THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes the 

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

DOSE RECONSTRUCTION WORKGROUP 

 

 The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health's 

Dose Reconstruction Workgroup held at the Center 

for Disease Control's National Institute for 

Occupational Safety and Health, Cincinnati, Ohio, 

on April 30, 2003. 
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C O N T E N T S

 

April 30, 2003 

REGISTRATION AND WELCOME 

 Dr. Paul Ziemer, Chair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 

 Mr. Larry Elliott, Executive Secretary . . . . . . . . .7 

REVIEW OF DATES IN SOLICITATION 

 Mr. Louis Al Summers, Contract Specialist. . . . . . . .9 

OVERVIEW OF DOSE RECONSTRUCTION WORKGROUP 

 Mr. Jim Neton, DHHS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 

PARTICIPANTS' QUESTIONS 

 Audience Participants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 

 

ADJOURN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 

 

COURT REPORTER'S CERTIFICATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 
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 TRANSCRIPT LEGEND

 The following transcript contains quoted material. 

Such material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

 In the following transcript a dash (--) indicates an 

unintentional or purposeful interruption of a sentence. An 

ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech or an unfinished 

sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of word(s) when reading 

written material. 

 In the following transcript (sic) denotes an incorrect 

usage or pronunciation of a word which is transcribed in its 

original form as reported. 

 In the following transcript (phonetically) indicates a 

phonetic spelling of the word if no confirmation of the 

correct spelling is available. 

 In the following transcript "uh-huh" represents an 

affirmative response, and "uh-uh" represents a negative 

response. 

 In the following transcript "*" denotes a spelling 

based on phonetics, without reference available. 

 In the following transcript (inaudible) signifies 

speaker failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 
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P A R T I C I P A N T S

(By Group, in Alphabetical Order) 

DOSE RECONSTRUCTION WORKGROUP

BOARD MEMBERS

CHAIR

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D. 

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University 

Lafayette, Indiana 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

ELLIOTT, Larry J.

Director, Office of Compensation Analysis and Support 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Cincinnati, Ohio 

 

MEMBERSHIP

ANDRADE, Antonio, Ph.D. 

Group Leader 

Radiation Protection Services Group 

Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Los Alamos, New Mexico 

 

ESPINOSA, Richard Lee 

Sheet Metal Workers Union Local #49 

Johnson Controls 

Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Espanola, New Mexico 

GRIFFON, Mark A., WORKGROUP CHAIR 

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc. 

Salem, New Hampshire 

PRESLEY, Robert W. 

Special Projects Engineer 

BWXT Y12 National Security Complex 

Clinton, Tennessee 

 

STAFF/CONTRACTORS

CORI HOMER, Committee Management Specialist, DHHS 
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STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

DiMuzio, Martha 

Ellison, Chris 

Homoki-Titus, Liz 

Katz, Ted 

Naimon, David 

Neton, Jim 

Summers, Louis Al 

OTHER PARTICIPANTS

Campbell, Priscilla 

Domal, Michael J. 

Meiners, Steve 

Rogers, Andrew 

Steter, Elisabeth 

Ulicny, William D. 

Walker, Thomas J. 

Wood, Ray 
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 (9:10 a.m.) 

REGISTRATION AND WELCOME

 DR. ZIEMER: Good morning, everyone. I'm Paul Ziemer, 

Chairman of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health. This is a pre-bidders' conference to answer 

questions, and it's being conducted by the Board -- or 

more specifically, by a working group of the Board, 

which is our dose reconstruction work group. That work 

group is headed by Mark Griffon who's here on my right. 

 Others on the group include Richard Espinosa, who's 

here; Tony Andrade over here; Robert Presley, who's 

here (indicating). We expected Mike Gibson to join us, 

and he may still appear here shortly. Also, the 

Federal officer for the Advisory Board is Larry 

Elliott, who's here at the table (indicating). And 

then I would also like to introduce Al Summers -- 

officially Louis Al Summers, but he goes by Al -- Louis 

Al Summers. Al is with the Procurement Grants Office 

of CDC. He's out of Pittsburgh, actually, and he -- he 

is the main individual who is involved in administering 
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this contract on behalf of the Advisory Board. 

 We are in the process of trying to get one other member 

of the work group, Roy DeHart, who could not physically 

be here this morning but may be able to join us by 

conference call here shortly. 

 (Pause) 

 Modern technology is great, isn't it? 

 (Pause) 

 We'll check it off-line and then come back and try it 

again. 

 Let me just pause here just a moment and turn the mike 

over to Larry Elliott for just a very brief word. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Well, on behalf of NIOSH and Cincinnati, 

I welcome you all here. We're glad to see a number of 

new faces that are interested in this particular 

request for proposals, and we hope that you find the 

day -- this morning to be productive and informative. 

 I just want to make sure you all are aware, we are in a 

conference room with two exits, of course, for safety 

purposes. The men's room and the ladies' room are 

right down the hallway if you need those. Everybody 

has a badge on and that's good, I believe, so we want 

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to make sure that our guard sees everybody with a 

badge, but thank you for coming. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you, Larry. The Advisory Board 

operates under FACA rules, which means that we do keep 

open records of our activities. The meeting this 

morning will be transcribed. We have a recorder here 

so that he will be keeping a record, which will become 

a public record of all that transpires here this 

morning. 

 If you do speak on the record, either asking a question 

or making a comment, we ask that you identify yourself 

by name and, as appropriate, by organization so that 

that is in the public record, as well. 

 Our focus today will be primarily on answering 

questions pertaining to the request for bids that has 

gone out in the public sector. There are copies of the 

solicitation on the table if anyone needs additional 

copies. That material includes a lot of what I might 

call sort of standard Federal boilerplate, but it also 

includes some specifics, the tasks that the Board 

wishes to have carried out on its behalf. Those tasks 

and the related material were developed by this work 

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group here, so from a technical point of view they are 

the ones who in a position to identify and answer 

questions pertaining to the technical matters that are 

before us. 

 Al Summers, as the procurement person for CDC, is in a 

position to answer questions that you may have on the 

flow of paperwork and the timing and any of those kinds 

of things pertaining to how the materials are actually 

handled or how they are evaluated, and those kinds of 

questions that are pertaining to the handling of the 

bids as opposed to the technical content. 

 So with those preliminary comments, I'm going to call 

on Al Summers and Al, if you would just make any 

general comments you have at this time and then we will 

proceed from there. 

REVIEW OF DATES IN SOLICITATION

 MR. SUMMERS: Good morning, everyone -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Use the mike, if you would, Al. 

 MR. SUMMERS: Good morning, everybody. The only thing 

I'd like to do is to briefly review the dates that are 

in the solicitation. The issue date was the 23rd. 

Today, a week later, we're having a pre-proposal 

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conference. I had hoped to give you a little bit more 

time. Our headquarters review of the solicitation 

document took a little longer than I had anticipated, 

so all we had was the one week. 

 The due date for receipt of questions is the 5th of 

May, and then the proposals are due on the 28th of May. 

 Most people tend to submit their proposals at the very 

last minute, and I just wanted to make people aware 

that sometimes Fed Ex is not overnight, and I have 

gotten late proposals from Fed Ex, and if your proposal 

comes the day after or later in the day, Fed Ex will 

offer you an apology and your solicitation will not be 

considered. Just to advise you it may be a good idea 

to get it in a day earlier. 

 We will do a technical review if necessary, conduct 

discussions, and we anticipate an award prior to the 

end of September. And that's about all I have to say. 

 I'll answer any procedural type questions you might 

have. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you very much, Al. 

 Before we open the floor for questions, I thought it 

would be helpful if we had a brief overview of what it 

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is that the Board is interested in, and that is 

predicated on the activities that NIOSH itself is doing 

on dose reconstruction. So we've asked one of the 

NIOSH staff person who's very much involved in that 

process, Jim Neton, to give us a kind of overview which 

will help perhaps clarify both the role of NIOSH, as 

well as the role of the Board, in this whole activity. 

 And then we'll focus a little bit on what the contract 

tasks are, maybe summarize -- these are the tasks that 

the Board itself has approved based on the dose 

reconstruction work group's work. 

 And Jim, are you prepared to give us a brief overview 

of those issues? 

OVERVIEW OF DOSE RECONSTRUCTION WORKGROUP

 DR. NETON: Yes. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. 

 DR. NETON: Thank you, Dr. Ziemer. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And I understand we have handouts, as 

well, if people want copies of these. Is that correct? 

 DR. NETON: Yeah, that's correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Does everybody have one? 

 DR. NETON: You all should have a three-page handout 

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that has I think eight slides on it. I'm not going to 

-- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Is there anyone besides the Chair who 

doesn't have this? Okay, thank you. 

 DR. NETON: I don't want to take a lot of the folks' 

time at this conference -- pre-bid conference because I 

know it's primarily here for y'all to ask questions 

about the statement of work that's out. It's pretty 

lengthy, but really as far as the technical statement 

of work goes, it's down to about six or seven pages, I 

believe. 

 I thought it might be helpful to just briefly talk 

about some of the key differences between what NIOSH 

does, and our ORAU contractor for dose reconstructions, 

compared to what's traditionally done for occupational 

radiation protection dose reconstructions, or 

dosimetry. What I'm going to talk about is essentially 

outlined in Federal Regulation 42 CFR Part 82 where our 

dose reconstruction methodology is outlined. But I 

just want to touch briefly on some of the key issues. 

 Mainly we are tasked with doing dose reconstructions -- 

I think there's about 12,000 in-house right now that 

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we're working on with ORAU to complete, so it's a 

fairly large-scale effort. But to do these dose 

reconstructions we're going to use all available 

workplace/worker information, evaluate all the doses 

that the Department of Energy provides us. And more 

importantly, we tend to add in this undetected, or 

what's sometimes called in the field "missed dose". 

That's something that you don't normally see in a 

dosimetry calculation out there in the field. That's 

one of the key differences. 

 We also tend to -- we will use what's called a tiered 

approach where we have a hierarchical approach to use 

of the data. We will first preferentially use coworker 

-- I mean use personal monitoring data that was taken 

on an individual, whether it's a TLD or a bioassay 

sample, something of that nature, if an analysis of 

that data indicates that it is of value and is a valid 

measurement. We're not tied to using it if we feel for 

some reason it wasn't technically adequate. 

 But if that type of information is not available, then 

we would back off and try to use coworker data. And 

lacking coworker data, we'd go and use area dosimeters, 

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radiation surveys, that sort of stuff -- sort of 

workplace monitoring information. 

 And then all the way down at the bottom of the scheme 

we would resort to source term information if there was 

nothing else available at that point. 

 That gives you a little bit of flavor of the 

differences of how we approach this. And in these 

reviews I suspect that you'll end up -- whoever the 

successful bidder is will see all flavors of those 

types of dose reconstructions for evaluation. 

 Another key difference is that we're not tied to using 

these 50-year doses for internal dosimetry that's used 

in the Department of Energy currently. You'll see 

annual dose equivalents calculated from an internal 

dose for every year of exposure from the time the 

person was exposed to the date of diagnosis. And all 

of these calculations for internal dosimetry will be 

based on the ICRP-66 lung model and the more current 

metabolic models that are out there, so that's another 

key difference. A lot of folks may not have experience 

with that, but you need to be aware that that's what's 

being used. 

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 Also there will be estimates of uncertainty about these 

dosimetry values when necessary. Again, that's not 

something that's commonly seen in current practices. 

 Also there will be interviews with claimants that must 

be considered as part of the dose reconstruction, so 

that will be required in the review. And probably one 

of the more important features is the claimants' 

assertions are provided the benefit of the doubt. When 

information is lacking and there is no technical 

direction to point one way or the other, we will be -- 

the dose reconstruction will be claimant -- should be 

claimant-favorable. That's something that -- to be 

aware of. 

 Also medical screening X-rays are included. This is 

not traditionally considered occupational exposure, but 

NIOSH has taken the position that if a person's medical 

X-ray was required as a condition of employment, that 

should be included. 

 And I think one of the key things here, the last bullet 

on I think the first slide is emphasis on efficiency 

without biasing outcome. As I indicated, there's a 

tremendous amount of number of dose reconstructions to 

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be conducted, so NIOSH has tried to adopt an efficient 

process so that the dose reconstruction's only taken as 

far as necessary to make a -- allow the Department of 

Labor to make a final decision whether or not that dose 

reconstruction is compensable or not compensable. 

 So NIOSH is doing all these dose reconstructions with 

ORAU, contract support help. And the Board is tasked 

in the Act -- and I've indicated on the role of the 

ABRWH, item two, the Board is tasked under the Act with 

reviewing the scientific -- shall advise the President 

on the scientific validity and quality of dose 

estimation reconstruction efforts being performed for 

purposes of a compensation program. So this is 

essentially the gist of what this task order RFP is 

about. It is to assist the Board in reviewing a 

representative sample of the dose reconstructions. 

That's outlined in the proposal. I think you'll -- 

it's fairly well-described, and that's exactly what 

we're talking about here today. 

 There's three contract tasks that are outlined. This -

- the proposal is not limited to that, but these are 

the main issues that the Board is requiring assistance 

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with. One is the individual dose reconstruction 

reviews, and there's three different types of those. 

There'll be a basic, advanced and blind review that 

will be assigned to the contractor -- task order 

contractor for review. And there are two examples 

provided of these -- I think there's an example of the 

basic and an example of an advanced review provided in 

Section L -- no, it's provided as an attachment. 

 I forget what the attachment number is, but you need to 

look at Section L-1 to make sure that you respond to 

that requirement that you bid against those two 

examples. There's two examples in there that the 

review panel will be looking at to evaluate the 

technical adequacy and the cost realism of your 

responses to those two tasks. 

 The other two issues outside -- other two tasks outside 

of the review of the dose reconstructions are the NIOSH 

site worker -- site and worker profile reviews and the 

review of the Special Exposure Cohort petitions, which 

we do not have any in-house at this point. The rule is 

currently out for comment as an NPRM. 

 And lastly I just want to mention that the evaluation 

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factors are contained at the end of the proposal, and I 

would strongly urge people to review the prerequisite 

section of those evaluation factors. There are some 

issues in there that would prohibit certain parties 

from bidding based on certain participation in certain 

different contracts and that sort of thing. 

 That's all I really had to say. Other than that, I 

think I'll just turn it back over to the Advisory 

Board. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Let me ask if anyone attending here today 

has any questions on this brief presentation, anything 

that was just said, for clarification? 

 There appear not to be any questions on that. Let me 

point out to you that in the big packet, the -- on page 

2 of 65 entitled Section B -- is the section that is 

entitled Supplies or Services and Prices and Costs, so 

that spells out something about the scope of the 

contract. I'm sure perhaps you've seen that. And then 

more specifically, the work statement that was 

developed by this work group and has been approved by 

the Advisory Board is -- begins on page 3 of 65, called 

Section C -- Description/Specification/Work statement. 

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 And that work statement delineates what Jim has just 

summarized for you, particularly the contract tasks, 

the basic reviews, the advanced reviews and the blind 

dose reconstructions. So that -- those are spelled out 

there, and that goes from page 3 up through page 7 of 

65, if you have no already identified that basically is 

the technical statement of tasks that you want to focus 

on. 

 The two examples that Jim referred to when he talked 

about Section L-1, if you look at L-1, all it says is 

that there are sample task responses, and you need to 

respond to those, but those aren't actually give on 

page 47 of 65, which is where L-1 appears. Those two 

examples are in an earlier part of the packet, before 

the numbered pages begin, really. That is before the 

65 numbered pages begin. And those are contained in 

what is called Attachment E, so under the cover letter 

there are a number of various attachments, and 

Attachment E contains the two sample tasks, example 

task one and example task two, which is Attachment F. 

So Attachment E and Attachment F are those two example 

tasks which are referred to in Section L-1 of the 

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solicitation. 

 Did I make that sufficiently confusing so that no one 

can find it? 

 Okay, well, I'm not sure how the packets here are 

arranged. I downloaded mine separately so I'm going by 

my arrangement. But anyway, make sure you find those 

somewhere in your packet so that you understand. So 

it's those two example tasks plus the statement of work 

which constitutes the technical material that the Board 

has immediate interest in, and that's the point I 

wanted to make. 

 Okay. Now let me ask the chair of the work group, Mark 

-- Mark, do you have any other comments you want to 

make? I don't think we need to have you go through the 

tasks. Those have been distributed. People have had a 

chance to read them. Do you have any comments at this 

point? 

 MR. GRIFFON: No. 

 PARTICIPANTS' QUESTIONS

 DR. ZIEMER: No. Okay. Then I think we're ready to 

open the floor for questions. These can be questions 

pertaining to what we mean by things in the tasks. It 

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can be questions -- if you think something is left out 

or some key point that you want clarified, that's fine, 

as well. If there's something that you think we should 

have considered and didn't, we will be glad to take 

those kind of comments under advisement, as well, if 

there's some bit of information you think you need that 

would help you as you prepare your bid. 

 And a comment from Larry Elliott here while you're 

thinking about your questions. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Before we start taking questions, it's 

important for you all to understand how this is going 

to work. Any question that is put on the table today 

we'll try to provide an answer for. If we don't have a 

ready answer, then we'll do our necessary research to 

find that answer and all of these questions and all of 

the answers will then be rolled up into one nice 

package and shared with everybody who's here today, as 

well as those who may be interested in proposing 

against this scope but weren't able to attend. So just 

so you understand the process, you'll all get a copy of 

everyone's questions and all the responses that have 

been -- will be provided. 

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 MR. ESPINOSA: Prior to the -- is it on? Prior to the 

Q and A, can we get an introduction from the 

contractors that are here? 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's permissible. I believe -- I don't 

know if it's mandatory, but -- I suspect it's not 

mandatory, but anyone that wants to identify -- do we 

need a mike for this? We do need a mike for this -- 

lavaliere, okay, so perhaps those who wish to so 

identify could do so at this time. Thank you. 

 MR. WALKER: I'm Tom Walker. I'm with Jones 

Technologies, but I'm representing also Proxtronics, 

Incorporated out of Springfield, Virginia. 

 MR. ULICNY: Bill Ulicny with S. Cohen & Associates. 

 MS. STETER: Elisabeth Steter, Risk Assessment 

Corporation. 

 MR. MEINERS: Steve Meiners, Safety and Ecology 

Corporation. 

 MR. DOMAL: Mike Domal representing Arcadia Consulting 

out of Denver. 

 MR. ROGERS: Andy Rogers representing Trinity 

Engineering Associates. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, thank you very much. And there are 

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a number of other Federal staff people here today, as 

well. 

 Okay. Let's now open the floor for questions. I don't 

-- I always have to tell my classes, no question is a 

bad question. You may get a bad answer, but the 

questions are always good, so please don't be bashful 

about asking questions. Typically if you have a 

question, others have that same question and somebody's 

got to be bold enough to ask it, so please -- who 

wishes to begin? 

 We do not want these Federal folks to think that their 

solicitation was so clear everybody understood it. 

Right? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It's your solicitation. 

 DR. ZIEMER: It's our solicitation, but it's hidden 

amongst a lot of boilerplate. Only kidding. Okay. 

 Who wants to go first? 

 MR. WALKER: Tom Walker from Jones Technologies. I'm -

- I'm not the one who's been following this procurement 

for Jones and Proxtronics, so I'm going to ask a 

question. It may be -- maybe it is a bad question, but 

I assume that this is a new task and is not a recompete 

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of an existing task, so there is no incumbent 

contractor? 

 DR. ZIEMER: That is correct. This is a new task. 

Keep in mind that the whole activity that Jim just 

described is fairly new. It basically just really got 

underway a little over a year ago on the NIOSH side. 

Several rulemakings have been in process relating to 

it, including the dose reconstruction rule, which is in 

the Federal Register now. And meanwhile the Board has 

been under way in its task and it is charged, in a 

sense, to monitor the dose reconstruction work. You 

might think of it as a kind of audit. So there is a -- 

there is a contractor that does dose reconstruction 

support on behalf of NIOSH. In a sense, this activity 

will be looking at that work and sampling it for its 

quality and related matters that might be of interest 

to the Board in carrying out its task. So that's -- in 

short, it is a new task. There is no incumbent 

contractor. 

 MR. WALKER: Thank you. 

 DR. ZIEMER: And again, identify yourself for the 

record, please. 

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 MR. WOOD: I'm Ray Wood with Trinity Engineering 

Associates. If we're a small bidder on this, small 

business bidder, do we have to fill out a 

subcontracting plan? It wasn't clear in the proposal 

that we were exempt from that. 

 MR. SUMMERS: Yeah, the small -- you'll have to, in 

order to get credit for the small disadvantaged 

business participation factor. If you so choose to do 

that, you would have to submit a plan for utilizing 

small disadvantaged businesses. There is no formal 

requirement for a subcontracting plan per se under this 

solicitation because they're -- the work will be issued 

on task orders. And until you have a task order with a 

definitive statement of work that says you are to go 

and do, you know, A, B and C, you wouldn't be able to 

propose any real subcontracts. But if you have 

arrangements with small disadvantaged businesses, you 

can put that down in a plan -- in a separate plan. 

It's not really a subcontracting plan, but it's a plan 

to utilize small disadvantaged businesses, and there is 

an evaluation factor which addresses that. 

 MR. ULICNY: Bill Ulicny with SC&A. The RFP asks -- I 

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think it's in Section L-11 -- for the sample tasks, 

technical and cost information. Is that what you want, 

or should the technical information be in the technical 

and the costs be in the cost proposal? 

 MR. SUMMERS: You know, every time I put one of these 

together I ask myself a similar question. Actually 

we're asking for two different areas. Under your basic 

proposal you are to submit, you know, personnel, 

management, technical approach, those sort of things. 

Under the sample tasks you have a specific work element 

that you're supposed to submit a formal -- as if you 

would if we -- if we issued that to you as a request 

for a task proposal, we would expect you to put in a 

separate proposal specifically for that -- those items 

of work, and we would want to see the cost breakdown, 

what goes into that. 

 MR. ULICNY: And the technical proposal? 

 MR. SUMMERS: The practical assessment for the two 

sample tasks is to be a separate document, right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are there no additional questions? 

 Okay, another comment. Al, please. 

 MR. SUMMERS: There is a deadline of May 5th for 

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questions, so should you get back to your offices and 

decide that there's something that you've come across 

in the solicitation that you haven't addressed, you can 

feel free to submit that in writing -- I'll take an email request -- and we'll try to answer those 

questions, as well. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Al, is your e-mail somewhere here for 

these folks -- 

 MR. SUMMERS: It's on the cover page. It's LNS7, and I 

specifically put it in caps, even though you don't have 

to type it in caps, because if I put it in small -- in 

lower case, the L looks like a one -- @cdc.gov, 

correct. It's on actually the cover sheet of the 

solicitation, which is underneath the cover letter. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Thank you for that. Tony, did you 

have a comment? 

 DR. ANDRADE: I was going to suggest that perhaps it 

might be useful if the chair of the dose reconstruction 

work group noted just a couple of the main differences 

between the basic, the advanced and the blind reviews. 

 Maybe that would stir up a couple of questions. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Tony came all the way from Los 

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But I think it's certainly an appropriate -- Mark, do 

you want to -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Sure. 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- sort of give a quick review and that 

may indeed stimulate some additional questions or 

comments. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think this is on page 5 and 6 and 

-- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Five and 6 of -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- 5 and 6 -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: -- 65, right? That's that section that's 

numbered one through 65, yeah. Is that correct? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And there's a -- the basic review, 

there's an advanced review and a blind review, and the 

basic and the advanced -- these are for individual dose 

reconstruction reviews. And then we have another 

component which is to review these site profiles or 

worker profiles. And then the third component I guess, 

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if we section it out that way, is reviewing the SEC, 

Special Exposure Cohort, petitions. 

 And the first part, the individual dose reconstruction 

reviews, we -- we modeled this sort of after the -- the 

previous -- the Veterans program where -- where John 

Till's advisory group had -- had selected about two to 

three percent of the cases for review, and so that's 

where we got some of these numbers that are in here. 

We used 2.5 percent to estimate. We thought that we 

wanted a more bas-- obviously basic -- more basic 

review for most of them, but then for some we thought a 

more advanced review was warranted. 

 And I guess the major difference, if -- you know, if 

you look in those -- be advised that first sentence 

there, it says the advanced review will include all the 

task items in the basic review, along with the 

additional tasks listed below. 

 And one -- one key point I think which in my mind sort 

of highlights the differences is the -- is the first 

bullet there on page 6, which says review the relevant 

aspects of the site profiles as they apply to the 

individual cases. So I think here in the advanced 

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review we're expecting more of -- first of all, NIOSH, 

the way they've set this up, they have a full 

administrative record for each individual review that 

they've done. For the basic review -- and get the -- 

let me make sure I get this right with Jim Neton and 

Larry, but they will put the documents that were 

relevant to determining the dose -- they separate 

those. They make a distinction. So on the basic review 

we don't necessarily see the -- the contractor 

reviewing the entire administrative record. For the 

advanced review we would expect that you would review 

the entire administrative record. And -- and so the 

basic review -- you know, you're kind of assuming NIOSH 

picked up the relevant stuff and we're going to review 

it on that level. The advanced you want to pick through 

and make sure they didn't miss something. That's sort 

of the -- the notion there. 

 In addition to that, it's -- this tiered approach that 

Jim described, the advanced review is sort of a way to 

get at that -- you know, was that appropriate what -- 

they used -- maybe in one case they used all personal 

dosimetry data. Well, let's -- let's match this up 

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against the site profile and make sure this is 

consistent with air sampling in that individual's work 

areas or whatever. If there's large discrepancies, did 

-- did NIOSH account for those, make -- so that -- in a 

nutshell, that's kind of the -- the major differences 

on the basic and advanced. 

 The blind reviews are -- are going to be just that, 

that you'll get the -- the case without NIOSH's final 

analysis. You'll get the entire administrative record 

and you'll just do a dose reconstruction yourself. And 

I should point out that -- that, you know, we would 

probably -- we expect the contractor to do the dose 

reconstruction in the same approach that NIOSH is 

using. In other words, Jim -- Jim emphasized this 

earlier, that this is not necessarily -- that you're 

doing dose reconstruction for the purposes of 

determining causation, not -- so if someone's -- you 

know, we've had some examples already reported to the 

Board where the dose was high enough, just looking at 

one accident, to trigger over 50 percent, so there was 

no need to go forward further, you know. So we would 

expect the same sort of approach used in the blind 

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review. And at that point, you know, there'll be 

procedures established so the -- you, as the 

contractor, would use the same procedures in place to -

- to do the blind review. 

 And I think that's it, and maybe -- maybe that stirred 

up some questions. 

 MS. STETER: I have one. Lisa Steter, Risk Assessment. 

 The question I have is, you're going to be asking the 

contractor to assess whether the dose reconstruction 

performed by ORAU is reasonable, and does the Board 

have guidelines as to what they mean by reasonable? 

And if there's a dispute about that, you know, how is 

that resolved? 

 DR. ZIEMER: That's a very good question. Keep in mind 

that this is not -- these are dose reconstructions that 

are complete. The decision has already been made on 

the compensation or not, so on. So what the Board is 

looking for is not to second-guess a particular case, 

but to look for issues -- like an auditor would 

auditing a bank statement -- and say okay, something -- 

there's some pattern of something going wrong here. 

It's certainly possible that one might get a slightly 

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different answer, but we're looking for issues that 

might arise that point to something in the system that 

is not being done correctly. So in that sense, what 

comes back to the Board is not something like this case 

was handled wrong, but we are seeing certain things 

occurring. And it may make a difference whether that 

happens one time or you're seeing it on a regular 

basis. 

 So the Board is looking at it as a kind of audit. 

Obviously if -- if there were a great discrepancy and -

- it's conceivable, and I don't think here we have a 

particular guideline that would point out something to 

NIOSH and they, on their own, might say well, we're 

going to reopen this case. But the intent of this is 

not for us to come back and ask them to, you know, 

reopen cases and do this and that. It's to look at 

whether they are following their guidelines 

appropriately and whether there are glitches in the 

system that we think should somehow take a -- say a 

mid-course correction, or something's being omitted or 

the models are not appropriate -- or whatever it might 

be that arises. So I think, in that sense, we're sort 

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of open. 

 But we're expecting the group -- and the contractor 

that supports this would have to help the Board. We're 

expecting regular reports at our full Board meetings as 

to the cases that we have reviewed and what -- and a 

summary of the findings. Like for example, we reviewed 

20 cases last month and in 19 of those cases everything 

was fine. In one case we found this. And again, we 

would not be, in open meeting, identifying particular 

individuals or anything like that. We would be looking 

for the sort of trends or issues kind of thing. 

 I don't know if that sufficiently answers -- and maybe 

others on the working group -- Mark, do you want to add 

to that? 

 MS. STETER: (Off microphone) It actually raised a 

couple of (inaudible). That's a good (inaudible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, and we would -- you know, this is -- 

this is new territory in terms of what it means to 

audit what is being done because we've had a lot of 

discussions on the Board itself, and I'd been pushing 

the Board not to think of this as second-guessing or an 

appeal process for -- for people who didn't get the 

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result they wanted. This is to check and monitor 

what's being done and -- and identify issues. 

 MS. STETER: That brings up two other things. As far 

as a cost proposal, should we include not only the cost 

of the reviews, but also advice to the Advisory Board 

and meeting with the Advisory Board, and what are you 

looking for there? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I believe the answer to that is yes, 

because we expect -- in a sense, the reason we're 

getting a contractor is not everyone on the Board is, 

for example, a health physicist. And even those who 

claim they are may not be dose reconstruction people. 

So -- but we do expect the contractor to defend their 

work to individual Board members who may be working 

with them, two or three in small groups, that will 

report back to the Board. So the contractor is going -

- going to have to have a regular summary and, in some 

cases, maybe expected -- I don't recall if we spoke to 

this -- to actually be available at Board meetings from 

time to time. 

 If you look back at our record, we've been meeting an 

average of almost once a month. We're hoping that it 

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won't be that often in the future, but perhaps once 

every two months or something like that. So there 

would be the ongoing reviews on some regular basis, and 

then opportunities to meet with those Board members who 

have to bring a report back to the Board and also 

defend the outcomes. 

 MS. STETER: And the other question that relates to 

this is, there's a statement that says no information 

related to data obtained under this contract shall be 

released or published without written authorization of 

the contracting officer. 

 What does this -- what does this mean relative to how 

openly we can discuss the work with the public or with 

workers? What's the intent there? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I'm going to ask some of the Federal 

people, but this is -- this is medical information that 

probably is -- you will be advised it's very 

confidential, number one -- certainly on an individual 

basis. I don't think we have addressed the issue, for 

example, can you present a paper summarizing your work 

at a meeting Risk Socie-- RS -- Risk Society, whatever. 

 But -- and maybe that's something that has to be 

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discussed, but certainly there's a confidentiality. 

And we also recognize that even if you de-identify 

names, sometimes descriptions of the case will 

themselves be identifiable to people. So this is a 

serious issue. 

 We have -- there's a CDC attorney present who may want 

to comment on that, and also some of the NIOSH staff, 

but I know -- I know there are serious issues of 

confidentiality. 

 Larry. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: The information that is contained in 

these case files and the administrative record that 

supports the decision, as Dr. Ziemer says, is 

confidential. It is Privacy Act-controlled 

information. As a contractor, you would be held 

accountable to the Privacy Act requirements. 

 We would have to discuss and talk and clear any type of 

publication that you, as a contractor, might want to 

put into the public venue. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Nothing to add? Jim? Always enjoy it 

when an attorney says yeah, that was the right answer. 

 Right? 

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 Okay, Dr. Andrade has a question or a comment. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Partially in response to her question, 

and as well as one I was going to propose for the folks 

that are gathered here today, as clarification so that 

everybody can go home happy about this regarding one of 

the statements in the SOW in the blind dose 

reconstruction description. Down towards the very 

bottom of page 6 of 65 there is a statement that 

alludes to the fact that one task in evaluating that 

the data identification and collection process were 

adequate may require the contractor to conduct 

interviews, one on one or group, with employees, et 

cetera. I know what the answer is, but I'd like for 

either a Federal officer or our Chairman to very 

specifically state what the limitations on that are. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: The expectation in this regard is that if 

it's necessary to interview an employee or employees or 

groups of experts for a particular site, that would be 

done off-site. We won't be gaining access for this 

contractor to go into the site and hold these kind of 

interviews or review information on the DOE site 

itself. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Okay, got further questions, 

comments? 

 MR. MEINERS: Steve Meiners, Safety and Ecology 

Corporation. How will all of the information be 

provided to the contractor? Will that come in boxes of 

paper or on a CD or... 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think I'll let Jim or Larry answer that, 

but it's probably going to be on electronic format, 

mostly. 

 DR. NETON: Yes, that's correct. The information will 

be available on a CD as part of what Mark has alluded 

to. It's called the administrative record, which is a 

series of folders. It contains all the information 

that was used to make a -- to do a dose reconstruction 

on a particular case. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I would add to that -- that, though, 

there are a number of documents that are used to 

establish the methodology for dose reconstruction here, 

and those documents are contained on our web site, but 

they're also accessible on an internet basis internally 

here to us. So a contractor could come here and access 

those kinds of documents, site profile-related 

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information, those kind of things. We could make that 

also available -- perhaps in some cases -- on the 

compact disk that supports the administrative record 

for a review. So we'll have to look at that. There's 

a variety of information that would have to be 

assembled for this -- for the different types of review 

that are going to occur here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: But in principle, much of this could be 

done sort of at home, as it were. 

 DR. NETON: That's correct. The administrative -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: If that's what you're asking -- you know, 

what's the form and where do you have to go to get to 

it. And if -- once we identify cases to be reviewed, 

those could -- the information could be gathered in 

electronic form, say on a disk, and provided to the 

contractor. 

 DR. NETON: That's correct. The administrative record 

-- the intent of the administrative record is to be a 

self-contained entity so that you could do the review. 

 And it includes things as -- as obscure government 

reports that may have been used to do the dose 

reconstruction. It does not include what we would 

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consider readily-retrievable records such as health 

physics journal articles, books that are available at 

most larger libraries, that sort of thing. 

 As far as the reports go, the technical basis documents 

that ORAU would be developing, those would be out and 

available on the web site for -- for review. 

 MS. STETER: Change of subject -- Lisa Steter again, 

Risk Assessment Corporation. The RFP implies that you 

might actually choose more than one contractor and then 

have them bid against one another for specific task 

orders. Is that the correct interpretation, and if so, 

when would you decide how many contractors you're going 

to hire. And would a company know before signing the 

contract who else would be one of the selected 

contractors? 

 MR. SUMMERS: I think that was two questions. 

 MS. STETER: (Off microphone) It was three, actually. 

 MR. SUMMERS: Three questions. Yes, there is a 

possibility that we will make multiple awards. That is 

actually the preferred method. It will -- I can't tell 

you right now whether we'll be making one, two or 

three. I can probably tell you it wouldn't be more 

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than three. And it will depend upon the proposals that 

we get in and the evaluation process. We would make 

any and all awards at the same time, so there wouldn't 

be a notification. You would probably -- you would be 

notified, when we made an award, of any other 

contractors who did receive contracts, as well. 

 Did that answer the three questions or... Okay. There 

was one other point. There was some discussion about 

the cost of reporting to the Board or being present at 

Board meetings. 

 This contract is structured to be an IDIQ, an 

indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity type contract. 

 The only funding that will be provided will be on 

individual task orders. I would assume that probably 

what will happen is that you'll have to include in your 

proposal for an individual task order the cost of 

reporting to the Board. 

 Alternatively, there could be a task order issued, 

particularly after there's some track record, maybe, 

after the first year -- during the second year -- if it 

appears that there are maybe six Board meetings a year 

that you'd be required to make a presentation at, the 

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possibility exists of issuing an individual task order 

just to cover those meetings. But there will be no 

funding under the base contract. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Al, is it correct that -- this is a task 

order contract, that's recognized. Is it correct to 

assume that if there are multiple awardees that they 

will find themselves working on different tasks? They 

won't find themselves cojoined (sic) on one task. 

 MR. SUMMERS: Whenever there's a requirement, the way 

it's structured -- and if this isn't how someone 

envisioned it, we'll have to go back and reconsider it 

-- but the way I am looking at it right now is that 

when there was a requirement for a particular task, 

that requirement would be furnished to all contractors 

holding a contract and they would -- they would all be 

available to submit proposals. I don't know if that's 

-- did that clarify it? 

 UNIDENTIFIED: For me, I don't know about for the 

audience. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, for the Board there may be 

questions, too. What is the turnaround time on task 

orders when you have that additional requirement? 

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 MR. SUMMERS: I'm not sure what the particular time 

frame is on this one, but normally we give about a week 

or ten days for a contractor to submit a proposal. 

 MS. DIMUZIO: (Off microphone) It's 14 days -- once we 

submit the task order to the contractor, it's 14 days 

for the contractor to submit the proposal back to you. 

 And then if we have issues or if the Board has issues 

or concerns, then there's another seven days for the 

contractor to turn it around. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. 

 MS. DIMUZIO: (Off microphone) But I just have a 

question related to attendance at Board meetings. If 

we were to have multiple awardees -- I mean they would 

have -- they would need to attend the meeting -- both -

- both contractors would need to attend the meeting, so 

they would both be under a task, so under that 

scenario, wouldn't they both be given tasks -- they 

would both -- each have a task order to attend to Board 

meetings because you -- we would want each -- each 

contractor to report on -- on the dose reconstructions 

that they may be doing, so really both of the -- of the 

contractors, if there's more than one, they would each 

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have some task about attending Board meetings. 

 MR. SUMMERS: Either a separate task or the cost for 

each of them to attend would be included in any tasks 

that they were issued. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Thank you. That's -- yeah, you have an 

additional question, Lisa? Please. 

 MS. STETER: The RFP asks for a fair amount of detail 

relative to number of workers and ensuring they've been 

through proper security processing. And I'm just kind 

of curious, how much information are you looking for in 

this initial proposal versus the task orders as far as 

identifying manpower and, you know, actual levels of 

commitment to the -- to a particular project? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Who knows the answer to that question? 

Does anybody? 

 MS. STETER: Do I need to ask it again? Did -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: No, I think we understand it. It's sort 

of what do you have to have up front to show 

capability, I think is what you're asking. Right? 

 MS. STETER: Yeah, in just a -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Are you asking for actual identification 

of people? 

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 MS. STETER: Yeah, I mean -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Up front? 

 MS. STETER: -- yeah, at this level, or is that 

something that comes when you get to the task order? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I think the Board is -- certainly 

wants some level of confidence that you have access to 

people who can do -- do this task, so -- I know -- 

Mark, you have a -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: I think part of the -- in Section M, the 

evaluation criteria, page -- if you haven't looked at 

it, page 61 it starts on -- certainly lays out what 

we're going -- what the awards'll be evaluated against, 

and I think we need at least enough specifics on 

personnel to be able to evaluate those criteria. 

There's personnel criteria. There's also a conflict of 

interest section there. And you know, just to state 

that you have staff health physicists I think might not 

be detailed enough to be able to make a judgment on 

that section, so -- 

 DR. NETON: I might add to that -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Jim and Al -- 

 DR. NETON: This is Jim. I think in the proposal it 

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also provides a sketch of what the expected workload 

would be by year, like a number of tasks by degree of 

investigation -- advanced, blind. I think one should 

propose at least a sufficient staff to -- to accomplish 

those tasks. There's no guarantee that those are all 

going to happen, but that is the projection made by the 

Board as to the anticipated workload, and staff should 

at least be -- proposed to be adequate to address those 

-- those tasks. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Al, do you have anything from the 

contracting point of view to add to that? 

 MR. SUMMERS: I'm not sure if you were partially 

asking, as far as the proposal here, whether you should 

include that information in the practical assessment 

for the two sample tasks. I would think that you'd 

have to -- that the personnel and the personnel 

qualifications would be listed under base -- the base 

proposal. And then when you submit the task order, you 

would reference those people who you proposed in the -- 

in your basic proposal, listed them as personnel. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, but they, at one place or another, 

would end up being identified so that there'd be an 

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ability to evaluate the quality of the individuals 

involved. 

 Okay. Thank you. Further questions? Comment? Okay, 

Larry? 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Dr. Andrade raised a question with me on 

the -- on the side of the table here that may help 

folks, and I think we need to be clear about this 

ourselves. The Board will generate these task orders. 

 And in the negotia-- if it's multiple award to several 

contractors, two con-- two or three contractors, and 

those contractors who have been awarded under this 

scope will bid against those task orders. And then the 

Board will decide and negotiate with the awardees as to 

who gets the task. So the Board will see the proposals 

and they'll see the qualifications of the individuals 

and they'll see how the individual contractors viewed 

the scope of that task and make a decision on who to 

award that task to. So it's the Board's discretion as 

to whether to award to one or to multiple on a task. 

 Did that help? Is that correct? I think I'm correct, 

but Al's -- Al's looking askance at me. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Jim was talking about -- 

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 DR. ZIEMER: Hang on, Tony, just a minute. We've got 

to take care of the askance look here. 

 MR. SUMMERS: I think what you pretty much said was 

that we can award multiple task orders on a given 

requirement? Is that -- I don't think that's what we 

intend to do. I think what we intend to do for -- for 

an individual task statement of work is to compete it 

between awardees, negotiate it, and then select one of 

the contractors to perform that element of work. And 

then when a new requirement comes up, to do the same -- 

to conduct the same process. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Tony Andrade here. Precisely. I just 

thought that the previous answer had perhaps produced 

some confusion about that. If a task order is issued 

and let's say two contractors have been chosen under 

this RFP in general, one of them presents better 

qualifications to perform that particular task, then 

the Board can indeed decide that one of those 

contractors will do that. 

 On the other hand, if there is enough work to do, if 

the work needs to be split between two contractors and 

contractors present appropriate credentials to address 

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the work, maybe one doing a half and another doing 

another half, then the Board can also choose to have 

both contractors perform work under the same task 

order. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Same but different. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Same -- same but different type work, 

split -- right, split into two tasks. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Split into two tasks then is what you're 

saying. Gotcha. 

 DR. ANDRADE: Right, one task at a time for one -- one 

contractor. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Now I think a question -- 

 UNIDENTIFIED: That answered my question. 

 DR. ZIEMER: That answered the question. Okay. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: It goes back to what I said earlier. My 

question was, will they be conjoined? No, they will 

not be. They may be working on the same task, but the 

task will be split apart. 

 MS. DIMUZIO: (Off microphone) Yeah, through that 

negotiating process you would end up separating the 

tasks. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: So you're not going to find yourself, as 

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a contractor, working with other contractor you don't 

know anything about or you don't know where they come 

from. But -- sorry if I confused you with that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, keep going. Or are you at the point 

where you think all your questions are answered? 

 Okay. So where are you? We're depending on you, Lisa, 

to keep it going here. 

 MS. STETER: Lisa Steter, Risk Assessment. In 

preparing a cost estimate, how many task orders should 

be planned for or how are you looking for us to present 

costs? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay, Mark's going to answer that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Well, I was -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Maybe. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- I was actually going to raise the same 

-- I think that we're expecting that everyone should be 

-- should bid as if they're going to do all tasks. 

Right? All tasks under the contract, and that would 

include all the individual dose reviews, as well as the 

site profiles and the petitions, and we give estimates 

of the numbers, and I think you'd -- you'd have to go 

by those estimates. I don't know. I don't think 

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you're going to bid it on -- on just doing -- assume 

you just wanted to do the SEC petition review support. 

 I don't think -- I think you have to bid on the whole 

package, is my understanding. 

 MR. SUMMERS: I have that blank look -- I have that 

blank look again. My anticipation was that the cost 

data would be submitted for the two sample tasks, not 

for an overall -- you have to have the technical 

capability to perform all elements of the work, but the 

cost data itself would be limited to the two sample 

tasks. I think that would be the preferred way of -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think that's what we were thinking, too, 

Mark -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, that's correct. I guess I -- I 

mean I meant that -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: The capability for -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- should show the capability for all the 

tasks, yeah. The personnel, et cetera should be laid 

out, but the cost estimate should be just for those 

two, yeah. 

 MS. STETER: Okay. So let me make sure I understand 

that. The cost estimate would be for those two sample 

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tasks. We don't have to take that and then multiply up 

by the total number of reviews. Okay. Thank you. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I don't think we can predict at this 

point, other than two and a half percent, what you 

might encounter in a review. We can't talk volume 

right now. So we tried to make a level playing field 

with these two examples, and that's what you need to 

cost out. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I think there's a question near the back 

here, yeah. 

 MR. WOOD: Actually I got it answered by what he just 

said. Ray Wood, Trinity Engineering Associates. I was 

curious, does that mean then that you only want us to 

provide you those sample tasks with the cost estimate 

and no separate business proposal other than that? 

 MR. SUMMERS: The only complete cost proposal we want 

is on the sample tasks, correct. There may be some 

other things in -- in the business proposal that are 

not directly addressed. In the instructions for the 

business proposal there could very well be some 

information in there that would not be included in the 

-- in a cost breakdown for each sample task. 

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 DR. ZIEMER: For example, Al, can you clarify... 

 MR. SUMMERS: I was afraid you were going to ask me 

that. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm trying to understand what you 

just said there. You're saying there -- if there's 

something else pertinent in the business plan that the 

bidder wishes to bring out, they may want to do that, 

but it's not -- wouldn't be included in the other 

section? 

 MR. SUMMERS: That's my recollection. I'm going to 

have to look here for a minute, if you'll bear with me, 

and try to find something that's in -- that we would be 

looking for in a business proposal that would not be in 

the cost proposal for the sample tasks. 

 Part of the business proposal is the representations 

and certifications, which are Section K. That would be 

something that would be included in the business 

proposal that you would not put in the sample task 

proposal. Information on your accounting system and 

there's a paragraph there for administrative data. 

That type of information would be -- but as far as the 

-- the section where it says cost data information, 

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which is direct labor, fringe benefits, materials and 

services, travel, other direct costs -- those sort of 

things would be contained in the proposal for the 

sample tasks. There would be a few items, though, that 

are listed under the business proposal that we would 

want to see outside the task proposals. 

 Does that answer the question? 

 MR. WOOD: (Off microphone) Yeah, that helped a lot. 

Thanks. 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't want to prolong this if all the 

questions have been addressed. On the other hand, we 

don't want to shut it off, either, if -- 

 MR. WALKER: Tom Walker with Jones Technologies again. 

 I'm sorry, I'm not trying to prolong this, but that 

last question did trigger another one. Does that mean 

that you do not need to have a schedule -- labor 

categories and labor rates -- for the year of the 

contract? 

 MR. SUMMERS: That's correct. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Any other comments by members of the work 

group? Because if we've reached the point where we're 

ready to adjourn, then I'm going to propose that we 

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adjourn. But again, I don't want to cut us off if 

there are any lingering questions. Please -- this is 

your opportunity. What we don't want to happen is we 

adjourn and then several of you come up here and ask 

questions. 

 MS. STETER: (Off microphone) I have a question 

(inaudible). 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Well, there's opportunity for 

submitting written questions, of course, as well, but 

we do want -- one of the things about the questions, in 

sharing them, is that it helps everybody understand the 

bigger picture, and so we want it all shared. 

 MS. STETER: Is there a process for requesting an 

extension for the due date of the RFP? 

 DR. ZIEMER: I don't know the answer -- Al or a... 

 MR. SUMMERS: We are not at this time entertaining any. 

 If there would be, you know, a reason that would 

affect multiple offerors, that is a possibility. For 

an individual offeror, it would not be likely. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: I'd like to add to that and emphasize 

that we're trying to effect this procurement before the 

end of this fiscal year. If we don't get it done by 

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September, then we go into next fiscal year. And I 

think the Board's anxious to get this underway, so 

we're looking to get this put in place. 

 I know it puts a burden on you all with a short 

turnaround, but that's -- that's where we're coming 

from. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Let me thank all of those who did 

participate today. It's been helpful to the Board, as 

well as to -- I'm sure to all who are involved in this 

process. If there are no further items to come before 

us, we stand adjourned. 

(Meeting adjourned at 10:25 a.m.) 

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C E R T I F I C 

A T E

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STATE OF GEORGIA ) 

 ) 

COUNTY OF FULTON ) 

 I, STEVEN RAY GREEN, being a Certified Merit Court 

Reporter in and for the State of Georgia, do hereby certify 

that the foregoing transcript was reduced to typewriting by 

me personally or under my direct supervision, and is a true, 

complete, and correct transcript of the aforesaid 

proceedings reported by me. 

 I further certify that I am not related to, employed 

by, counsel to, or attorney for any parties, attorneys, or 

counsel involved herein; nor am I financially interested in 

this matter. 

 WITNESS MY HAND AND OFFICIAL SEAL this _____ day of 

May, 2003. 

 ___________________________ 

 STEVEN RAY GREEN, CVR-CM 

 GA CCR No. A-2102 

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