--Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC)

In accordance with FAR Subpart 6.305 Availability of the justification, the following justification is posted: Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition (JOFOC) Under FAR Part 15 Contracting by Negotiation (Open Market Services) Title: Administrative Support Services for the Department of Veterans Affairs Financial Services Center (VA-FSC) D12PS00523 1. Identification of the Agency and the Contracting Activity, and the identification of this document as a JOFOC: This Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition is executed for the Requiring Agency by the Contracting Activity, both identified below: Requiring Agency: The Department of Veterans Affairs Financial Services Center, 7600 Metropolis Drive, Bldg. 5, Austin, Texas 78744 Contracting Activity: Department of the Interior, National Business Center, Acquisition Services Directorate (AQD), 381 Elden Street, Suite 4000, Herndon, VA 20170 2. Nature and Description of the Action Being Approved: This is a Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition for a FAR Part 15 acquisition under the authority of FAR Part 6.302-1 Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements for a bridge contract for the continuation of Administrative Support Services on a sole source open market basis. These services are currently being provided to the Department of Veterans Affairs-Financial Services Center (VA-FSC) by Symtech Corporation under a bridge Purchase Order award. The current Purchase Order has a period of performance which ends on August 31, 2012. These services are currently in the process of being acquired competitively using procedures under FAR Part 12 Acquisition of Commercial Items, FAR Part 15 Contracting by Negotiation, FAR Subpart 16.5 Indefinite Delivery Contracts, and FAR Subpart 19.14 Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Procurement Program. The magnitude of twelve (12) Task Orders with #### competitors has been challenging for the panel to evaluate. Thus, to ensure the VA-FSC has the necessary administrative support services, the Acquisition Services Directorate (AQD) needs to award a sole source open market award bridge contract as a means of temporarily fulfilling the Governments essential need. This bridge contract will be awarded using procedures under FAR Part 12 Acquisition of Commercial Items in conjunction with FAR Part 15 Contracting by Negotiation and will be utilized only until competitive, IDIQ contracts are established and initial Task Orders are awarded to fulfill the administrative support services need. 3. A Description of the Supplies Required to Meet the Agencys Need: This acquisition is necessary to meet the continued need for administrative support services at the VA-FSC. The current support Symtech is providing to VA-FSC is crucial to the mission of the FSC, who operates as a Franchise Fund activity at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Approximately 150 Symtech contract employees make up over one-third of the staff at the FSC. Hence, not having a bridge contract in place would severely hamper the mission of the FSC. As without such the FSC would nearly have to shut down the programs they are performing to meet numerous client requirements. The firm-fixed-price estimated value for a period of performance of three (3) months is ####. 4. Identification of the Authority Permitting Other than Full and Open Competition: The applicable statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition is U.S. Code 41 U.S.C. 253(c)(1) under FAR Part 6.302-1 Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. This justification is prepared using the format in 6.303-2. The contract amount is estimated at ####; therefore, Branch Chief, Division Chief, and Competition Advocate approval is required in accordance with NBCM-ACQ-6900-015 Policy for Review and Approval of Contract Actions. An Acquisition Screening and Review for a non-competitive acquisition with a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned small business firm (DI Form 1886) is required for this non-competitive proposed method of acquisition in accordance with DIAR 1419.202-70 and DIAPR 2010-22 and was approved by #### on August 9, 2012. 5. Demonstration that the proposed contractors unique qualifications or the nature of the acquisition requires use of the authority cited: Symtech has been providing these services since November 2006. Thus, they are uniquely qualified to fulfill these requirements on a temporary basis under this bridge contract. These requirements will be for the continuation of Symtech personnel to provide administrative support services in nineteen different critical work areas at VA-FSC. These services include the following: medical claims data entry, medical voucher examination, bulk claims processing and submission, customer support help desk, VA-wide Temporary Duty (TDY) and local travel processing, travel help desk, travel system administration, travel system acceptance testing, VA station and vendor help desk, payment processing, payment resolution, permanent change station travel claims preparation and processing, permanent change station counseling, mail receipt and sorting, document scanning, secretarial functions, analyzing and establishing vendor records, vendor file cleansing, and warehouse maintenance. These administrative services required training of the Symtech personnel on the various systems and processes. As such, the Symtech personnel currently process approximately 20,000 medical claims per month, receive approximately 175,000 pieces of mail per month, receive approximately 750 travel help desk inquiries per month, receive approximately 300 customer support help desk inquiries a day, process approximately 1,300 permanent change station moves annually with an estimated 7,800 associated permanent change station claims annually, and process approximately 2,000 vendor related requests/actions daily. Thus, it would not be feasible to obtain these services from another source for continuity of these services while the new competitive contracts/Task Orders are being established. In addition, given the amount of work done on a daily and monthly basis, it is clear that a break in services would have a severe, negative impact on the VA-FSC in fulfilling their requirements to their clients. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the Government to award a bridge contract to Symtech for a period of three (3) months. The bridge contract will only be utilized for the minimum amount of time needed until the competitive IDIQ contracts and the initial Task Orders are awarded and transition is completed. 6. Description of efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable including whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by FAR Subpart 5.2: Due to the nature of the services provided, the amount of training required on the various VA systems and processes, and need for continued administrative support services without a break in services, no other offers are being solicited for the bridge contract. The bridge contract is a means of temporarily fulfilling the Governments essential need for administrative support services and will be utilized only until competitive Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business IDIQ contracts are established and initial Task Orders are issued to fulfill the Governments need. In accordance with FAR 5.203, a Notice of Intent to award a sole source contract for this requirement has been posted in Federal Business Opportunities for thirty (30) calendar days which will allow interested sources to have an opportunity to respond. The Notice was posted on July 18, 2012. 7. A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable: An in depth price analysis will be conducted to support that the firm-fixed-price amount is fair and reasonable. One means of the price analysis will be to compare the current bridge Purchase Order labor category rates to the proposal for this sole source contract. In addition, the Government will request an additional discount off of the current bridge Purchase Order labor rates which were determined to be fair and reasonable at time of award. Lastly, another means will be to compare the proposed price with the Independent Government Cost Estimate (IGCE). Ultimately, all of the aforementioned price analysis tools will be utilized to support a fair and reasonable price determination. 8. A description of the market research conducted and the results or a statement of the reasons market research was not conducted: Market research was conducted using the Dynamic Small Business Search (DSBS) for small businesses listed under NAICS 561110 Office Administrative Services. The search results are as follows: Small disadvantaged businesses 959 HUBZone businesses 197 Women Owned 1,589 Service-Disabled Veteran Owned 837 This market research supports the competitive acquisition being conducted in tandem with the sole source and the appropriate set-aside is Service-Disabled Veteran Owned small business and Symtech, contractor for this sole source is also a Service-Disabled Veteran Owned small business. 9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition: All facts have been documented in other sections. There are no additional facts to be reported in this section. 10. Listing of Sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition: Due to the need to have a bridge contract in place no later than August 31, 2012, the Notice of Intent to award a sole source contract for this requirement has been posted in Federal Business Opportunities for thirty (30) calendar days which will allow interested sources to have an opportunity to respond. Responses are due August 17, 2012. There have been no responses to date to the Notice of Intent. 11. A statement of the actions, if any, the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required: This is a justification for the award of a sole source open market bridge contract as a means of temporarily fulfilling the Governments need. The Government is currently in the process of evaluating proposals submitted in response to a competitive Request for Proposals to establish performance-based multiple award hybrid firm-fixed-price and labor-hour IDIQ contract(s) and eleven (11) initial Task Orders from the solicitation. Thus, adequate competition is being sought to fulfill the Governments need under a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business set-aside.