Redstone Government Consulting Blog (42)

Prime contractors must award contracts to responsible subcontractors. One of the required flowdowns from a prime to a subcontract is FAR 52.209-6, Protecting the Government's Interest When Subcontracting with Contractors Debarred, Suspended, or Proposed for Debarment. This flowdown is required when the solicitation or contract exceeds $35,000 but is not required when purchasing commercially available off the shelf (COTS) items. The purpose of the clause is to protect the government. A contractor that is debarred or suspended is referred to as an excluded contractor.

If your company no longer qualifies as a small business or is a company that wants to move from commercial contracts to negotiated contracts with the Federal Government, then this Vlog is for you. This Vlog explains how to determine when Cost Accounting Standards (CAS) apply and what are the different levels of coverage. It also discusses how to determine your CAS-covered universe and why it is important. There are three significant dollar amounts when dealing with CAS: $7.5M, $2M and $50M. Watch to find out why these are important numbers in the world of negotiated Government contracts.

What’s New in this Long-Standing Area?

The FAR Council at long last issues final rule to implement the Trump Executive Order 13881, Maximizing Use of American-Made Goods, Products, and Materials. Only a few days later a Biden Executive Order 14005, Ensuring Future of America is Made in America by all of America’s Workers, hit the streets.

DFARS Class Deviation 2020-O0021 Revision

On January 15, 2021, the Principal Director at Defense Pricing and Contracting (DPC) issued a memorandum on the CARES Act Section 3610 Reimbursement Requests, DFARS Class Deviation 2020-O0021, Revision 2. This memorandum revises and supersedes the DFARS Class Deviation 2020-O0021 Revision 1 issued on October 14, 2020. The only revision is to extend the period for which paid leave must be taken from March 27, 2020 through December 11, 2020 to March 27, 2020 through March 31, 2021. The remainder of the memorandum remains unchanged and details are included in Redstone GCI’s blog.

On January 6, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced its final rule to clarify whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The final rule was published in the Federal Register on January 7, 2021 and the effective date is March 8, 2021. You may read the entire rule here.

Thinking about running a utility in Costpoint to correct an issue? Proceed with caution and consider contacting Deltek or a Redstone consultant to assist. These utilities can sometimes purge, overwrite, or change master database information that cannot be recovered. Access to these screens should be carefully restricted.

System for Award Management is a GSA managed application. Businesses desiring to do business with the federal government must ensure they are registered in SAM with accurate information about their business and current representations and certifications.

Contractors with cost reimbursable contracts that include the Allowable cost and payment clause, FAR 52.216-7 or Payments under Time-and-Materials and Labor-Hour contracts clause, FAR 52.232-7, are required to submit an Incurred Cost Proposal for each fiscal year costs were incurred on any cost reimbursable contract. This incurred cost proposal is provided to your Administrative Contracting Officer (ACO) and Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) with a deadline of six months after the Contractor’s fiscal year end. Once the Incurred Cost Proposal is received by DCAA, they review it for adequacy. DCAA provides a notification to the Contractor, typically via email, that the proposal is deemed adequate for audit or outlines changes DCAA believes are necessary. That is great to know it is adequate for audit but what does that mean? This means that DCAA has reviewed the incurred cost proposal and determined that the schedules are properly completed for them to begin the audit potentially.

Understand how rate changes and revenue adjustments can wreak havoc on your system when done incorrectly in this path to Costpoint Project success. These issues can be time consuming to correct and can affect all users, even down to the employee level.