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Letter to the CBE Community from OCP, DLSBD, and OCTO

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Dear CBE Community:

Since 2008, the District has worked with OST, Inc. to provide professional IT resources to the Government of the District of Columbia. The IT Staff Augmentation program, commonly referred to as ITSA, is critical to the operations of dozens of District agencies who depend on ITSA resources for their IT needs, and has a requirement to subcontract 95% to Certified Business Enterprises (CBEs).  When the initial long-term contract expired in 2013, the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) and the Office of Contracting and Procurement (OCP) agreed that the program needed to be modernized to fit the current needs of the District. While the District worked to develop the requirements, the contract with OST, Inc. was extended twice through September 30, 2015. OCTO, with support from OCP, developed new requirements and on October 1, 2015, the District extended the contract again and notified OST, Inc. that the ITSA contract would expire on October 1, 2016.

Beginning in March 2016, OCP partnered with OCTO and the Department of Small and Local Business Development (DSLBD) to host a series of outreach events during which the pending expiration of the ITSA contract was discussed in detail, because we understood the broad reach of the ITSA contract. The events, held in March, April, June, and August, were public and targeted to the CBE community through DSLBD’s outreach efforts. At these events, OCTO and OCP stated that OST’s contract was set to expire, and the District’s intent was to issue a new solicitation for Temporary IT staffing. OCTO and OCP notified CBEs to apply to the DC Supply Schedule prior to the expiration of the ITSA contract to meet the District’s short-term staff augmentation requirements. Further, DSLBD sent out multiple updates to the CBE community regarding ITSA and the new Temporary IT staffing solicitation. 

The solicitation for the new program, Pipeline, was issued in May 9, 2016 and closed on June 16, 2016. The Pipeline program also sets aside 95% of the augmented resources for fulfillment by CBEs.  During the evaluation of proposals, a protest was filed at the District’s Contract Appeals Board (CAB), delaying the award of the new contract. The District continues to have IT staff augmentation needs, and will fulfill them in the future through the new Pipeline program.  In an effort to avoid an interruption in critical services while the protest was pending at the CAB, the District extended the contract with OST, Inc. for six months with limited usage. The District is also awarding short-term contracts to multiple CBE firms to cover the gaps between the ITSA contract and the award of the Pipeline contract.

With continuity of government operations in mind, OCP compiled a list of the CBE firms that currently provide resources as subcontractors to OST through the ITSA program.  Starting with the CBE firms with the greatest number of ITSA resources, the list was compared to the list of CBE firms that have DCSS contracts for staffing.  Mr. White, with support from stakeholder agencies, reviewed each DCSS category to determine that schedule’s capacity to meet the District’s requirements.   The CBE firms with current DCSS contracts and that met the District’s requirements were solicited to submit a proposal for the short-term District requirements.  Multiple task orders were awarded to firms that passed a basic compliance check, had a history of quality past performance, and submitted a proposal with the price and technical specifications (i.e., recruiting, background check, time submittal) that could meet requirements for multiple District agencies. Some firms’ DCSS contracts had limited ceiling capacity and those CBE firms offered their GSA schedules instead. Many of those GSA schedules met the District’s requirement and had more capacity without contract ceiling restrictions.   All task order awards, with one exception, were made to CBE firms. In total, the District awarded task orders to 24 CBE firms via the DC Supply Schedules and six CBE firms via their GSA Schedules.  The CBE firms awarded task orders are:

 

No

Contract Type

Agency

Contract Number

Vendor

1

GSA

OCTO

CW46348

Networking for Future

2

GSA

OCTO

CW46358

Avid Systems

3

GSA

OCTO

CW46380

ANC

4

GSA

OCTO

CW47015

IUI  (DOES)                          

5

GSA

DHS

CW46512

Avid Systems, Inc.

6

GSA

DHS

CW46568

ANC

7

DCSS

OCTO

CW47163

KLSL

8

DCSS

OCTO

CW45897

Ross Professional Services

9

DCSS

OCTO

CW45928

PTS

10

DCSS

OCTO

CW46980

CSZNet

11

DCSS

OCTO

CW47160

Datapillars

12

DCSS

OCTO

CW47166

Datanet Systems Corporation

13

DCSS

OCTO

CW45924

Midtown Personnel, Inc.

14

DCSS

OCTO

CW47099

Synergetic Information Systems

15

DCSS

OCTO

CW47038

PC Net

16

DCSS

OCTO

CW47017

PMC

17

DCSS

OCTO

CW47105

Tandem

18

DCSS

OCTO

CW47219

PTS, Inc.

19

DCSS

OCTO

CW47094

Razavi Application Developers

20

DCSS

OUC

CW47125

The Triage Group, LLC

21

DCSS

OCTO

CW47103

Telecommunications Development Corporation

22

DCSS

OCTO

CW47100

Tecknomic LLC

23

DCSS

DHS

CW46953

ANC

24

DCSS

DCPS

CW47129

Corporate System Resources, Inc.

25

DCSS

OCTO

CW46728

InCapsulate, LLC

26

DCSS

OCTO

CW46957

ANC

27

DCSS

OCTO

CW46721

The Triage Group, LLC

28

DCSS

DCRA

CW47285

Limbic

29

DCSS

OCTO

CW47253

Software Information Resource Corporation

30

DCSS

OCFO

 

Maru

 

The awards fulfill all of the District’s requirements and OCP does not have indication that additional awards are required at this time.

The District is fully committed to a transparent procurement process that follows the rules and regulations of contracting in the District, specifically those that ensure proper utilization of CBE resources. We recognize that there are some concerns that the District is engaged in steering resources previously supplied under ITSA. The District is not directing any resources to leave their current employers, nor is the District directing them to any particular contractor. Some of the CBE firms that were awarded task orders are aggressively recruiting existing ITSA resources. Those discussions are between the ITSA resources and the companies seeking IT staff. 


Should you have any questions or need further information on the procurement process, please contact Derrick White, Chief Contracting Officer at the Office of the Chief Technology Officer at 202-724-5278.

Thank you,

Ana Harvey, Director
Department of Small and Local Business Development

George A. Schutter, III
Chief Procurement Officer
District of Columbia

Archana Vemulapalli
Chief Technology Officer
District of Columbia