks and the question is, we\'re all wondering
what the significance is of the toy vehicles on the December income
front of you. As you can see. Well, as the intro said, this course is,
Liz, the road to successful contract administration and these are our
vehicles on the road.

If you look on your study guide, that was the title.

D. Bickler: We each got to pick our own vehicle. So this is the
significance. Ok? Got that out of the way.

L. McDill: And that\'s why you\'re using the hand signs, too. Don\'t
forget. We have stop signs, road signs.

D. Bickler: Get it? \"the road\"? The first question, very good
question, we didn\'t go into too much detail on this matter yesterday,
so this is a good question. Would you please explain what actual and
liquidated damages are? I assume these are damages the contractor pays
if a project is not done on time, correctly or if there are damages to
Federal property. Well, damage to Federal property is a separate issue
from liquidated or actual damages. If a contractor damages government
property, he\'s liable for the repair or the replacement of that
property. We prefer that the contractor repair or replace it himself,
but if he fails to do that or refuses to, we have a couple options and
one of them would be that we can withhold a sum of money from his
payments that we determine is the cost of replacement or repair. Would
you agree?

G. Moore: Right.

D. Bickler: Ok. Now, as far as the damages, it\'s prudent for a project
developer to ask the question at the beginning of the solicitation
process, in the pre‑solicitation phase, what type of damages might be
incurred by the government in the event the contractor fails to complete
the project by the date specified in the contract. The government
deserves some protection against unplanned costs which would or might be
incurred because of late completion. Now, the first of those damages
we\'ll talk about is actual damages. The default clause in construction
and service includes a provision for actual damages and makes the
contractor liable for all damages which the government can show resulted
from the contractor\'s tardy performance. The protection afforded the
government by the actual damage provision is considered adequate in
those situations where the government\'s damages or increased costs are
directly related to the delay and can be computed from realistic cost
data. Actual damages are difficult to collect and would you either of
you like to expound on actual damages?

G. Moore: If they\'re questioned, they very, very difficult for us to
collect, and so we need to really think about it if we\'re going to
include an actual damage clause in our contract for that very reason.
It\'s a surprise at the end of the contract to the contractor. He
doesn\'t have a real good idea what those costs truly might be, and
that\'s part of the problem.

D. Bickler: So the last damage clause we\'ll talk about is liquidated
damages. The provision for liquidated damages may be used only when
there is a reasonable expectation that the government would be
financially damaged by late completion, the anticipated loss would be
impossible to determine with any accuracy, and liquidated damages seem
more appropriate where costs are incurred by third parties within the
government or where there may be ripple effect to the damages. Once a
damage provision is included in a contract, it cannot be waived,
modified or deleted by the CO so you should be careful what you ask for
because we can\'t take it out.

G. Moore: I think another good way to describe liquidated damages,
Denise s they\'re a forecast of what the government might incur. It\'s
our predicted costs. They\'re included in the contract in the
solicitation package so it\'s not a surprise to the contractor. That\'s
the basic difference between the two types of damages.

D. Bickler: One quick example might be, for instance, I have a contract
that\'s in a very remote area, hours from any kind of town, so in order
to provide government inspection or a COR, we have to have a hotel, we
have travel of approximate will he two to three hours, the time ‑‑
hourly wage for the person on the job site, those are the kind of things
included in liquidated damages. So if the contractor runs over, we can
clearly say these are the costs because he had a hotel, he had this, so
on and so forth.

L. McDill: Another example of that was when in Denver they were building
the new convention center. At the time, I worked downtown and I used to
walk over and watch the progress of the building, the construction and
they had a giant billboard display that showed what the cost of the
convention center was going to be and what the liquidated damages by day
were going to be assessed to the contractor if he didn\'t complete on
time. The liquidated damages and I don\'t recall the exact dollar
amount, were in six figures, it was like 600 and some thousand dollars a
day. The reason it was critical they complete that convention center on
time was that Denver had already booked clients to come in and perform
in the convention center on the first day that it was supposed to be
completed. Hotels already had bookings. It would have reaped a
substantial impact on Denver if they had not been able to conduct that
convention. It was wild, though. They made it.

D. Bickler: So those are some examples of liquidated damages. I hope
that\'s answered the question. If not, if your push to talk is working,
push to talk and let us know or send us another fax and we\'ll address
it further. The next fax that we got in is from our good friend Vern
ruly, and I\'m sorry, ladies, but he would like this question answered
by GWIZ or LEN. Is either here today? Vern\'s question is he missed the
answer to construction contracts over blank require bonding and could we
fill it in? Well, the answer is, Vern, \$25,000. And just where were you
that you missed that? Ok. The next one comes from the National Park
Service. The Delaware water something national resource area. DEENA.
Toward the end of today\'s presentation you talked about purchasing from
a GSA schedule over \$25,000. Councilperson repeat it and is the
regulation published somewhere? I will give to that LEN.

L. McDill: If you are purchasing from a GSA schedule and the dollar
amount is over \$25,000, the rule of obtaining competition is still ‑‑
applies. The difference is, over \$25,000 for under GSA schedule, you do
not have to synopsize the transaction. If it\'s a simple buy, you can
just get telephone quotes. If that it\'s a more complicated one, you
might want to send out a more formal RFQ and I hope that answers your
question.

D. Bickler: Thank you, Liz. Our next question is from Jeff at the Folsom
Field Office. GWIZ, this one is for you.

G. Moore: Nice to have you with us, Jeff. In which electric format does
I.D.E.A.S. require construction specifications and drawings? The word
there is MS word is the format that the specification should come in,
and the drawings need to be a PDF file or a TIF file. Then he goes on,
do you still prefer hard copies of drawings for reproduction purposes?
Yes, we do, because we are going to have to do both electronic
transmission of our solicitation packages as well as paper until all of
our contractors get online to do everything by their computers. He goes
on to say, does this format produce the same quality drawings as
Autocad? Yes, they do. We currently ‑‑ the first job that I had, my
\$5.5 million project, is currently out both electronically ‑‑ we sent
CD‑ROMs out as well as paper copies, and the quality of the drawings is
excellent. So hopefully we\'ll be able to do this. I do understand that
there\'s a little bit of conversion problem going from WordPerfect to
Word, but we\'re working on that. You do have to go back in and check
numbers, and when you\'re using fractions that don\'t translate ‑‑

L. McDill: Any kind of graphics also.

G. Moore: You have to be very, very careful in the checking. I hope that
answered your question, Jeff.

D. Bickler: Ok. And the next question is from our friend Rick at Fort
Summter. We\'re glad you\'re with us. Our project inspectors required to
have 24‑hour COR training?

L. McDill: In the BLM we have a course ‑‑ we conduct a course a24‑hour
PI training course specifically directed to PIs.

G. Moore: That\'s correct. And it\'s sponsored and overseen by our
engineering group. We add the 24‑hour contract administration portion to
level 1 project inspection class. It\'s a two‑week class that our agency
conducts.

D. Bickler: And the final fax that we got is from Doug porter at the
National Park Service in Denver. Welcome, Doug. There\'s a couple of
questions here. The first one is, the seven days to return an invoice,
if it is not correct, is this a legal or contract requirement, or just
good business practice?

L. McDill: It\'s a requirement specified in the prompt payment act
itself. It specifically states you must return or reject an invoice
seven days of receipt.

D. Bickler: The next two questions on here are really comments. I\'ll
comment on the first one. They\'re talking about the interest issue that
we discussed yesterday, how do the CORs find out, how do the contractors
find out that interest has been paid? Now, every bank is different. Some
banks may notify the minute a deposit is made. A lot of times, what I
have discovered, is that banks don\'t do that. The contractor simply
gets his bank statement and, voila, there\'s a deposit. It doesn\'t
indicate ‑‑ it might indicate who deposited it but it does not indicate
the invoice it\'s paying, so it\'s up to the contractor to track that
information. The other issue made there is that it would be nice if the
contractor is notified that the payment is different. I know in the BLM
we notify the contractor if the payment is less. Usually we will do
that. We phone him to let him know, we have a problem with your payment,
this is what it is, and it\'s going to be less than you requested. But
we don\'t necessarily know if interest has been paid right away. So the
contractor will just know when he gets his statement, oh, there\'s a
little extra money and he he\'ll call and say there\'s more money here
than I requested. But that\'s just kind of a ‑‑

L. McDill: The way interest ends up being paid is it\'s an automatic
transaction in FFS. Even the voucher examiners within BLM, the payment
people, they are not aware of what the dollar amount of the interest is.
Once you reach that ‑‑ the date, in the case of construction contracts,
the 15th day after the due date, FFS automatically calculates the
interest and automatically adds the interest to the contractor\'s
payment. So it is not a manual thing. No one really has control over it.
We don\'t even know what the dollar amount is.

G. Moore: I think the only opportunity when we find out about interest
is when we have to ‑‑ when we get that monthly statement that says we
paid 28 cents or \$1.33 or whatever.

D. Bickler: The other comment here about fiscally is if there\'s
interest the project may run out of money. Every office is different.
The BLM does not pay that interest out of the project. It comes directly
out of the office that caused the interest to be paid. So if it\'s the
COR, comes directly out of that ‑‑ a whole another budget. If it\'s the
Contracting Officer, it comes out of our budget. It doesn\'t come out of
the contract budget. But every office is different and, you are, right,
if interest is paid and it affects your total value of your contract,
that could be a problem, however, we\'re still bound to complete the
project and pay the contractor the contracted amount. Now, there is a
third comment here and, Liz, did you want to comment on it?

L. McDill: Sure. It was about using value based contractor selection in
their office. This is the same National Park Service office. They said
that initially they saw a reduction in contractors responding to
solicitations when ‑‑ because of the new and unusual paper work
requirements. They were only left with one contractor in the competitive
range and could not touch the well qualified contractor who responded
because they were too expensive. They also made an observation that in
the last few years that problem has dissipated and they are now getting
better contractors as a result. And most are committed to doing the job
right. So that\'s an interesting observation for best value awards.

D. Bickler: Thank you for the positive input regarding that.

G. Moore: One that works. That\'s great.

D. Bickler: Now, before we get into our segment, are there any other
questions regarding yesterday\'s broadcast? Please use your push to
talk. How about if someone just lets us know that you\'re out there.
Doug from Casper. Don from Casper, are you there today?

Caller: No, he just stepped out.

D. Bickler: Ok.

Caller: This is Eddie from the Arizona office.

D. Bickler: Hi, Eddie. We just wanted to make sure somebody was out
there.

Caller: Chip in Phoenix.

D. Bickler: Hi, chip.

G. Moore: Denise was considering doing a roll call but we weren\'t sure
art in the control room was up for that.

L. McDill: BLM Cheyenne, were you able to get your push‑to‑talk working?
Apparently not.

D. Bickler: How about the Denver service center?

Caller: This is Denver.

Caller: We\'re here in Denver.

D. Bickler: Is that BLM?

L. McDill: Or park service?

Caller: BLM.

D. Bickler: Good morning.

Caller: Dave, BLM.

Caller: Denver ‑‑ ok.

G. Moore: Thank you. We\'re glad you\'re all with us.

D. Bickler: This is good to know. It\'s a little funer when there\'s
interaction. We\'ll move into our very first segment, which is
solicitation review, and for a change of pace, I, your hostess
extraordinaire, will go over it with you. Reviewing the solicitation is
a team effort, and after this section, you\'ll better understand the
importance of the review of the solicitation documents. Yesterday we
talked about the Purchase Request and the information required to
correctly process it. Well, this information that\'s provided to us is
in core parade into the subsequent solicitation. The COR is the player
in the solicitation review process, usually because he helped put that
information together. The purpose of the solicitation review is to try
and catch problems or mistakes before the bid opening and award. Now,
remember, amendments to solicitations are free. ‑‑ modifications to
contracts are considered sole source actions and almost always cost
money. Please turn to page 23. The Contracting Officer Wilford a copy of
the solicitation to the COR at the same time it is mailed to prospective
bidders and upon receipt you must immediately review the solicitation
package. Specifically you should review the following parts of the
solicitation. Line item summary or schedule of items. Look at the unit.
Is the unit property stated? For instance, cubic yards versus square
yards. That\'s a mistake that happens often. Feet ‑‑ inches versus feet.
Pound versus ton. Ton versus cubic yard, months versus hours. All of
these mistakes happen a lot. Are the quantities correct? Are there any
extra zeros inadvertently added to the quantities or are there zeros
missing? Is the period of performance correctly stated? I know in our
solicitations we choose to put that period of performance in a couple of
different places. One is on the 1442. The other is on the bid schedule
itself. Is the year correct on that? If stated more than once, like I
said, in the solicitation, is it the same throughout the package? For
construction projects, is the estimated price range properly stated? It
should reflect the government ‑‑ the government estimate should be
somewhere inside that range. If it\'s not, let us know. That\'s a
problem. If the solicitation contains minimum and maximum quantities,
are they properly stated? Are the delivery dates correct? The site
inspection or site tour information ‑‑ site visit information. Is all
the pertinent information correct? Are the schedule date, time and
meeting place correct? Is the point of contact information correct?
Specifically, check your name and your phone number. I know one time my
phone number got in there, and I couldn\'t answer the questions. Are all
the special instructions stated correctly? We talked about that
yesterday. Is there a special vehicle required? Will it be so long that
they should bring food or water? Do they need special apparel? Have we
told them everything they need to know about that site visit? The
specifications and drawings, they should be correct when they come to
us, but look at them again. Are all the specification sections included?
And are they in the proper order? Does the statement of work or
specification adequately define the required need? Are the deliverables
defined? Are all the drawings included legible and in the proper order?
Some other items of concern are the liquidated damages. If you\'ve
requested liquidated damages, are they included in the solicitation and
are they in the correct amount? You might also look to see if we\'ve
inadvertently included the liquidated damages clause when you didn\'t
ask for it, because that\'s happened in the past, too. Is the basis of
award correct? This is especially an important item when availability of
funds is an issue, because there are a variety of availability of funds
situations. We need to make sure the proper basis is stated in the
solicitation. For instance, next year\'s money, you might have base plus
additives or award by schedules. It\'s important that you have those
schedules stated in the right order or in the order of ‑‑ what\'s the
word ‑‑ priority. Because however they are stated in the basis for award
is how we have to award them. If you discover any discrepancies in the
solicitation, you should notify the Contracting Officer immediately so
it can be addressed in an amendment. Now, I have a little story that
I\'ll share with you in regards to reviewing or not reviewing the
solicitation. I had a requirement for a fire station. It was submitted
to me with quantity ‑‑ it was line items, quantities in one of those
line items was for sod, and the stated quantity was 85 square yards.
This fire station was being built in a very small town. At 3:00, the day
before the bid opening, which was 10:30 the next morning, the COR called
me and informed me that after a closer review he discovered there were
several errors in the specs and in the bid schedule. One of which was
the quantity stated for the sod. All we really needed was 1,250 square
yards, not 8,500. I went to the town this fire station was being built
in, and I promise you, 8,500 would have sodded the entire town. So he
wanted to know, can we just wait until after award and modify the
contract? Well, the answer, of course, no. The bid opening had to be
extended by two weeks, and the solicitation was amend to do reflect
necessary changes. Now, when I told him I wouldn\'t ‑‑ I wouldn\'t wait
until after award, he said, as long as you have to change that, you may
as well change, this, this, this, this. Well, he wouldn\'t speak to me
for a few days. Had the COR reviewed this package right away, the delay
in opening could have been avoided. If award had been made prior to
noticing the problems, it may well have resulted in the termination of
that contract for the convenience of the government because of our
error. Now, Liz, don\'t you have a story similar ‑‑

G. Moore: Before she starts, Denise, that\'s quite a sod story.

D. Bickler: Let me lay the sod on you.

G. Moore: Sorry.

L. McDill: Yes, die have a story. ‑‑ yes, I do have a story. This is a
true story. A government contracting office was responsible for ordering
restroom supplies for their facility. They received a Purchase Request
for toilet paper, paper towels and soap. On the Purchase Request there
was a line item that indicated CL as the unit of issue for the toilet
paper. Well, the CO assumed that meant \"case lots.\" Now, can you
imagine the CO\'s surprise and everyone around when the toilet paper was
delivered, instead of case lots, and they delivered 40 carloads and I
don\'t mean little VROOM cars. They delivered 40 choo‑choo trains
carloads of toilet paper. At the time GSA would not accept returns. So
this poor Contracting Officer spent the next few weeks trying to give
away cases of toilet paper.

D. Bickler: Or carloads.

L. McDill: Anything they could. They didn\'t have storage space. They
couldn\'t keep it.

D. Bickler: To this day they\'re not wanting for toiletries, are they?

G. Moore: It\'s a great place to be in an emergency.

D. Bickler: Oh, boy! Well, the areas we\'ve listed for review ‑‑ thank
you, Liz, or Len or whoever you want to be. The areas we\'ve listed for
review are very important. If errors occur in any of these items, it
could be considered a fatal flaw and may require cancellation of the
solicitation after bid opening, or worse yet, termination of the
contract after award. I say \"worse yet,\" because a termination for
convenience always costs the government money. The key is to catch the
errors early in the solicitation process. So as you can see, your review
plays an important role in the procurement process and if it\'s done
correctly from the start, it\'s a much smoother process for all
concerned. Now, are there any questions concerning the solicitation
review?

Caller: This is chip in Phoenix.

D. Bickler: Hi, chip.

Caller: In terms of technical equipment, has there been any changes in
terms of developing the scope of work, being able to do a brand name or
equivalent, brand name or better, listing performance specs, salient
characteristics? Is that all pretty much the same when dealing with
technical equipment?

G. Moore: Absolutely. If you have a need for only a single brand because
of compatibility, you\'re going to have to write a justification to us
about all of that. If you can use something other than the name ‑‑ the
‑‑ more than one brand, not a sole source, then we do still need you to
describe your need, but salient characteristics are absolutely critical
when we put those two little words after the brand, and that\'s \"or
equal,\" because those salient features, of course, are used to compare
an \"or equal\" product. That\'s how we determine its acceptability.

D. Bickler: That\'s a good question, skip ‑‑

Caller: Chip.

D. Bickler: I\'m sorry. I have a friend named skip. If you\'re going to
use a brand name or a ‑‑ or spec a particular brand, it is imperative
that we say or equal, we list the salient characteristics, and make sure
the rest of the specification works with or is coordinated to that
specific requirement. I had a solicitation. It was for towers. We
spec\'ed a particular brand of tower, however, we also stated that it
had to be OSHA compliant with this, this and this and this particular
tower was not OSHA compliant. I wound up terminating the contract for
convenience because it wasn\'t discovered until after award was made.

L. McDill: So our own specification did not meet the OSHA requirements
‑‑

D. Bickler: It contradicted itself. So you have to be real careful with
that as well. And that\'s part of the review process.

G. Moore: The coordination and review, the more eyes that look as
something the more likely we are to find mistakes.

D. Bickler: I know this is difficult to make, but we make mistakes, too,
and there are a lot of people that handle that solicitation, I know, in
our office and zeros get dropped off, added, Ss become Cs ‑‑

L. McDill: We get real busy.

D. Bickler: Thank you, chip, and there are any other questions?

L. McDill: See, she confused the name.

D. Bickler: Ok. That\'s it ‑‑

Caller: Wouldn\'t it be better ‑‑ this is Linda McFarland with Acadia
national park. Wouldn\'t it be better to try to get the review process
done before the solicitation package goes to the vendor so you don\'t
have to amend it, you can make the corrections first?

D. Bickler: We do review it before it goes on the street, and I\'ll kind
of open this to all of us. My feeling on that, if we did that, it would
extend the entire solicitation process by that much longer. Do you have
an opinion ‑‑

G. Moore: I think it is done, Linda, internally, at least at our agency
when something is written at one level, it has to go up to the next
level for review, and we all try to catch those errors. We as
Contracting Officers have an obligation also to look at the packages. We
try to look at them and do look at them as the public would. Maybe we
don\'t know all the little ins and outs of the technical part, but we
can see if things appear to be conflicting, ambiguous, unclear, whatever
you want to say, so there is a review process in place at least in our
agency, but as Denise said, these packages go through lots of hands, and
they get dropped and whatever, but to answer your question, sure, we\'d
love not to ever have to amend. But it just doesn\'t seem to happen in
our business.

D. Bickler: Thank you very much. We need to move along a little bit.
That\'s it for solicitation review. So we will move right into the site
visits and we\'ll let Gwen walk us through the site visit. And use up
her word quota for today.

G. Moore: Thank you, Denise. This section will explain the benefits of a
site inspection tour and what the COR\'s responsibility is at a site
inspection tour. If all of you would please turn to page 25 of your
study guide and just follow along. On the screen you will see a picture
of a site tour being conducted. Look at this for a second and what I
would like you to do is tell me what you think is wrong with this
picture. But first, there is a disclaimer. Do not comment on the people.
This is our production crew and we need them for the rest of the day. So
don\'t be talking about how they look. Ok? So take a moment, look at the
picture. This is a site inspection tour. Does anyone see a problem with
what is depicted here?

Caller: This is Tom in Frederick. They\'re in two different groups.

G. Moore: Right on. Way to go, Tom. That\'s exactly the answer. The
government has allowed itself, the COR is talking to a single
contractor. There are obviously other contractors in the background that
are not able to hear. Remember, what you tell one contractor you must
make available to everybody. It\'s always better to talk to the entire
group. The COR should never allow himself to talk to one contractor at a
time. The next question that I have for you, does a contractor need to
attend ‑‑ or is it mandatory appear contractor attend a site tour to be
eligible to bid on a project? Who would like to answer this one?

Caller: This is Rich in Worland. First, by like to say hi to Joe at the
NTC and a contractor does not have to be at the bid tour, but it would
be ridiculous not to be there.

G. Moore: We all agree with your thought there, Rich and you\'re
absolutely correct. We cannot make a site tour or a site inspection
mandatory to a contractor but we certainly strongly, strongly encourage
them to attend. So what is the purpose of a site tour? Well, on page 26
of the study guide, there\'s a fill in the blank review, so follow along
as I go over site inspection tours. It\'s an opportunity for prospective
bidders to physically visit a project site and to determine the
conditions that may affect their bid prices. Always remember that the
COR and only the COR, should conduct a site tour. The site tour is not a
forum for changing work or ever a discussion of the government estimate.
Discussion should be limited to the information contained in the
solicitation package itself. Questions and answers should always be
conducted within the hearing range of all the attendees. If it\'s
necessary, repeat any questions or use a microphone, a bullhorn or any
method you can come up with so that everybody can hear all of the
proceedings. Activities on a site tour must be conducted, including a
list of those people attending, as well as the companies they represent.
This information should be forwarded to the Contracting Officer
immediately after the site tour. It becomes part of the official
contract file, and I can\'t tell you the number of times during
administration questions will come up, contractors may come in and say
\"I need 10,000 more dollars because this or that happened.\" We can go
back to the site inspection tour notes and verify, that was discussed,
sir, at the tour. It\'s here in the package. And those documents
sometimes become very valuable in trying to settle some disputes under
contract. Site tour attendance is not mandatory for bidding on a
project. As much as we would like to make it so, we cannot do that. The
questions and answers from all tours can be made available to all
prospective bidders through amendments. We have just recently started
doing that in our office on these larger dollar contracts that we get ‑‑
that we get involved in because generally they do generate a lot of
questions and a lot of answers are given that we always feel would be of
been to it prospective bidders. So we are doing a lot of this amending
out of our office.

D. Bickler: Would you say that that is kind of dependent on what happens
at the site tour?

G. Moore: Absolutely.

D. Bickler: It\'s not necessary if there\'s just a few people, no
questions?

G. Moore: Exactly. There there was a couple people, no questions, no
need to do anything. It\'s kind of a judgmental thing. But the necessity
for documenting the tour still remains. Corrections of ambiguities or
errors are more appropriate as amendments before award of a contract
rather than modifications after. I believe you heard that just a moment
ago, but it\'s very, very important that we keep this in mind. Only one
site tour is conducted by the government unless a subsequent one is
arranged by amendment. Now, during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we had a
lot of site tours scheduled for that time frame and we had a lot of
instances where we were having to reschedule inspection tours.
Personally I had one going on in Alaska. I had all my contractors in
Anchorage and my site tour was being conducted in Fairbanks. We had to
reschedule, put out an amendment and give everybody an opportunity to
see the site that wanted to. Now, on page 29 in your study guide there
is a scenario that describes a site tour. I\'d like you to take a
moment, read through it, and underline any potential problems that you
might find as you read. We\'ll give you approximately three minutes to
do this.

L. McDill: Welcome back. Let\'s go over this scenario together. The
Project Inspector had helped write the specifications, and was familiar
with the details. However, he agreed to do the site tour, and that is
incorrect. Only the COR is authorized to conduct a site tour. The PI
invited both prospective bidders to ride in the government vehicle. This
should never happen. There is a liability issue. If an accident occurs,
this opens us to legal issues. Also had there been more than two
prospective contractors this, could have led to preferential treatment
or the appearance thereof. Another problem, the PI voiced his opinion.
Site inspection tours are for showing, not for telling. Another one, the
PI indicated a suggested change would be ok. You should only discuss
what is already stated in the solicitation package. If contractors
recommended changes, you can listen, but the best advice is don\'t even
comment on the changes. McCoy. Another problem, the PI agreed to conduct
another site tour. That is wrong. Only the CO can authorize additional
site inspection tours and that must be done by amendment to the
solicitation so every potential contractor is afforded the opportunity
to attend another site tour. Remember, the idea is to keep a level
playing field for everyone. Another problem, the site inspection tour
information was not disbursed by amendment. The list of attendees and
any issues discussed should be provide to do all potential contractors,
although if it\'s a small item and there were no significant
discussions, it is not necessary, but that\'s a judgment call by the CO.
You know, Gwen, this also applies to service contracts for site visits.
It isn\'t just pertinent for construction contracts.

G. Moore: Great.

L. McDill: In the I.T. arena, it\'s a great ‑‑

Caller: Does every contract require a site tour?

L. McDill: Site visits ‑‑ site inspection tours are generally conducted
for construction contracts. It\'s the way in which the government can
allow in an organized manner the potential contractors to view the site
to become aware of any potential problems or any unusual conditions that
might impact their bid. So it\'s advisable. I don\'t believe it\'s a
requirement, but it\'s advisable and generally under construction
contracts, site tours are conducted. Under service contracts, in the
I.T. arena, I myself have conducted site visits for the same reason.
It\'s good for contractors to be able to see what equipment the
government has at a facility, especially like in a user support
situation. They can see the equipment, they can see what the layout is.
They can understand any kind of problems they might have. Maybe the
facility is located on several floors and they\'re going to have to run
up and down. They\'ll understand what our telecommunications system is.
So it\'s a very good policy to follow if you have a complicated
procurement action.

D. Bickler: Not necessarily complicated, but any kind of service,
especially construction, but on a service, say, trash collection, you
can give a guy a map of the site that he\'s going to be picking up the
refuse, but it might be helpful if he can drive around and see if
there\'s any particular tease about the site, janitorial. You can give
him a layout of the building. It\'s helpful to say the site. So to
answer the question, I think it\'s, no, it\'s not mandatory, but it\'s a
very good idea.

G. Moore: We have a clause that encourage those contractors, we strongly
encourage them, to visit the site to see if there are any physical
barriers that they\'re not aware of, because we want them to be able to
give us an informed bid price, not something just pulled out of their
ear. How did you do on the exercise? Did you find all the problems?
Great. We\'ll take that as a yes.

Caller: This is K.J. from Alaska.

G. Moore: Go ahead.

Caller: I have a question about the ‑‑ the next to the last blank on
page 28. Can you tell me writ says bring ‑‑ site tours bring problems to
light and allow ‑‑ can you tell me what that blank should be?

G. Moore: \"changes\" is the word we were looking for there, \"allow for
changes through amendments.\"

Caller: Thank you.

Caller: This is Tom in Frederick.

G. Moore: Hi, Tom.

Caller: I have a question about the muddy bridge project. It stated that
the contractor should show up in 4X4s and it says they arrived in
sedans. Could that meeting have been canceled?

G. Moore: Well, it could have been and this question comes up on our
projects all the time, because we have some very remote sites, and the
damage to the environment and our roads is critical, and when we teach
this class, there\'s always a lot of discussion about that very thing.
It becomes very judgmental on the part of the COR who is conducting. If
they want to take a risk in their sedan, and they should bog down,
we\'re not able to do much other than just call for help. Call for a tow
truck. But they ‑‑ they damage our environment and our recovery rate is
not too good here. We have a lot of high desert land that takes a long
time to recover. So I don\'t have a real answer for you, but, yes, it
probably could have been canceled because they didn\'t follow the rules,
and it goes a little further. You wonder if they didn\'t understand or
didn\'t follow the rules for something as simple as a site inspection,
how can we expect them to follow the rules in our procurement, to follow
the specifications.

Caller: My point exactly.

G. Moore: It certainly does make you wonder. But, again, I think we
would leave that up to your good judgment.

L. McDill: I know when I worked at another Bureau f people did not
appear at the site visit with the equipment or with the proper vehicle,
if there were other potential contractors there, we conducted the site
tour and said, we\'re sorry, folks you just ‑‑ you didn\'t follow what
we\'d offered.

G. Moore: That\'s a good point, especially if in an area that requires
special apparel. We do a lot of work where there\'s naturally occurring
asbestos and when those folks go out on the site tours, they have to be
properly equipped because it is a serious health problem. If they
don\'t, we don\'t allow them to go. So, again, I think you just need to
use your own judgment. That\'s a great question. Are there any more
questions about this?

Caller: This is Steve in El Centro. Hi, Gwen, hi Denise. On page 27, you
have on the second line activities on a site tour must be ‑‑ we have
conducted. Shouldn\'t that be documented?

G. Moore: Documented is the correct answer. They must be documented.

L. McDill: It also allows for contractors to make informed decisions for
preparing their bids. Back to you, Denise.

D. Bickler: Thanks, Liz. Gwen, thank you for the walk through the site
tours.

L. McDill: You still don\'t get that one, do you?

D. Bickler: I believe, Gwen, you\'re going to continue and take us
through a pre‑work meeting.

G. Moore: Right. Ok. Let\'s talk about the pre‑work meeting and their
importance. After this segment you\'ll understand your role in
conducting a pre‑work meeting and know the value of the meeting and how
it fits into the entire procurement process. Up to this time we talked
about the steps needed to obtain a contractor for our procurement. Now
the contractor has the contract, award has been made and it\'s time to
begin the work. The pre‑work meeting is a way to meet face to face to
transition from the solicitation phase to the contract phase. On page 30
in your study guide, there are some fill‑ins again for you to follow
along as we talk. Who attends the pre‑work conference?

D. Bickler: Who can tell us?

G. Moore: Or fill in the little picture that you see in your workbook.
Generally the attendees of the pre‑work conference are the COR, the
Project Inspector and the contractor. Occasionally the Contracting
Officer is invited. And, believe me, we COs love to be invited to
pre‑work conferences, because this is one opportunity for us to meet
with the contractor that is not controversial. Call us if you\'re
conducting your first pre‑work and you\'re a little nervous about it. If
you have a very high visibility project, large dollar, any reason,
we\'ll be more than happy to try and come out and help you with your
particular meeting.

L. McDill: Gwen, you know, COs don\'t always have to attend a pre‑work
conference in person. Many times they attend by telephone, and that way
they can listen to what is happening, they can still offer their
expertise, but they don\'t necessarily have to physically travel to the
site.

D. Bickler: You know, Liz, I\'ve had a couple of contracts that normally
‑‑ normally they were small, and normally I might not have attended the
conference, but the contractors were known to be problems and I
couldn\'t get away from the office, so I have done that, conducted the
pre‑work via teleconference. It\'s worked well.

G. Moore: Our point is, if you need our assistance in conducting the
meetings, please don\'t hesitate to let us know. You know I always have
my bag packed. If you call, I want to be there if I can. The goals of
the pre‑work meeting are to establish open lines of communication
between the government and the contractor. It\'s an opportunity to
clarify or address questions and expectations about the quirk to be
done. It\'s an opportunity to introduce the government personnel to the
contractor for day‑to‑day contacts and also to review the levels of
authority. We also like to discuss the paper work flow. Contractors are
especially interested in payments and how frequently they can expect
payment. The submittal process on construction contracts, things like
that. One of the biggest or most important elements that happens at a
pre‑work conference is the issuance of the notice to proceed. This is an
extremely important document because the ‑‑ this begins the period of
performance. To better illustrate what I\'m saying, here is a short
video of one such meeting. Now, bear in mind, you may see some people
that are familiar to you. These actors got union scale, so just keep in
that mind. Let\'s eavesdrop.

Well, this is where the meeting is going to be, John.

Oh, boy, it\'s as cold as a meat locker. I\'m glad we had our meeting at
your area.

I know how the heat in this silly building is. They can\'t decide if
it\'s hot or cold. If it\'s hot outside, it\'s cold in here. I grabbed
Rex\'s sweater? What do you think of this?

I think it looks good. I specially like the new uniforms.

I do, too.

Kind of fits our personality, relaxed, yes practical, and I especially
like the idea of the Levi jeans we\'re going to be allowed to wear.

Exactly. I was pleased they made this change, too. This is going to help
me stay together during this meeting. Contractor should be here just any
time now.

That\'s right. I hope he\'s on time. I\'ve got another meeting
mid‑morning and I\'m starting to feel like I\'m a professional meeting
attendee.

Understand. What\'s this one on?

Deferred maintenance.

Oh, Lord. Everybody knows that\'s been the watch word all summer long. I
have another one to do on I.D.E.A.S. Another big deal we\'re fiddling
around with all the time. Did I tell you what the contractor\'s wife
said? I called him to make sure that we could make this meeting, and she
said, well, she said, you know, we\'ll go ahead and set it up, but, she
said, my husband does a lot of hunting and my family just loves goose,
so he hunts almost every day of the hunting season. And she said, what
he does, he gets up early, early, early in the morning so he can be
situated in the goose blind when the sun rises and then when the birds
fly over, he takes a few shots, bags whatever game he can get, and then
picks up on his business. But, she said every once in a while, the geese
don\'t fly quite as quickly. And so there he sits in the blind and as
the sun\'s risinging in the sky, the blind is getting warmer and he\'s
been known to nod off, but she told me not to worry because he\'s never
very late. Anyway, a crazy, crazy guy pep must be a character.

He was telling some pretty tall hunting tales to the guys at the site
tour.

Well, this ought to be a real, real entertaining contract. Oh, here he
is now. Good morning. Good morning.

There were geese everywhere.

Wonderful. Looks like you did ok.

Well, got my limit.

That\'s great. Jim ‑‑

I brought each one of you one.

Oh, my. Well, thank you very much. I\'m sorry, we\'re not going to be
able to accept these, though, Jim. Uncle Sam doesn\'t look kindly upon
us accepting gifts. So your wife told me how much your family enjoys
geese, so you just take those back home and enjoy them. But thanks a
lot.

We appreciate that offer.

Really do.

My whole family enjoys wild game.

I bet they do. Why don\'t you have a seat here.

How many children do you have, Jim?

I have four boys, one girl, wife\'s nephew is staying with us. They eat
like a pack of starving locusts.

Let\'s get started with this meeting. First of all, Jim, I\'d like to
thank you very much for coming. It\'s so important for us to have these
meetings. And review the work before things actually get started. And we
appreciate you coming to the work site such as it is.

Jim, I am going to be taking notes and need a little more room. Do you
suppose we could put this on the other end of the table?

No problem.

Thanks. First thing we need to do is all sign in. This is the
government. We do everything in triplicate. So, Jim, if you wouldn\'t
mind, go right ahead there and put your John Hancock there. Man, the
heat came up in here! I must be having some kind of a power surge. Whew!
Ok. Jim, I\'ll be using the pre‑work conference checklist as our agenda,
and I\'d like to give you a copy. I\'ve got one here for John. We\'ll
just kind of follow along here as the agenda for this meeting. I\'ll be
discussing the contract clauses and John here will be covering the
specifications. So, first thing, the government players in this job,
first of all, is the Contracting Officer and her name is Kathy EST and
she is located in Denver. Her telephone number is in the contract, and
she has full authority under this contract. I\'ll be acting as the
Contracting Officer\'s Representative and John will be the Project
Inspector. As I said, Kathleen has all of the full authority under the
contract, but John and I both have been delegated special authorities,
which are outlined in those letters that we sent along with your
contract documents. Now, the government needs to know who we can speak
to representing your company on these matters, and so ‑‑ do you plan to
be on the job most of the time or ‑‑

I plan on being on the job most of the time when I\'m not there Ralph
Bartells will be my superintendent.

If you would right here in the middle of this form in paragraph B, this
is your authorization to your representative, and also, give us the
limits of his authority, if you would be so kind.

Ok. That means he can only do what I authorize him to on this sheet?

Exactly. Exactly. And we will know what we can talk to him about and
when we have to contact you.

Ok. Very good.

Then just sign that on the bottom and we\'ll continue on here.

All right.

Thank you. Now we\'re going to begin with the labor clauses. Your
contract includes the Service Contract Act, which requires you to do
certain things. Your employees must be paid at least twice a month, your
employees are ‑‑ you\'re required to pay overtime for any work that your
employees do in excess of 40 hours in any work week ‑‑

But they can work 10‑hour days?

They can work 10‑hour days. We don\'t have any problem. We just like to
be kept informed of that so that we make sure you have an inspector out
there on your job. John doesn\'t work 10‑hour days but he and I can work
that out between the two of us. John will be conducting interviews with
your employees during the course of this work. Next we\'ll talk about
the wage rates. If we can both turn to the wage decision in your
contract maybe we can figure out what those rates should be. This should
help us both ‑‑ there ‑‑

There they are.

You have the extra ones. We gave you an extra set. That extra set that
you\'re looking at there is the one that you should be attaching to the
posters that were part of your contract. Now, did you get posters?

I got posters. I plan on just putting up the piece of plywood in the
building and posting them there.

Great. That will be a terrific wad to it. Those posters are important
because the contract ‑‑ anybody that works for you certainly needs
access to them, as well as anybody that might be searching out for
employment. Now we\'ll move onto the item that\'s the most important to
you, partial payments.

Money talks in this business. My wife loves it when those checks come
in.

That\'s why we need to be sure that we handle these payments exactly as
outlined in the prompt payment act. Late payments impact your cash flow,
and the interest that\'s paid as a result of late payments impacts my
budget. So it\'s important to both of us. Payments will be handled in
accordance with the prompt payment act. In other words, the government
will make your payments within 30 days after receipt of a properly
executed invoice sent into the designated office. And that office is
outlined in your contract.

Normally I just give my invoice to the PI, and he carries it through the
system.

That\'s a problem now, Jim, and they\'ve changed the rules and it\'s
become a lot more ‑‑ they\'re just ‑‑ they want it to go to that
designated office, and so that I am the designated office. My address is
clearly outlined in the contract. So I\'d like you to change that old
habit, if you don\'t mind.

If it will get me more money, I\'ll change the old habit.

Ok. Now, John, will you go ahead and discuss the contract specs?

Sure. Here\'s some notes.

Thanks.

Jim, BLM is overseeing the transfer of these facilities to the
university, and a lead assessment has been done. I have a copy over
there of the report for your use. As you know, this job includes some
pretty serious health and safety concerns, primarily lead, zinc and TSP.
So protective clothing is going to be mandatory.

Protective clothing should be no problem. I brought along what we
planned on using. Look at this hat. I mean, it keeps the rain off, the
water off, it will drip down the front. I\'ve got raincoats. Got a great
deal on these. Look at the logo on that. Isn\'t that nice?

Jim, I appreciate your work in getting these materials together for
today, but I don\'t think this is the kind of material we have in mind.
The color, for instance, this is made not to be very visible. We\'re
thinking of orange, yellow, fluorescent neon. Also some heavy duty ‑‑
this is a rather lightweight. A spring shower might be ‑‑ might be
suitable for a jacket like this, but not the kind of chemicals that you
are men will be dealing with at the site.

I don\'t know, I thought this looked pretty good. It will keep the rain
off.

It is a nice logo.

Announcer: Every project has unique requirements, and the specifications
should be covered in detail. This, however, does not mean that you must
read the specifications word for word to the contractor. All parties
should leave the meeting with a mutual understanding of the work to be
accomplished.

Well, that concludes our review of the contract. Do you have any further
questions?

No. I guess I\'ll have to get different rain gear. I was certainly
hoping this would work.

Well, I think it\'s going to be mandatory. Anyway, we got a few minutes.
We\'d like to take you around the job site one more time. I know you
came to the tour. But we\'d like to do it with plans in hand. So give us
a chance to stretch our legs, give this back to you, John, and let\'s
proceed.

All righty.

What\'s Ralph last name, Jim?

BARTELLS.

Thank you.

Well, are we ready to roll?

It looks just like we bid it. We shouldn\'t have a bit of problems.

I\'ll go ahead and issue the notice to proceed here, and we\'ll get that
effective today. And here\'s your copy.

All righty.

And we look forward to a successful contract for all of us.

We certainly hope\...

Narrator: While a pre‑work meeting is not required by any contract
provision, it is required by the BLM manual and one should be conducted
on every project. The meeting is an opportunity to establish the ground
rules of the contract and opens a dialogue between the contractor and
the government. This sequence showed only a few of the topics to be
discussed. The pre‑work conference checklist outlines all of the topics
that should be covered. Accurate notes of the meeting should be kept,
including the items discussed and the contractor\'s comments. These
notes should be forwarded to the Contracting Officer and become part of
the official contract file.

G. Moore: Well, maybe your pre‑work conference didn\'t go quite like
that, but it certainly provided a few important things. So let\'s go
through these. I\'m on page 30 in your study guide. Fill in the blanks
as we go. The COR conducted the meeting. In some cases the Contracting
Officer may conduct the meeting if the project is complex. There is a
new COR, the project is a large‑dollar project, or if there are any
other reasons such as known problems with the contractor. The PI played
an active role in the meeting. For each person attending the meeting for
the government, their role in the meeting should be decided before this
meeting starts. Who is going to do what? You also observed that meeting
notes were being taken. It is recommended that the back of the BLM
1510‑30 form be used as an agenda and the entire form be used for
documenting the meeting. A copy of that form is now shown on your
screen. A copy of these pre‑work notes are immediately sent to the
Contracting Officer. It is an important meeting because it often sets
the tone for the rest of the contract. So make sure you\'re doing what
you should from the very onset. Well, I hope you better understand your
role in conducting a pre‑work meeting, and if you don\'t already, why
it\'s important and how the meeting fits into the procurement process.
Are there any questions?

Caller: Academy award. This is Jim in Denver Federal center.

G. Moore: Hi, Jim. Could you go over page 31 on the particular blanks
there, please?

G. Moore: Sure. Yes, I misspoke. I thought we were filling in the
blanks. I\'m on a different page. Let\'s start on page 30, if you would.
The first question is, the first pre‑work meeting goal is to establish
open lines of communication between the government and the contractor.
The second pre‑work meeting goal is to clarify or address questions and
expectations about the work to be done. The third goal is to introduce
the government personnel to the contractor for day‑to‑day contacts and
review the levels of authority. Number four is to discuss the paper work
flow. Number five is to issue the notice to proceed. Ok?

L. McDill: Gwen, I have a question ‑‑

Caller: This is Dan in Denver. I notice that the COR issued the Notice
to Proceed. Is that done in BLM?

G. Moore: The COR did not issue the Notice to Proceed in that little ‑‑
I\'m sorry, the COR did issue the notice to proceed and, yes, at BLM
that is allowable. What agency are you from, Dan?

Caller: The National Park Service. How ‑‑ does your 1510‑30 form, is it
on the net?

G. Moore: I believe it is, and if it isn\'t, my telephone number is in
the back of the study guide. Give me a call next week and I\'ll see that
you get a copy of it.

Caller: Thank you.

G. Moore: Dan, how does the park service ‑‑ who issues the notice to
proceed for you folks?

Caller: The Contracting Officer.

G. Moore: Ok. That\'s a little bit different than what we do. Liz, you
had a question?

L. McDill: Yes, what if a contractor suggests making changes to the
specifications during the pre‑work meeting?

G. Moore: Ok. This is very early in the process for changes to have
occurred, and it does give you pause for concern, because the contractor
is responsible for letting us know if he discovers ambiguities or errors
in the solicitation package prior to actually bidding. But many of these
fellows come in and they think, well, they\'re going to make up all
their money in modifications, so they get a little anxious. What I would
suggest is that the government go ahead and hear him out, listen to his
suggestions, but we must have an opportunity to review his suggestions.
Are they a good deal for us? Are they necessary? Is it reamy something
‑‑ really something that we want to do? And always we need to bear in
mind there is a second low bidder out there, a loser, if you will, who
may have lost this job by a few hundred dollars and we don\'t ever want
to jeopardize our contract by giving him a reason to protest an award.
So it\'s really not appropriate for us to just arbitrarily make changes
based upon a contractor\'s request. We really need to look through and
it make sure that it\'s a good deal for us, that he\'s offering fair and
reasonable, and go through the real modification process.

D. Bickler: Now, Gwen, something I would like to add, when you are
conducting the pre‑work conference, it\'s fine to have discussions about
potential changes, but make it very clear to the contractor that
absolutely nothing said or discussed at the pre‑work conference
constitutes a modification to the contract. As the COR, you should
remind the contractor that you do not have the authority to make those
changes to the contract. I\'m in a situation now, it\'s a mess because
there was a verbal approval given by the COR and I may have been
involved in that, but there was never a follow‑up of a paper copy or,
you know a physical modification to the contract and there was not a
meeting of the minds as to what was actually agreed on, and, you know,
it\'s kind of an ugly situation for me, but it\'s not ok to make verbal
approval without the input of the CO and it\'s imperative that the
contractor understand anything discussed at the pre‑work or any other
time during the contract must be followed up by a modification or it
didn\'t happen if that it\'s not in writing and signed by both parties,
usually, it didn\'t happen.

G. Moore: Good point. Be careful what we talk about. Be careful of
saying, sure, ok, nodding your head, or all the things we sometimes do,
because the contractors frequently will misinterpret that, and now we
have a big knot to try and untie.

Caller: One way to stop that from happening is ‑‑ this is John in
Hollister ‑‑ is to just simply ask your contractor to submit that as a
proposal in writing that you can then ask the CO to comment or approve
or disapprove or what have you.

L. McDill: That\'s perfect.

G. Moore: That\'s a great suggestion, John. Thank you for your input.

D. Bickler: Are there any other questions?

Caller: This is Tom in Klamath falls.

D. Bickler: Hi, Tom.

Caller: In your video clip you gave great weight to protective clothing,
protective requirements for his employees. Were those requirements
specified in the contract as a line item or were they part of the
generic OSHA boilerplate? And what do we do if his employees show up in
felt hats and fancy blazers?

G. Moore: Well, it can be shown either way. If you have specific special
requirements, you can certainly add them into the specifications. In
addition to that, we have oversight by OSHA. We always put a clause in
all of our construction clauses that the say that the contractor must
comply with OSHA requirements. It can work either way. If a contractor
shows up or his employees orsite without the proper protective PPE,
personal protective equipment, we can certainly shut the contractor
down, suspend his work for a safety violation, but the time continues to
count. His performance time continues to March. We don\'t ever want
anybody hurt out there and we want to have all of our contractors
providing safe and sanitary working conditions for their people. But you
do have the right to suspend work in a safety violation situation.
Anything else?

Caller: Dana McClure, Yellowstone. Should you also require a safety plan
from the contractor at the pre‑work meeting?

G. Moore: If you need a safety plan, you certainly have the opportunity
to ask for that in the specifications. We tell our engineering friends
that write most of the specifications that come through our branch, you
can put just about anything in your spec that you want to. If there is a
need for a safety plan, an evacuation plan, all of that, it\'s necessary
for the type of work you\'re doing, feel free to add into it the
specifications themselves. As long as the contractors all know it up
front, they\'ll have to comply.

D. Bickler: Any more? Last call.

G. Moore: You\'re welcome, Dana.

D. Bickler: Last call.

Caller: This is Christie at the National Park Service.

D. Bickler: Hi, Christie.

Caller: Can you define solicitation for me?

G. Moore: A solicitation ‑‑ it can be in various forms. It can be an ‑‑
a request for quotation, RFQ, Request for Proposal, RFP, invitation
forbid invitation for bid, IFB.

L. McDill: It\'s where the government sends out a request with
specifications or a statement of work and we aunt ‑‑ want a response
back from a contractor for what they anticipate it\'s going to cost to
perform that specific work. We make an offer ‑‑ or we make a ‑‑ we are
soliciting an offer or proposal from a contractor based on the document
we send out.

D. Bickler: Did that answer your question?

Caller: Yes, thank you.

D. Bickler: Well, you\'ve been such great participants and students
today that we\'re going to give you your first 15‑minute break. So take
some time to go stretch your minds and whatever else you might need to
stretch and we\'ll see you in 15 minutes.

D. Bickler: Welcome back. Before we continue, we have a little
commercial for you, and I want to give you all a quick reminder of an
upcoming broadcast here at the Training Center. On May 2nd in
cooperation with the National Interagency Fire Center and the national
wildlife coordinating group, the Bureau of Land Management will be
taking a look ahead at the 2002 fire season. This interagency telecast
will examine weather, fuels and moisture predictions. The National Fire
Plan, as well as fire rehabilitation and fuels treatment and safety. All
righty.

L. McDill: You sounded just like a broadcaster doing a commercial.

D. Bickler: I tried. Now that your minds are refreshed, we have a couple
of items. First of all, we have a fax from our friend norm Rockwell in
ELKO. Norm would like to know, he says now that we are working in Word,
is Denver going to convert the CS‑1 specs from WordPerfect to Word or is
it going to be up to each user to convert as necessary? Now, this is a
specific BLM question, so I\'m going to ‑‑ I think you wrote that so you
can read it.

L. McDill: BLM is currently switching to the microsoft Office Suite,
which includes microsoft Word as our word processing software package.

\> As of October 1st, 2002, which is this year, WordPerfect will no
longer be supported and may even be removed from all the computers
within BLM. So that\'s just one issue. But my suggestion is for you to
contact your state engineer and discuss with them what they want ‑‑ how
they want to handle it. We haven\'t really resolved the issue at the
Denver office even, so this is something that we\'re going to be
discussing with our engineers in the very near future to see how and who
and when, because I know there is a problem with converting our ‑‑ the
CS‑I packages, the specifications.

G. Moore: Not only the condition of the specifications, they need a
serious rewrite, in addition to being converted to the new format, and
Bob Hart, who is the head of the engineering department in Denver, is in
the process of working through that, and this is a topic at the
engineering advisory team meetings. It\'s been a topic for the last
couple of years. So, again, I think Liz has given you some good advice.
Get in touch with the state engineer and see what your state is going to
do rather than so many people doing an individual effort.

D. Bickler: I don\'t want to be left out of the conversation, so I will
add that this kind of goes back to I.D.E.A.S. and the conversation ‑‑
the topic you discussed yesterday. The reason that we\'re switching to
Word is because I.D.E.A.S. doesn\'t work with WordPerfect and in order
to import all of the documents electronically and then upload them to
e‑commerce, they must be in a Word format. So that\'s ‑‑ that\'s one
reason. So just wanted to add that. The other thing I\'d like to just
mention is that after the second break yesterday, I don\'t know if you
ladies noticed, got awful quiet out there. So we want to encourage you
to stick around, if by some chance you missed the last 40 minutes of the
show yesterday, we want to encourage you to stick around for the last 40
minutes of this broadcast because we have kind of a special closing for
you. So don\'t leave. And one last item, we had a push to talk from Tom
in Frederick earlier, and we need to know your ‑‑ where you\'re calling
from. I know it was a BLM location, but we need to know specifically
what that location was so we can help them take care of the echo
problem.

Caller: Hi, yeah, this is Tom in Frederick.

D. Bickler: And where is the site ‑‑

Caller: I\'m with the National Park Service at the historic preservation
Training Center and we know we have a feedback problem.

D. Bickler: Are you at a BLM site or at your own site?

Caller: We\'re at our own office.

D. Bickler: Art says thank you. We\'re going to ‑‑

Caller: You\'re welcome.

D. Bickler: We\'re going to try to help you fix that problem. I think
we\'re ready to move on. Len, our next topic is documentation and, Liz,
I believe you signed up for this. It\'s yours.

L. McDill: Thanks, Denise. Establishing a paper trail is critical for
effective contract administration. You must know how to document the
contractor\'s activities on a given contract and document change files
to support purchases. Documentation establishes a record of the
contractor\'s actions during the life of the contract. And the key
factor to that documentation is it simply must be done. Whether it\'s
recorded on a preestablished form, a blank paper, e‑mail, photograph,
videotape or whatever, it must be recorded for posterity. Documentation
should describe the contractor\'s activities, both good and bad, and ‑‑
in other words, what is happening on the project. You must remember to
describe the contractor\'s activities, not your opinion, nor how ‑‑ of
how the contractor is performing.

G. Moore: Liz, this fine line between opinion and facts is a consistent
problem with many, many of our people, and I\'d like to just give you an
example. I received a while back a diary that said something to the
effect that \"the contractor showed up drunk on the job.\" Probably a
better way to put that would have been to describe what the contractor
was observed doing that led you to that conclusion, such as erratic
driving, a half empty liquor bottle falling out of the vehicle, liquor
on the breath, staggering around the job site or whatever. But rather
than just say \"the contractor showed up drunk,\" our legal people have
advised us numerous times when a project goes to litigation, and the
courts start looking back through our records f there appears to be some
prejudice that the government has against the contractor, we might as
well open up our wallets and let them take out as much money as they can
carry out the door, because the sympathies of the court will be that
that ‑‑ that the contractor was prejudiced by the government. We didn\'t
like him. Look at the derogatory remarks that we made about him. So we
would like to caution you, be very, very, very careful about never
putting your opinions in. Always just the facts. The old dragnet Joe
Friday, \"the facts ma\'am, just the facts.\" That you will do that,
that will work out well for us all.

L. McDill: Thank you, Gwen. Moving along now, the COR should review
documentation submitted by a Project Inspector.

\> Generally speaking documentation should be submitted weekly. These
records are legal documents and will be retained in the official
contract file. They must pass the red face test, which means you must be
professional in your documentation what you right down could end up in a
court of law, so don\'t make disparaging remarks about anyone or
anything. The CO must have written documentation to support the
government\'s position. Little or no documentation has a negative impact
on the government when attempting to settle claims. Should the claim go
to litigation, lack of documentation assures the government will pay.
Now I\'ll discuss documentation related to contractor performance. Upon
completion of the contract, you should rate the contractor\'s
performance. This documentation serves several purposes. It summarizes
the contractor\'s overall performance under that contract. Under sealed
bidding, past performance may be one of the elements to determine
contractor responsibility. This may not ‑‑ may result in not having to
award the contract to the low bidder. In a negotiated procurement, past
performance is used as a rating factor and may result in an award to
someone other than the lowest offer. It can also be used as a reference
of the contractor\'s performance foreother agencies or bureaus. Another
area where documentation is critical is the government charge card
program. You must remember to document your charge card files. Items
that might appear to be a split procurement should be explained
thoroughly. An example of this could be two purchases using the same
vendor for separate projects in separate weeks, but the vendor posted
the transactions to the bank system on the same day. This is a very
common occurrence. The inspector general reviews all D.O.I. charge card
files. Proper documentation at the time of purchase will support a
request for clarification should your statement be selected for review.
Remember, charge card files must be retained for a period of three
years. So it could be difficult for you to recall the precise
circumstances of a transaction after that much time has passed. I can\'t
specifically tell you what has occurred after a three‑hour period of
time, let alone three years, so cover yourself. Document at the time
that you receive your charge card statement and it\'s all there. There
will be no questions asked, then. It will save you and everyone,
primarily yourself, a lot of headaches in the long run, if you just
document, document, document. Now, I believe we have chip ‑‑ chip is on
the line and through the miracle of modern day television technology,
he\'s going to explain his experience as a COR and how documentation
definitely protected the government\'s interests. Chip?

Caller: Yes, this was a \$1.1 million contract for some very
sophisticated audio‑visual systems, and what we did is beginning with
the site tour and the pre‑work conference, we started videotaping and
audio taping, but also keeping extensive notes. This project was about
over a year cradle to grave and it started out really kind of warm and
fuzzy, but since this was a new type of technology that had never been
used before, there was lots of amendments, lots of modifications and the
way we documented all this and I believe through the magic of television
you have possibly on the Elmo there on the camera, we develop what we
called an administrative record which we started giving all of the paper
work, the videotapes, the disks, the laminate samples a number as they
came in, an A.R. number, and we ‑‑ you can see that on the left there.
So what we did was like the ones have that little arrows like A.R.‑20
talks about a fax I received from someone. On the right was our log, our
daily log diary of what happened and we ran these two items side by
side, and there were over four or 500 administrative record items by the
time we finished taking up at least a drawer and a half in a filing
cabinet and the log was over 500 pages. We documented every telephone
call, every fax, everything that happened, myself and the Project
Inspector. When things started to go awry and the contractor failed to
perform and we got to the finger pointing stage of this, as we were
amending the delivery dates, et cetera, in lieu of money, what we were
able to do was get compensation from the government in terms of
additional work, and we were able to get additional things completed at
our facility in compensation for the contractor\'s failure to perform.
The fact that we had the documentation was to our benefit because we had
it just rock solid in terms of what happened when and in what order. It
avoided all of that ‑‑ those conversation about, gee, I remember it
differently. So this was a very, very good learning experience, but it
was a lot of work, and the only thing I can say is that if you get into
one of these, just plan on having to discipline yourself to never back
off on that documentation.

G. Moore: And I can attest that his documentation is substantial. A huge
amount of documentation here. Very well coordinated one between the
other. The documents that you saw on the element, all of that. This was
great job, chip. I am sure if there were any questions at all, we could
probably find it in here.

Caller: Well, it was interesting because that vendor had problems with
another project in the private sector and our records were subpoenaed in
a court case where they were looking at the past performance of that
vendor during this same period of time. So even though in terms of the
BLM action we were able to resolve things, by the vendor doing
additional work for us that documentation did actually go outside.

G. Moore: Great. You did a great job. Commendable job.

L. McDill: Thank you skip ‑‑ chip.

Caller: Ok.

L. McDill: There are any other questions or comments out there
concerning documentation? Ok. If there are no other comments or
questions, I\'ll just keep going. We\'re going to discuss contract mud
faux indications now. The objective of this segment is to help so that
you will understand your authority as it relates to modifications and
know your role in processing modifications and be aware of the
consequences of improperly handled modifications. We are now on page 35
of the study guide. Changes and adjustments are normal occurrences
during the life of any contract and are allowable as long as they are
within the scope of the contract. However, a modification is required to
officially implement any change, and the COR does not have the authority
to make those changes. Only a CO has the authority to execute a
modification. Technically the contractor can not perform any work on the
modified portion of the contract until all signatures have been
obtained. In actuality, no work can be performed until authorized by the
CO, either in writing or verbally, and then followed one a written
modification. There are two types of modifications, by lateral and
unilateral. A bilateral modification requires two signatures. The
contractor signs first and the CO signs last. We use bilateral
modifications to document negotiated adjustments to the contract. Since
both parties must sign, they do take time. A unilateral modification
requires the signature of only the Contracting Officer. They can be used
for administrative changes such as adjusting funding codes. They are
also used when issuing a unilateral direction to the contractor which is
called the change order. Once a change order is issued, the terms and
conditions of the change order are negotiated and finalized by a
bilateral modification. In other words, we direct the contractor to
perform work, and then we negotiate the cost. This puts the government
in a very precarious position and may be very costly. What
responsibilities does a COR have related to modifications? A COR must
contact the CO when the modification is being considered. You must
provide justifications for the modification and written revisions to the
statements of work or specification if they are necessary. For
modifications requiring additional funds, the COR must provide a funded
Purchase Request to the CO through I.D.E.A.S., provide an independent
government estimate. Modifications cannot include a request for work
outside of the scope of the contract. So it is imperative that you as a
COR become very familiar with the statement of work. Changes outside of
the scope of the contract are called cardinal changes and are not
allowed. As previously stated, all changes to a contract must be
coordinated with the Contracting Officer. Ok. Let\'s do a quick
exercise. I\'ll read the following scenario ‑‑

Caller: Jim cloud, National Park Service, Denver.

D. Bickler: Go ahead.

Caller: Yes, getting back to the government estimate, here at the park
service we\'re allowed to bypass the government estimate under \$20,000.
Do you use that policy?

L. McDill: No, we don\'t. You don\'t require a government estimate for a
modification if it\'s below 20,000?

Caller: We basically verify the contractor\'s estimate and verify that
the work is valid.

D. Bickler: But how do you determine if that cost the contractor is
charging is fair and reasonable without a government estimate of some
sort?

Caller: I use his estimate and verify his time and materials and verify
his costs.

G. Moore: They just don\'t do one on their own and look at his costs.
Our rules are a little different. We require a government estimate on
everything, independent government estimate.

L. McDill: But you can also negotiate and validate afterward, and there
is usually some negotiation. This isn\'t uncommon in services
especially.

D. Bickler: I guess if we have a modification that\'s really a small
dollar, not 20,000, but a couple hundred dollars we will look at the
contractor\'s estimate ‑‑ I\'ve seen that done, his proposal and say,
yeah, that\'s fair, that appears to be fair and we get documentation
from the COR that says the contractor\'s estimate is fair. We won\'t do
that up to 20,000 ‑‑ we don\'t have a set limit. That\'s a little ‑‑
each agency to its own.

Caller: That\'s true. Continuation of that is frequently on our 8 (A)
small business set asides we get outside the scope because they are sole
source negotiated. Do you have a problem with that?

G. Moore: You\'ve just given three Contracting Officers heart attacks
when you say outside the scope. That makes our heart stop. Yes, we do
have a problem with that, even though it\'s sole source. You still have
to play by all the other rules.

Caller: Thank you.

G. Moore: You\'re welcome.

L. McDill: Back to the scenario on page 36, I will read ‑‑ ok, I will
read the following scenario and then I\'ll give you two minutes to
briefly discuss witness your neighbors to see if you can determine the
correct course of action for the situation described. Here it is. Carpet
shampooing is not included in the statement of work for a janitorial
service for a contract on a government building. During the night a
heavy dust storm moves through the area, followed by an early morning
rainstorm. SHHHH. By the time the government manager reports for work, a
great deal of mud has been tracked in and deposited on the carpet. He
asks the janitorial contractor to clean the carpet and remove all the
mud. What is the correct course of action for this situation? I\'ll give
you a couple minutes to think about it, and you can answer with your
push to talk, please.

L. McDill: Ok. Can someone out there please tell me what your group came
up with?

Caller: This is Neal from El Centro. We would say we would do a
micropurchase, or we also talked about if this was a performance based
contract, like you guys discussed earlier yesterday, we could have
written specs of it so that this wouldn\'t have to happen. We could have
said that the carpet would be kept from mud and debris.

L. McDill: Very good answers. Yes, this was outside of the scope of the
contract. We did not specify that they would be shampooing carpet. Our
answer was, yes, you could do a micropurchase using your credit card and
have them come in and shampoo the carpet. Very good. But I like your
solution using a performance‑based work statement because then, yes, it
would be incumbent upon them and they probably should have taken that
into consideration when preparing their proposal. Thank you. Did anyone
come one something different? ‑‑ come up with something different?

Caller: If it was an IDIQ contract, could you just Arab new task order?

L. McDill: An IDIQ contract ‑‑ I don\'t know that we would have done ‑‑
well, actually, yes, that would be a possibility if you wanted to. But
generally a task order takes a little time to write, and since you
wanted the mud removed fairly quickly, I assume, I think the
micropurchase solution would have been the best one. Thank you. Any more
questions or suggestions? Ok.

D. Bickler: We have a fax real quick. We\'ll try to answer it. This
comes from Steve burns in Santa Fe. Is there a website to find all of
the existing government contracts available similar to the National Park
Service website for all IDIQ contracts? By chance, Steve, do you have
push to talk capability? Maybe not. That\'s probably why he faxed. Ok.

L. McDill: Do you want to answer?

D. Bickler: Steve, if you want to dial in and we can talk this through
over the phone, but we\'ll try to answer the question as best we can
based on how you\'ve written it. Now, the department of interior ‑‑ or
the D.O.I.‑wide contracts would be found on a D.O.I. link or the
website. Each Bureau\'s individual I.IDIQ or contracts would be found on
their own. But I believe you\'re telling me D.O.I. has links?

I think if you go on the DOI.gov website they have links to the
different bureaus, and you can\'t quote me on this, but they may even
have some links directly to acquisition web sites and government
contracts, interagency contracts. If not, BLM has their website, which
is that ‑‑ at BLM ‑‑ the one ‑‑ our national acquisition website. We
have listed our Bureau‑wide or department‑wide contracts on that web
side. So that\'s one possibility. But my suggestion is go on the D.O.I.
website and see if they have a list there.

D. Bickler: Part of it would be that we don\'t know what the National
Park Service website is there ‑‑

L. McDill: That\'s where they list their IDIQ contracts ‑‑

D. Bickler: But have you been there?

L. McDill: No.

D. Bickler: Steve, if that answers your question, good. If it doesn\'t,
please call in, and the number is on the bottom of the fax form you just
sent in and we can talk this through to answer your question better.

G. Moore: I might also suggest that if there is someone else out in the
park service that\'s familiar with the website, if you would call in and
share the information with us, that would enlighten us all.

Caller: This is Doug in Denver with the park service.

G. Moore: Ok, Doug.

Caller: Yeah, the one that Steve is referring to is one managed by our
harpers Ferry center and it lists all the IDIQ contracts that the park
service has by all the separate regional offices and by our Denver
service center here as well as by the harpers Ferry center and so it
allows everybody to see what the scope of the work is, they can search
for specific contracts for everything from arcology to exhibit services
to A/E services and then gives them the CO to contact to write a task
order to that, because each different regional office has to maintain ‑‑
maintains a CO who is in charge of those different IDIQ contracts. So
they have to maintain the sealing monitoring to make sure they don\'t
overload the ceiling of that contract.

G. Moore: Could you give us that website, please?

Caller: I\'ll have to get it for you. I don\'t have it off the top of my
head.

G. Moore: If you would like to call in maybe the next break f you could
capture that for us, we will certainly share it with everybody. It
sounds like the park service might be a little bit ahead of some of the
other agencies in making available this information in one site. I think
this is probably where we\'re going.

L. McDill: Well, BLM has. In fact, we are currently updating our
websites both internally and external websites and that is one of the
items that we are going to put on website. We are going to publicize all
of our IDIQ and interand ‑‑ interdepartmental contracts with the point
of contact and a brief description and so on. So BLM is currently
working on a website like yours.

D. Bickler: Ok. Thank you. I have another fax. This is from Bill in
Idaho. Steve, I hope that answered your question, just really quick,
and, again, if it didn\'t, please call in and we will be happy to talk
through it again some more. This fax is from Bill in Idaho. Can the COR
verbally make a minor modification if he has talked it over with the
Contracting Officer first? Do I have ‑‑ this is kind of a tricky
question.

G. Moore: Don\'t be writing this stuff down, ok? If the Contracting
Officer and the COR have good lines of communication and we know what\'s
going o we oftentimes are able, and feel very comfortable in giving a
verbal ok. But we definitely want to be involved in the decision. Don\'t
as a COR go out and say, oh, I know her, she\'s not going to give me any
hard time about that. Please call us. Discuss it. Because we look at
things a lot differently than you folks do sometimes. We need to talk
about it together, come to a conclusion. Are we going to do it or not do
it? And then if we are ‑‑ I\'ve given verbals to my CORsand allowed them
to go and tell the contractor, ok, paper work to follow, let\'s get
busy, and it works out well. But be extremely cautious in doing this.
It\'s so much bet for it\'s written.

L. McDill: In this day and age of e‑mail ‑‑

Caller: National Park Service.

L. McDill: Ok.

Caller: My experience has been been I try to get the contractor on the
phone and the CO gives the verbal directly to the contractor and that
avoids me being caught in the loop.

L. McDill: That\'s a great plan. It also helps make sure, as Denise
alluded to earlier, we have to be sure that there is a meeting of the
minds on these changes. What the contractor thinks we want may not
necessarily be what we want and so we\'ve got to figure out a way to be
absolutely sure that everybody is on the same sheet of music. What I
generally do in those situations is request that the COR send me the
question or send me his concern by e‑mail or fax it, but usually e‑mail,
and then I can actually see the words on paper and I know what has been
discussed, and then I will actually send a reply to that e‑mail message
directly to the COR so we have a written record of what was discussed,
what transpired and there\'s no question as to what was asked, then.

D. Bickler: And to go back quickly to my example, first of all, minor
modifications are one thing. The mistake that the government made in my
example is that this was not a minor modification. It was a very large
dollar modification. Nonetheless, the mistake was it was not clear
between the COR and the contractor in the verbal what was approved and
what was not, because we accepted part of his modification ‑‑ his
proposed change but not all of it. The part that we didn\'t accept, we
didn\'t really make it very clear.

L. McDill: There was no clarification.

D. Bickler: And that part right there was very, very expensive. So I
don\'t want to go into a lot of detail because it\'s messy and it will
take up too much time but verbals can be very, very tricky. So just be
real careful.

G. Moore: And I would add very dangerous to do until we get them
committed to paper.

D. Bickler: And part of that we could mention maybe is the ‑‑ the
implied authority of the COR. The fact that you are the Contracting
Officer\'s Representative, there is an unspoken, implied authority that
you really don\'t have and that is that you have the authority to go
ahead and accept these changes and make modifications and that\'s where
we kind of get stuck, I think, is that implied authority.

G. Moore: So proceed cautiously.

D. Bickler: There\'s the answer. Caution. Any other questions or
comments? Ok. I know this is very difficult to believe, ladies, but
it\'s time for another break. And I want to again encourage everybody,
please come back after this break. We\'ve got a wonderful second half.
We\'ll see you back in 15 minutes. Ok?

D. Bickler: Well, welcome back. I hope everybody came back. We\'re down
to our last three sections, so stay with us. We\'re almost done and you
can be recertified.

And, remember, we have a surprise at the end.

D. Bickler: That\'s right. We have a special ending. Stick with us. When
I think it\'s your ‑‑ I think it\'s your turn, so have have at it.

G. Moore: That we are done here, you will know that Variation In
Quantity or VIQ applies only to the estimated quantity units and an
independent government estimate is required when actual quantities
exceed the allowable variation. Please turn to page 37 in your study
guide and fill in the blanks as we go. Variation In Quantity is defined
in FAR part 11 as a permissible variation stated as a percentage in the
contract. It allows the government to accept quantities within the
stated percentage at the original unit prices. For supplies, a
permissible variation shall not exceed plus or minus 10%. In services
contracts, the BLM has a deviation which allow as VIQ percent of plus or
minus 20%. Other Bureaus may have different percentages for service
contracts. For construction contracts, the allowable amount is 15%. Now,
in a Variation In Quantity situation, either the government or the
contractor can request an equitable adjustment in the unit price. If
actual quantities performed are outside these limits. In construction
quantities outside the allowable variation ‑‑ sorry ‑‑ quantities
outside the allowable variation in construction contracts should have
some impact on the unit price. Therefore, an independent government
estimate is required to support the new unit price. This estimate is
used to determine reasonable prices during negotiations. Typically in an
overrun situation the unit price will be reduced if an underrun occurs.
And the unit price will increase. This is based on the theory of economy
of scale. And applies to measurable units. It is recognized in
government contract ‑‑ contracts that overruns and underruns do occur,
but please remember that VIQ applies to the estimated quantity items
only, not the total contract amount. For all overrun quantities, you
will need to submit a Purchase Request with funding through I.D.E.A.S.
to support the contract modification. Now, Denise has more of our sod
story.

D. Bickler: Ok. Now, in my solicitation, like I said, the original
quantity stated before it was modified was 8,500 square yards. Well,
let\'s pretend that it was not corrected and it was awarded with that
quantity of 8,500 square yards of sod. Well, the VIQ, Variation In
Quantity, for that contract was 15%, which means that we could go up or
down by 1,275 or we could go up to 9,775 or down to 7,224. Now, we can
go outside those variations, but within limits. We have to be
reasonable, and it\'s the CO\'s call as to whether what reasonable is.
Now, for this ‑‑

L. McDill: It could involve negotiations, then, too, sometimes.

D. Bickler: Yes. The actual need was 1,250. Instead of 8,500. Now, this
is an 85% difference in the quantity. That\'s excessive and is
considered outside the scope. So had I awarded it, like I said earlier,
we would have wound up having to cancel, terminate the contract.

G. Moore: Would have been a big mess.

D. Bickler: There is no way to negotiate that. The economy of scale, I
am sure 1250 square yards of sod costs way more than 8500 square yards
of sod.

L. McDill: They would have received a discount for purchasing more sod.

G. Moore: Exactly. So we must be careful regarding VIQ. Remember again
that we can allow overruns and underruns on a contract, but we need to
be talking about that. Did you want to do that fax now?

D. Bickler: Ok. We have a couple of faxes. The first fax is from Mark in
Idaho with BLM, and Mark\'s question is, please explain what resource a
local merchant might have if a contractor while working on a BLM
contract charges a bunch of materials and then skips town without paying
the merchant. Well, it depends on the type of contract it is. If it\'s a
service or a supply, the base ‑‑ basically the merchant is ‑‑

G. Moore: Out luck.

L. McDill: The government does not get involved, is the way it works. We
do not interfere. It would be between the merchant and the contractor.
It would be incumbent upon him to deal it himself.

D. Bickler: Our contract is specifically with the contractor, and the
merchants, suppliers, subcontractors, have no recourse against the
government, and the government cannot assist them in a service or a
supply‑type contract. Now, if it\'s a construction contract, that\'s
entirely different. Under a construction contract and we\'ll assume that
it\'s bonded, that\'s what the payment protection and the payment bond
are set up for, is to protect suppliers and subcontractors. If it\'s a
construction contract and the contractor ‑‑ which I\'m sure it\'s
happened to all of us, but I have a very pertinent contract. I think my
contractor walked away from every supplier practically that he dealt
with. Those suppliers called me and say, hey, your contractor out there
at nowheresville bought gravel from me and I haven\'t been paid. This
was six months ago. Well, I\'m going to tell the contractor, let me give
you his bonding information, you may pursue it with the bonding company.
We don\'t contact the bonding company. All I do is forward the letter
with the information about the bond, name of the company, the address,
if there is a telephone number, if there\'s a person to contact, and
that supplier then can file a claim against the contractor\'s bond. That
is why payment protection is there.

G. Moore: Exactly.

D. Bickler: Want to add anything?

G. Moore: I don\'t have anything more to add to it. We frequently find
ourselves in this predicament because the merchant comes back and says,
you\'re the government, by golly, can\'t you control your contractors?
Well, not exactly in that arena. So if it comes up, get in touch with
us. We will be happy to provide the information, but that\'s as far as
we can go with assistance.

D. Bickler: These sorts of things also affect ‑‑ can affect a
contractor\'s ability to be bonded in the future if he has too many of
these complaints.

G. Moore: Sure.

D. Bickler: The next ‑‑ we had another question here. And this is from
Tom, and he\'s the Tom in Frederick. Hi, Tom. Tom would like to know ‑‑
oh, he says not for air time. Never mind.

G. Moore: We\'ll pick that one up later. Ok. Well, now deniece and I
will move into the labor laws. Generally we tell you we\'ll go into
labor now but most of you don\'t want to look at. So we\'ll just start
talking here.

D. Bickler: Wait a minute. Stop. Time‑out. Part of this is for the air,
Gwen, and I\'ll volunteer you to answer it. Here\'s the question: for
hiring architects and engineers, what is BLM\'s way ‑‑ no, what is the
best way to ‑‑ hold on a minute ‑‑

L. McDill: What is the best way\...

D. Bickler: To do small projects? What is the best way to do small
projects, say less than 10,000. Sorry about that.

G. Moore: For A/E? The problem you\'re going to have doing small design
contracts is the initial start‑up for an architect engineering firm is
pretty much the same. It doesn\'t really matter how large or small the
project is. They have certain start‑up type costs that they incur. If
you\'re going to do a lot of small‑dollar design, the best way to handle
it might be to enter into an IDIQ contract with ‑‑ a particular
architect/engineering firm, and then as the needs cup, you would write
then delivery orders or task orders against that umbrella contract.
That\'s what we\'re doing with the state of Montana. They have entered
into two IDIQ contracts, and all the small‑dollar designs are being done
by task order and it\'s working out beautifully. But they had ‑‑ they
have two or three years of predicted small dollar design. So that\'s one
way to handle it.

D. Bickler: There\'s another question. From Tom. He wants to know, is
best value used for A/E contracts? It seems this is always a difficult
thing to do, i.e., hiring an A/E firm for a small project.

G. Moore: The project that we have toeer for A/E is called the Brooks
bill and the process is similar to best value, but there are some very
specific steps that we have to take. It\'s all outlined in the Federal
acquisition regulations, and whenever we enter into design services we
have to follow the Brooks Bill, the Brooks Act.

D. Bickler: Does that involve best value?

G. Moore: Past performance ‑‑ in all ‑‑ technical expertise, past
performance, there are a lot of elements. There are five different
elements that we have to incorporate as evaluation factors in an
architect/engineering solicitation, but, again, it\'s all outlined very
clearly in the FAR. Whenever you see the word act behind anything,
that\'s a law. So our hands are tied. We cannot avoid that. Now, really
small stuff, if you can manage to have a tea sign that\'s less than
\$2500, you know, you can pay for that under your credit card. That
becomes a micropurchase, and that\'s just a whole different thing. You
don\'t really have to go through quite the same process. But it\'s all
similar. Very similar to best value.

D. Bickler: The catch would be to get a design under \$2500.

G. Moore: But that\'s almost impossible. They\'re very expensive.

D. Bickler: I think I heard somebody knocking. Does someone want in?

Caller: Doug porter, Denver park service.

G. Moore: Yes, go ahead.

Caller: Yeah, I thought it might be a good time to give you that website
because Frederick could use this website to find the A/Es we have under
IDIQ. That\'s WWW.NPS.gov/HFC/IDIQ. There\'s several items on there, but
you can go through the menu and find the database and you can do
searches for different times of IDIQs, and you can fine the CO\'s
responsible for those IDIQs. Very good.

G. Moore: Thank you much for sharing that information. It\'s shown on
the bought you will umph the screen. ‑‑ it\'s shown on the bottom of
your screen. Thank you very much.

Caller: I\'d also like to say something to Liz.

L. McDill: Yes?

Caller: Your daughter said you\'re looking good on the TV and your
grandson will be happy to see you when you return back to Denver.

L. McDill: Thank you.

D. Bickler: Ok.

L. McDill: I\'ll get her later.

Caller: And one other item. You can mention to ‑‑ we\'d like to share
with our BLM friends our specification CS‑I if they would like to get it
because we have our already converted over to Word and they could
contact us or Bob Hart could and we could download it on our FTP site
and all your BLM sites then could use ours. I\'m sure yours has some
differences but you could save a lot of effort by using our guidelines.

L. McDill: Thank you. We will pass that information on. That is
wonderful.

D. Bickler: Great. Gwen ‑‑

Caller: Quick question from salmon.

L. McDill: Salmon can\'t talk.

G. Moore: Go ahead.

Caller: On the top of page 38, for overruns, the COR should submit a
blank blank. We didn\'t get that.

G. Moore: A Purchase Request.

Caller: Thank you.

G. Moore: You\'re welcome. Any other questions?

D. Bickler: Have we wrapped up the Variation In Quantity?

G. Moore: Variation In Quantity is wrapped. Now we\'re going into labor.

Caller: We have a question in Winnemucca. On the next line on page 38,
the VIQ clause allows for a variation in the quantities, not the total
contract blank.

G. Moore: Price.

Caller: Thank you.

G. Moore: Ok. After this section on labor, you will know the
applicability of the labor laws, your responsibility regarding
compliance with these laws and that violations of labor laws can lead to
suspension or debarment of the contractors. I\'m on page 39 in the study
guide, and let\'s just fill in the blank as we go. The COR\'s
responsibility under labor law cannot be in 81 stated. Because the CO
cannot be on the website we rely heavily on your documentation for
compliance or violation under these laws. Labor laws apply to government
contracts and protect all contractors and subcontractor employees. Who
can tell me the two main acts that apply to the government contracts?
Please use your push to talk.

Caller: This is Tracy in Denver. It\'s a Service Contract Act and Davis
Bacon Act.

G. Moore: That\'s perfect. Thank you. Today we will discuss both of
these acts. First I will talk about the Service Contract Act, and then
I\'ll turn it over to Denise to do the one for construction. Both of
these acts are implemented in part 22 of the FAR and as I said
previously, any time you see or hear the word \"act,\" that means it\'s
a law. The Service Contract Act applies to all service requirements over
\$2500. Pertinent portions of this act are: it provides minimum wages
and benefits must be paid to all people working under the contract. It
requires the contractor to provide safe and sanitary working conditions
for his employees. It requires that wages be paid to these people
semi‑monthly. It also allows the employees to be interviewed by the
Department of Labor. Now, here\'s a change for some of you folks that
have been listening to our BLM training sessions over the last several
years. We have been encouraging you to conduct labor interview Oz
service contracts as a routine. We don\'t exactly have this authority
unless it is requested by the Department of Labor. So please stop that.
That was a misinterpretation on our part. So you no longer have to
conduct interviews on service contracts, unless the Department of Labor
gives us permission to do that. Davis bacon construction project
interviews are still required to be done by us. The COR needs to be sure
that appropriate posters and wage decisions are displayed in conspicuous
areas on a job site where any employee can review them at their leisure.
He also must notify the Contracting Officer of any complaints received
from the employees. Complaints under the service contracts are invest
investigated by the Department of Labor. This is not the case under
construction contracts. Contracts that include Davis bacon require
closer scrutiny by the COR and the Contracting Officer. On service, we
pretty much just let things go until a complaint is actually received.
Denise?

D. Bickler: I was asked to instruct this portion of the labor section
because I have had the unique pleasure of administering a contract in
which a number of labor laws were violated and I\'ll be talking about
that contract as we go along. The COR\'s responsibility under
construction contracts which are governed by the Davis Bacon Act are
similar to. They include ensuring posters are always displayed in
prominent places and they get to conduct the labor interviews on these
type of contracts, but you a ‑‑ additionally, the COR is responsible for
verifying the payrolls. The Davis Bacon Act requires that the contractor
submit certified weekly payrolls demonstrating that their employees are
being paid in accordance with the wage decision contained in their
contract. This requirement applies to all subcontractors as well. It\'s
the COR\'s responsibility to conduct the initial review of these
payrolls. Now, I\'ve been told a couple of times by CORs, they say,
these are labor laws, why doesn\'t the Department of Labor enforce these
laws? Well, the FAR requires that the Contracting Officer enforce the
laws up front, and as the Contracting Officer\'s rep and the one that\'s
on the site, we need your assistance in doing that. So when you do your
verification of the payrolls, you should compare the payroll to your
written diary and answer the following questions: have all the employees
\'the site been accounted for? Are the employees ‑‑ are these employees
classified correctly? If the answer to either one of these questions is
\"no,\" do not correct the payroll for the contractor. You should
document the problem on a separate sheet of paper. You can document it
on your diary, but also on a separate sheet of paper, because we\'re
going to want you to forward the payroll, your documentation, and any
other documentation or backup to the problem. Forward that to the
Contracting Officer for proper action. Now, my contractor, who we\'ll
call ABC construction, submitted six weeks of payrolls to the COR. After
reviewing the payrolls, the COR tried to help out the contractor and
save some time, so he corrected the payrolls for him. Fortunately, he
made copies of the payrolls before he made the corrections. I just want
to remind you that the payroll is a certified document and it cannot be
corrected by anyone. Now, the contractor can make minor corrections, for
instance, if he forgot to indicate the dates of work that was performed,
if he left the contract number off, minor corrections only. If the
contractor has made an error or if you indicate ‑‑ if you find that the
contractor has made ‑‑ there\'s something wrong with the payroll
affecting price, benefits or the time, do not give it back to the
contractor to correct. He cannot do that. Ok? Now, the COR is also
required to conduct interviews with the employees. This is another means
by which to ensure compliance and to field complaints. Now, these
interviews are to be forwarded to the Contracting Officer. Any failure
to comply with the Davis Bacon Act can be cause for the Contracting
Officer to withhold funds from progress payments under the noncompliance
is corrected. Now, the amount to be withheld will equal the sum
estimated to be owed to the employees by the contractor. When evidence
of restitution to the employees is given to the Contracting Officer, the
funds will be released. Evidence is usually in the form of canceled
checks. Now, for my contractor, when I received the payrolls, the COR
told me that I should probably look at them because they didn\'t appear
to be correct. So I conducted a more detailed review, and this review
also included comparing the payroll to the diaries. The diaries that I
had in this particular case were very, very good. They were two and
three pages long, very well documented. So I was able to clearly see
that there were employees working on the site that had not been
accounted for on the payroll. And in that, I found there were two
employees on site not accounted for and none of the employees were being
paid the prevailing wage. The other thing I do is take the wage rate and
‑‑ I take the payroll and I compare it to the wage rate according to
what the contractor says his contractors were ‑‑ his employees were
doing and what you tell me the employees were doing on the site. So
based on that, this contractor was not paying any of his employees the
prevailing wage. Well, I think went forward and conducted an audit to
determine how much money I thought he owe the his employees based on the
information I had and I found he owed them about \$4,000 in back wages.
I withheld that sum from his next payment and I notified him that he had
this problem and he need to do correct it. I\'m lost. Sorry about that.
Ok. When the noncompliance affects overtime pay to employees, the
Contracting Officer has the authority to collect liquidated damages from
the contractor at a rate of \$10 per day per employee for work in excess
of the standard 40‑hour work week. These hick was dated damages are a
penalty against the ‑‑ liquidated damages are a penalty against the
contractor. In my case, part of that \$4,000 included liquidated damages
in the amount of about \$100.

L. McDill: Now ‑‑ I forgot your name ‑‑ GWIZ. I thought liquidated
damages could not ‑‑ are not considered a penalty and yet you just said
this is a penalty. Is there a difference?

D. Bickler: There is a difference in the liquidated damages under the
Davis Bacon Act. The act itself specifically states that the Contracting
Officer shall assess this penalty and it\'s called a penalty, for
violating the overtime payment act. The liquidated damages that we
talked about earlier are not to be used as a penalty but ‑‑ Gwen ‑‑

G. Moore: A forecast. It\'s a forecast of what we anticipate ‑‑

L. McDill: Restitution I believe is what it\'s called.

G. Moore: It\'s a forecast of the charges that we would be assessing.

D. Bickler: It can\'t be used as a penalty. It\'s actually a damage.
This is actually a penalty. Ok. So the Contracting Officer may request
assistance of the Department of Labor to investigate violations of labor
laws. In the case of my contractor, I eventually learned that ABC
construction had failed to account for all of the hours worked over
those six weeks. So at this point, I decided it was a little bigger than
me and I did request the assistance of the Department of Labor, and they
were more than happy to conduct their own investigation. Now,
noncompliance with labor laws are very serious and could result in
suspension or debarment of the contractor from future Federal contracts.
In the case of my contractor, the Department of Labor\'s investigation
turned up that he owed his employees more than \$6,000 in back wages and
almost \$700 in liquidated damages. It also revealed violations in the
Federal labor standards act. So he wasn\'t paying minimum wage, either.
As a result, the Department of Labor has requested debarment of this
contractor. Now, the Department of Labor carries a big stick, so to
speak. They are a very important department in Washington and what they
get they usually ask for. These are serious violations.

G. Moore: Or what they ask for is what they get. That\'s pretty much
what you were trying to say.

D. Bickler: Yes, thank you.

L. McDill: Been a long day.

D. Bickler: Just can\'t let it go, can you, Gwen? So does anyone have
questions regarding the labor laws?

Caller: Dan Cloud NPS Denver.

D. Bickler: Hi, Dan. Go ahead.

Caller: I just wanted to confirm the liquidated damage penalty is only
when overtime pay is affected?

G. Moore: That is correct. \$10 per day per employee is how it\'s
calculated.

D. Bickler: So in the case of my contractor, he apparently had between
all of his employees, they worked 70 days of overtime without proper
compensation. So 70 times 10 would be 700, I think. So that\'s ‑‑ so
that\'s how that works. Now, when I did my investigation, I calculated
out the 40 hours and then everything above that I counted, ok, how many
employees, how many days did each of them work. And it\'s ‑‑ does that
answer your question?

Caller: Yes, thank you.

L. McDill: You\'re welcome.

D. Bickler: Anyone else?

Caller: Yeah, Doug port inner Denver, park service. I ran into a problem
when some laborers would not want to sign interview forms because they
knew they were not getting paid correctly, but they didn\'t want the
repercussions of signing that and then next week not having a job. So
what Department of Labor said that they have is a phone number that they
can call to make anonymous complaints about a contractor, because
basically we couldn\'t do much about the issue, the payroll showed he
was getting paid properly and he wouldn\'t sign the interview form to
say otherwise. So he was able to call and make anonymous complaint to
the Department of Labor and then they would do their own independent
investigation, and the employee was not put at risk.

G. Moore: Good good. I

D. Bickler: I would think as the CO if I got word or wind of the fact an
employee was not being paid properly, I, too, could go to the Department
of Labor and say, I don\'t have any documentation but I have been given
be a anonymous tip. I think it could work either way. As a matter of
fact, at the time that I turned this over to the Department of Labor,
that\'s exactly what had happened. One of his former employees, because
by the time ‑‑ midway through this we took a break because of weather,
none of the employees were working for him when he came back, but one of
those employees called me and was actually being threatened by the
contractor. He was supposedly a subcontractor but I didn\'t have proper
documentation, and he ‑‑ the contractor had been going to his house and
in someways kind of trying to strong arm his wife into signing this form
for him. So he called me and said, you don\'t even know the half of what
was going on at that site. And I took the time to meet with him, and I
got all kinds of information, and that\'s when I said, this is bigger
than me, I\'m calling the Department of Labor.

G. Moore: And I would think also that when you are aware of these
problems and I don\'t know the timing and the circumstances that you\'re
specifically talking about here, but please let your Contracting Officer
know these things, because we can take steps. We don\'t want to be the
reason anybody loses their job, but the fact that someone has refused to
sign an interview form, that smells a little bit and we probably ‑‑ it
is suspect, and we would probably want to look a little further into
that. Of course, confidentially and discreetly and all of that, because
we don\'t want to be the reason someone is not working.

D. Bickler: Kind of humorous, when this contractor did wind up going
back to work, he had all new employees, and every time he gave them a
paycheck, on the back of the paycheck he had written a waiver that he
made them sign that said basically the employee was saying, I\'m
accepting this check as full payment for all of my work, and they
didn\'t want to sign it because they weren\'t being paid proper wages. I
called the Department of Labor and they said, it wouldn\'t matter what
he had them sign, he is still bound to pay the proper wage.

G. Moore: Because Davis bacon is a law.

D. Bickler: Any other questions?

Caller: Clay from Acadia.

G. Moore: Go ahead.

Caller: I have a question defining what constitutes a subcontractor that
you need to review payrolls for and what differentiates them from the
average delivery truck driver or independent testing firm that shows up
on site. I\'m just now to the point where you would define somebody as a
subcontractor and require payroll.

G. Moore: Ok. We have this conversation a lot in our office. Our legal
advisors have been telling us that if people are just making delivery on
site, they drive in in their truck, they offload materials of any sort,
and then lead, it ‑‑ then leave, it really is a delivery and what Davis
bacon applies to is any person that is actually performing work on site.
So you have to look at your work and just kind of make a decision here
about, is it a delivery.

If it\'s a subcontractor, we should have the standard form 1413
completed by the contractor that says he understands all the labor
regulations and laws that he has to comply with. So deliveries sometimes
do get a little squirrely on us here and they are hard to be able to
different Channel 8 between some sometimes, but, again, talk to your
Contracting Officer. The two of you together can decide how your
particular situation should be handled.

Caller: As an example, we have an engineering firm that performs
concrete tests and that person is on site 20 or 30 minutes but it may
only be once in the entire duration of the contract. Many contractors
don\'t consider that person a subcontractor.

G. Moore: And it is not a subcontract. He is merely performing testing,
comes out, take the cylinders, does what he does, is out thereof.
That\'s not a subcontract. As testing service.

D. Bickler: By all means, talk to your Contracting Officer to help ‑‑
your Contracting Officer will help you figure out or determine if
someone on the site should be considered a subcontractor or not. Ok?

Caller: Dana McClure, Yellowstone. What do you do about contractors that
have family members working for them, and can you define how far this
family relationship goes?

G. Moore: Ok. It all depends on how the contractor presented himself at
the time he submitted his bid. If he bid your project as an individual,
then every family member is an employee and is deserving Davis bacon
rates. If it\'s a partnership, a joint venture or a corporation, he has
to identify the type of ‑‑ what do you call that when ‑‑ how it\'s
classified. It\'s either an individual, a partnership, a joint venture
or corporation. Those are the four choices that they have. If it\'s a
partnership or a joint venture, they have to tell us on a separate sheet
of paper who the partners are, or who are the members of that joint
venture. Those folks are exempt because they\'re owners of the company.
In the situation of a corporation, corporations generally have officers,
and those officers that are identified in the corporation payment ‑‑
corporation documents. We can go back to the state and obtain that
information if we need to. But if a contractor has bid as an individual
and he has his wife and son and daughter‑in‑law and a bunch of people
out there, they are considered employees.

L. McDill: Remember that when contractors submit proposals or bids to
the government, they are required to complete the reps and CERTS and
within that, part of the certification is the type of business it is,
whether it is a partnership or sole proprietorship or whatever.

D. Bickler: The other catch would be if a contractor says he\'s a
partnership or a joint venture or ‑‑ what was the other one?

G. Moore: Corporation.

D. Bickler: Not a corporation. Partnership or joint venture, everybody
involved in that partnership and joint venture must sign, because
everybody that\'s part of the joint venture or the partnership is held
liable and responsible for the completion of the work. So he can claim
that he\'s a partnership but if nobody else signed, that\'s going to be
a problem. So we have a question.

G. Moore: Dana, did that answer your question?

Caller: Yes, thank you.

D. Bickler: We have a question ‑‑ a fax that came in with a question and
I think it will be a panel discussion. What should I do ‑‑ this is Bill
in Idaho. What should die as a COR if some of the bidders on the site
tour can\'t read? If I take too much time reading over the contractors
get bored and impatient.

L. McDill: My suggestion would be to have that contractor contact an
individual who could read the contract for them and translate it for
them. Now, my first question would be, how did the contractor even find
out about the project and the site tour if he couldn\'t read? Someone
must have told him about it.

G. Moore: Another situation, too, at the site tour, you\'re probably not
going to read all of the specifications. Hopefully the contractors have
had that document for a little period of time prior to the tour ‑‑
hopefully looked it over, perhaps had a had a family member read the
documentation to them or whatever. But I certainly wouldn\'t expect to
be read to ‑‑

L. McDill: The purpose of the site tour is not to read the contract. The
purpose of the site tour is give the potential contractors an
opportunity to see where the work is going to be done and to disclose
any physical problems or amenities or strange items ‑‑

D. Bickler: To answer your question, Bill, you politely tell the
contractor I cannot take the time right now to read the contract to you.
I can talk ‑‑ I was going to say talk to you later, but don\'t even do
that. As a matter of fact, it\'s just not advisable to read the contract
to him. Because he\'s ‑‑ just be polite. Tell him you can\'t take the
time to do that and I\'ll need to find a family member or a friend can
that do that for him is the answer. I hope that answers it for you,
Bill.

Caller: Hi, this is Neal from El Centro. We\'re dealing with a similar
situation, and under the Americans with Disabilities Act we\'re being
required to read a document to an individual.

G. Moore: Oh, good.

D. Bickler: You get five extra points for stumping the panel.

G. Moore: You stump the group. What kind of document, is this ‑‑ is it a
service contract of some sort?

Caller: It\'s not a contract. This individual suffers from dyslexia and
can\'t read, and so anything to do with the public business under the
Americans with Disabilities Act, anything that\'s written we have to
read to him. In our public meetings we have to read our plans to him.

D. Bickler: If I could, you fellow Contracting Officers of ours in
Denver, do you have any suggestions or comments or input? Tracy?

Caller: I think the Americans with Disabilities Act says you have to
make reasonable accommodations. Reading the contract to your contractor
site tour is not a reasonable accommodation.

D. Bickler: Tracy, could you step back from the microphone and say that
again?

Caller: Can you hear me?

D. Bickler: I sure can.

Caller: I think the Americans with Disabilities Act says you have to
make reasonable accommodations. Reading the contract terms and
conditions, or the solicitation terms and conditions at a site tour is
not a reasonable accommodation. Also, I had to go to the doctor earlier
this week and a gentleman came into the same clinic speaking nothing but
‑‑ no English, and that clinic handed him some sort of paper that told
him he would have to go get a translator and come back with a translator
because they didn\'t offer that service.

D. Bickler: So I guess, then, to rephrase my answer, you could tell him
that the site tour is not an appropriate place, you really can\'t help
him right at that moment, but maybe if he wants to come and visit your
office, make arrangements later. That\'s a tricky one. Boy, you get
extra points for stumping us there. Any other questions?

Caller: This is Rich in Worland.

Caller: Pat in National Park Service in Massachusetts. I wonder if we
can fill in the blocks when the DBA it submits ‑‑ requires submit
certified.

G. Moore: What page are you on, please?

Caller: 39, please.

G. Moore: Ok. The DBA requires the contractor submit weekly payrolls and
that employees are being paid in accordance with the wage decision
contained in their contract. It is the COR\'s responsibility to review
these payrolls.

D. Bickler: Is that all?

Caller: Yes, thank you.

G. Moore: You\'re welcome. There was somebody else that came in just a
moment ago. Rich, was it you in Worland?

Caller: Yes, it was. On page 42, the liquidated damages are not returned
to the contractor?

D. Bickler: Correct. Those liquidated damages are never returned to the
contractor. As a matter of fact, I believe we have to turn them over to
the Department of Labor. They disburse the money accordingly.

D. Bickler: Steve burns, if you could send us a fax with your phone
number or e‑mail, and we\'ll get back with you. I think that we\'re
going to move on to our very last segment, which is standards of
conduct. Gwen and Liz will finish ‑‑ when Gwen and Liz have finished
they will have explained the limitations of relationship between
government employees and contractor employees, the ethical
responsibilities relating to charge cards and the need to be aware that
as a procurement official the rules are a little more stringent. Liz,
why don\'t you go first.

L. McDill: I certainly will. FAR part 3, improper business practice and
personal conflicts of interest, outlines the policies and procedures a
government employee must follow when conducting business with the
public. It says that government business shall be conducted above
reproach with complete impartiality and with no preferential treatment.
Transactions relating to the expenditure of public funds require the
highest degree of public trust and an impeccable standard of conduct by
everyone involved. This helps preserve the integrity of the procurement
process. And since we are involved in the disbursement of public funds,
we must be beyond reproach. Part 3 also implements the requirements of
the office of Federal procurement policy act. The act specifically
prohibits certain conduct on the part of the government contracting
personnel and contractor\'s personnel. FAR clause 52.203‑3, gratuities,
goes on to say that no government employee may solicit or accept either
directly or indirectly any gratuity, favor, entertainment or anything of
monetary value from anyone seeking government business. From anyone
conducting activities regulated by employees agency, or anyone who has
interests that may be affected by the performance or nonperformance of
employees\' officials duties. Now, not only should actual improprieties
be avoided, but the appearance of improprieties should be avoided.

G. Moore: I would just like to reiterate about this business about the
transactions about the expenditure of government funds, public funds
require the highest degree of public trust. The whole point of this is
to try and keep and maintain and preserve the integrity of the
procurement process. Never giving any official ‑‑ any member of the
public more information, proprietary information, or information that
somebody else doesn\'t get. We talk a lot in procurement about
maintaining a level playing field and this is part of it. We are held to
a higher standard because we are not only taxpayers, but we are watched
by the taxpayers in how we spend this money.

L. McDill: Improprieties by the COR may be penalized in accordance with
government agency policies. In addition, any improprieties by the
contractor may result in termination of the contractor\'s right to
proceed or result in debarment or suspension. Although agency
regulations may allow for the acceptance of some gratuities, the best
practice is to accept none. I can\'t remember all the little
idiosyncrasies. It\'s like no more than \$50 in one year, and \$20 at
one time and how 20 and 20 is can add up to only 40 ‑‑ I don\'t know. So
it\'s easier for me to just not accept anything. Makes it clearer. And
my contractors know that I won\'t accept anything from them.

G. Moore: Part of reason we think the standards of conduct is such an
important issue is that it has a great impact on the contract
administration team. Because of our unique responsibility under a
contract. Many times our inspectors and our CORs are actually on site
with these contractors because everybody is camping out there. It\'s too
far to go into town every night. So we set up a camp, as does the
contractor. We oftentimes are in small towns where there may be only one
restaurant or one hotel, and we\'re having to share those facilities
with our contractors. Well, you know, after work and everybody\'s got a
beer, you kind of start talking. All of a sudden, a friendship develops.
We must remember to keep an arm\'s length relationship with all of our
contractors. We are not in the contracting business for the same reason
the contractor is and he is not our friend. This is a professional
relationship, and we must strive to maintain that at all times. Don\'t
get too close to your contractors. Violations of any of the provisions
that Liz just mentioned can be very serious for all of us, for the
contractor as well as us. It can result in termination for default,
debarment, criminal ‑‑ or criminal conviction for the contractor, and
disciplinary or termination of our government employees. Nobody wants
that to happen. So we have to be extremely cautious about this
possibility and conduct our business with the highest standards,
impeccable is what the word ‑‑ what the rules say. So we must be very,
very careful.

D. Bickler: Don\'t you also have or no a COR an ‑‑ a COR that got a ball
cap and calendar from the local ‑‑

G. Moore: Yes, we had a situation where one of our offices was doing ‑‑
was having a lot of contact with a heavy equipment company. Happened to
be Caterpillar. So out of the goodness of their heart they started to
send calendars and ball caps to this particular office, to all the
fellows they had been talking to. Well, the John deer dealer shows up in
the office, and all of a sudden is saying, well, boy, this is really
something. You\'ve got my competition hanging on your wall. Now, the
cost of a calendar is probably a total of 25 cents. The cost of a ball
cap might be all of two bucks. But not a lot of money. However, Coit
cause problems. And so the fellows were asked to take their calendars
down, take their ball caps home and please not display that sort of
thing in the office. Now, that sounds real petty, but that actually did
happen. So be cautious about all of this and just proceed with a great
deal of caution in this arena.

Caller: This is chip again. It\'s always a problem at Christmastime when
stuff starts showing up unsolicited in the mail room, and it\'s hard to
determine the dollar value of some of these things. I don\'t know if
anybody else had that problem.

G. Moore: I\'m sure that it has happened because that Christmas stuff is
something ‑‑ this is a very, very common practice in private industry
and I think the rule is, if it\'s something edible, like, you know, a
cheese tray or boxes of candy, fruit baskets, that sort of thing, it\'s
probably ok to accept those as long as you share it with everybody in
the office. And the practice that we have is we set it up on our
counter‑, and the locusts that work at our office are there and that
stuff is gone immediately.

L. McDill: And we don\'t usually even let anyone know where it came
from.

G. Moore: We try to keep it a secret as to the source. But when it
starts becoming things like alcohol, that\'s another thing. We\'re not
supposed to have on it a government facility. So ‑‑ how do we handle
that?

L. McDill: Oftentimes I will contact the contractor and say, it was a
nice gesture, thank you, but we cannot accept these items. We\'ve gone
as far as and I believe last year you even returned some items to a
contractor. So it takes discretion, but that\'s why I said that the best
rule is, just don\'t accept anything. It\'s much easier. It\'s much
cleaner. No one can ever get the impression that you are being bought by
someone. Now, let\'s see how well you\'ve paid attention. I\'m going to
give you a scenario which is located on page 44 of your study guide, and
let\'s see which site, using your push to talk, can give me the first
correct answer. Scenario one reads John Jones is a contractor. His
company is having their annual employee picnic, and he has invited the
COR and his family to attend. Should the COR attend? Anyone that wants
to speak up?

Caller: No!

Caller: As long as they have dessert.

L. McDill: That\'s correct. You should not attend a private picnic for a
contractor. Thank them for the invitation, but tell them, just no can
do. It\'s the best approach. \[ APPLAUSE \] now, I will discuss our
ethical responsibilities as related to charge cards. Government charge
cards provide a means for nonprocurement officials to buy goods and
services. A tremendous amount of funds are being expended annually
through the charge card program. We all think of them as doing just
small buys, but in FY2001, the BLM alone processed \$635 thousand ‑‑
635,000 charge card transactions valued at \$110 million. So the intent
of using the charge card is not to circumvent procurement regulations
and ethical standards. Therefore, you must be prudent in the use of your
charge card and one problem area that will address concerning the charge
cards and this does happen frequently, is splitting procurements.
FAR13.003 addresses split procurements, and it states, do not break down
requirements aggregating more than the simplified acquisition threshold
or the micropurchase threshold into several purchases that are less than
the applicable threshold merely to permit use of simplified acquisition
procedures, or avoid any requirement that applies to purchases in excess
of the micropurchase threshold. Did you all get that? Ok. Perhaps it is
a little confusing, so this could be part of the reason why this is
occurring frequently. The good book isn\'t very clear on this, so let me
translate for you in 10 words or less, which is hard to believe I can do
this. Do not split procurements to intentionally avoid acquisition
thresholds. Are we going to do the next scenario? Now, we are going to
do another scenario. I\'m going to let Gwen take care of this one.
Scenario is this. A government facility currently has an unlit parking
lot. The engineering department determined that 10 single pole mercury
vapor lights would provide sufficient lighting. Each light costs
\$2,000, including installation. There are five employees in the
maintenance department with a charge card. The facility manager has
directed each card holder to purchase lights over a two‑week period.
Would this be a split procurement or not?

Caller: Yes!

G. Moore: Yes.

Caller: Yes!

G. Moore: You\'re absolutely correct. It is not appropriate for various
members of an office to go out, each maxing out their charge card, to do
something that needs to be ‑‑ we knew in the beginning that we needed 10
lights to cover the parking lot. So you\'re absolutely correct. That was
great.

D. Bickler: let\'s go back to scenario two because it\'s a good one. Has
to do with splitting.

L. McDill: It\'s found on page 44 of your study guide. Gwen is going to
go ahead and read this one.

G. Moore: On Tuesday a government employee receives request to purchase
one computer. He does so with his charge card. On Wednesday the same
employee is requested to purchase another computer. Each purchase was
under \$2500. Is this a split procurement?

Caller: No.

Caller: Depends on hoot government employee is. If the government
employees is a procurement clerk and it was requested by two different
individuals, then, no.

G. Moore: Then we had Alaska.

Caller: I agree.

G. Moore: So you say the answer is no?

D. Bickler: Sounds like everybody said no.

G. Moore: The answer is no, but the special thing that you must do in
this case, it does give the appearance that it might be a split
procurement, and so you would be required to document the circumstances
in the charge card file so that if someone questioned it six months, a
year down the way, you would have a thorough explanation of exactly what
transpired. That was great.

D. Bickler: Was somebody trying to ‑‑ I thought I heard somebody trying
to call in, maybe. Maybe not. Are there any other questions? That was
great. Thank you very much for your participation in that. Now, if
there\'s one thing to remember with standards of conduct, it is to
proceed with caution! So, let\'s ‑‑ we\'re ready to move into the
close‑out of the show with Joe Federline, who is in the BLM group
management for property and Acquisition Management. Joe is joining us
from his office in Washington D.C. by video conference. If anyone of you
have questions for Joe after he\'s finished, he can hear you over your
push‑to‑talk, so please feel free to call in. Hi, Joe.

Good afternoon.

D. Bickler: We sure ‑‑

Thank you for ‑‑ thank you for inviting me to provide the closing
remarks. We in Washington are very aware of all of your efforts, and we
want to thank you for your efforts in all your contract management. We
had much work to do last year, and our contracting is ever increasing.
Last year we did about a quarter of a billion ‑‑ quarter of a billion
dollars in contracting, and we had major increases in land use planning,
especially the fire program, where we had a lot of extra work to do for
fire facility construction, fire fuels treatment, fire rehab. We\'re
doing a lot more service contracting than we\'ve ever done before, and I
think you\'ve done a wonderful job meeting that challenge. I think our
contracting is going to be increasing ‑‑ ever increasing as we go on
because of the need for just getting the work done. We just don\'t have
enough resources to do it ourselves. So we have to get external
resources to do that contracting. So your roles ‑‑ your role is really
changing to really manage one of ‑‑ a program person doing this program
work to managing the work of others, especially the work ‑‑ so your role
is a project manager and a contract manager is ever increasing. I would
certainly encourage you for those that haven\'t taken any project
management course to do so. It will certainly help you out with your
contract management. Other suggestions would be don\'t reinvent the
wheel. Use what tools that are established for us. I think in this
conference they probably mentioned the 55IDIQ contracts and FFS BPAs
that BLM established on their national acquisition homepage. I highly
recommend that you use them so you don\'t have to duplicate efforts.
You\'ve also ‑‑ also our National Fire Plan website has very good models
for fuels treatment projects, mechanical and prescribed fire. Also the
emergency fire rehab projects. We also have one for fuel contract crews.
I would suggest that you team with the Contracting Officer as much as
you can, especially when you\'re doing performance based contracts.
That\'s administration\'s ‑‑ one of the top reform initiatives. We\'re
doing a very good job so far in our performance based contracts as we
will a real‑time report on the web and it shows that we\'re doing 32%
for performance‑based contracts, however, we can do better. Just focus
on managing your contracts for results. Continuously improve how you\'re
going to measure those results. And develop a simple, good quality
assurance plan so the contractor knows how we\'re going to monitor the
performance. Work with the Contracting Officer to build incentives in
your performance based contracts, both positive and negative payment
incentives are good tools to incentivize for contractors to perform to
the best of their possibilities. And also, partner with your contractor
to manage for results. Try to avoid any adversarial relationships that
lead to litigation. Work ‑‑ team with your Contracting Officer to plan
alternatives ‑‑ an alternative disputes resolution process so that you
have a plan built right into your contract to avoid costly litigation
and adversarial relationships and so that you can both partner together
to accomplish the results that are required in the contract for your ‑‑
for performance. Also, team with your Contracting Officer to acquire
commercial items. Don\'t develop special tailored specifications or
service contracts that has already been tried and tested in industry as
it was before. The acquisition process is much easier and the prices are
very reasonable. Team with your Contracting Officer to monitor the
contractor\'s performance so that when weary valuating the contractor\'s
performance in competitive acquisitions, we really focus on the various
elements of the contractor\'s performance, including the quality of
their technical performance, their contract management, timeliness and
cost control, if that\'s applicable. Also, we\'re one of the premier
agencies in government. So take the opportunity to build your greening
requirements into your specifications and work statements, especially
space leases. I was talking to Heather Davis in the environmental office
in the Department of the Interior and she said our strategic plan for
greening the department of interior is moving forward rapidly. So
continue to focus on those nine items in the D.O.I. strategic plan. The
administration really wants us to focus on biobased products. That\'s
one of the items they\'re really focusing on. She mentioned that they
should soon have a greening website that will be available to you. That
website is WWW greening.interior.gov. There will be a lot of useful
tools available to you for greening, which will include the ‑‑ a guide
that ‑‑ it will include the guide for incorporating environmental
considerations into your contract and also a guide for green cleaning.
So there\'s a lot of various tools and everything they\'re trying to
help build into that so that you have a very good arsenal of tools
available to you to help further the interior\'s environmental goals.
That\'s all I had to really summarize. If you\'d like to ‑‑ if you have
any questions, please, I\'d certainly be glad to take them right now.

D. Bickler: Well, thank you very much, Joe. We really appreciate your
support and all that information you just gave us. Are there any
questions?

L. McDill: Joe, I have mentioned. You mentioned the greening of the
government. You anticipate that the department is going to be
emphasizing or requiring that we institute more and more greening by
mandate or is it still going to be more voluntary in the near future?
And if so, what is the near future?

Well, it\'s not necessarily mandatory. They want to work in partnership
with all the Bureaus. As a matter of fact, they\'re establishing a
greening partnership that will involve various representatives from the
Bureaus, at least four disciplines in every Bureau. A procurement
representative a property representative facilities engineering
representative and environmental representative. So that they work ‑‑ we
work in partnership together to further these greening goals. As a
matter of fact, I was told that Lynne scarlet within the next two weeks
will host the first interior greening partnership meeting. Does that
answer your question?

L. McDill: Yes, thank you, Joe.

Caller: Joe? What was the connection where you said there were forest
restoration and hazard reduction contracts available for ‑‑

I guess I didn\'t give that to you, did I? What happened is I guess ‑‑
all the wild land fire agency contracting and fuels representatives met
in Boise, Idaho b a year ago once we got new legislation for contracting
with local personnel for hazardous fuels treatment and emergency fire
rehab. The whole purpose of that legislation was to try to contract more
with those in the local communities, especially those in the urban wild
land ‑‑ wild land urban interface so that they have a stake in their
future and they also promote the local economy. So in order to help do
that, we built a contracting opportunities part of the National Fire
Plan website where we have all those tools and also the department
policy on how we go about doing that, and the contracting strategies for
making sure we efficiently contract to local firms. That website is
WWW.fireplan.gov. That\'s the interior and Forest Service National Fire
Plan website, and in the upper right‑hand corner click on \"contracting
opportunities.\" When you go in there you\'ll see a map of the country
and we have contracting leads and assistance there to build the
capability in the local communities to ‑‑ and we also have ‑‑ in all
those maps ‑‑ now up above the maps you have statements of work. Click
on that statements of work, and it will give you the models. Also in the
Pacific northwest there\'s actually live ‑‑ there\'s about 35, 40IDIQ
contracts from which agencies within that area of the country can order
from for these fuels treatment contracts and emergency fire rehab
contracts. Does that answer your question?

Caller: Thank you.

Ok.

D. Bickler: Ok. Well, thank you very much, Joe for being with us today.
We really appreciate your time.

I appreciate you asking me.

D. Bickler: Ok. I received one more fax we\'re going to take care of
really quick here. It\'s from Ann at the National Park Service and this
is from the handbook. I\'m not sure which page. Ann wanted us to answer
the question again. This is ‑‑

I will ‑‑

D. Bickler: This is another means by which to ensure compliance and
field complaints from the employees, and the second one is the failure
to comply with the Davis Bacon Act is cause for the Contracting Officer
to withhold funds from the progress payments until the noncompliance is
corrected, and that was on page 40 of your handbook. So those are the
answers, Ann. Well, we have come to the end of the road. So please make
sure that you take your recertification test on the web at the National
Training Center website, www.ntc.blm.gov. You will also be able to print
your course certificate after you complete the test. Make sure you pass
a copy of your certificate along to the contracting office you work with
so they know you are once again recertified for the next three years. If
you have any further questions that we didn\'t get to, or you need some
clarity, please contact myself, Gwen or Liz at the e‑mail addresses
listed at the end of your study guide. By the way, there were two errors
in the back of that study guide. One had the office code for our branch
as BC670‑B. It\'s now BC664. Also my e‑mail address has my name is
bicker and I can, but that\'s not my name. Instead it should be Bickler.
Neither is critical because we can\'t hide. It\'s not that easy. , so,
ladies, we\'ve come to the end, and I would like to thank you all for
letting me drive and putting up with it while we\'ve been here.

L. McDill: That\'s been an experience in itself.

D. Bickler: We would like to thank all of you for being here. I would.
Your participation has been great.

G. Moore: And I would like to thank all our friends out there who made
this a whole lot easier than we thought it would be by calling in and
being nice and not saying all the awful things you sometimes say to us
over the phone, only in gest. And thank you for having me.

L. McDill: I would like to say a special thanks to the other members of
the construction A/E branch. Your help and support in the preparation of
this course was well, well appreciated. And you are the ones that are
taking care of business while we are absent. Thank you, guys.

D. Bickler: So thank you very, very much, and we will see you in three
years. Bye.

G. Moore: So long.

L. McDill: So long.

Holy cow. What a day. TGIF! Thank goodness it\'s finished!

L. McDill: But a good show. Oscars? Oscar time.

D. Bickler: I\'ll be watching the mail. A group award. Absolutely. Our
15 minutes of fame in seven hours.

G. Moore: This is the government. It takes a little longer.

D. Bickler: Let\'s celebrate, go to the mall, a little shopping, drink
of wine, maybe. Kick back. Relax.