Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

C4ISR

Oh crap – be careful what you wish for. We requested that the contractor clarifies every single aspect of his Request for Equitable Adjustment and boy did we get it. A giant box full evidence and exhibits to prove that he is owed just over $3M by the US Government. If you stack up the A4 double sided papers, they reach over 3 feet in height. This is the amount of paperwork that now needs to be sorted and appraised and with only three people to do this, a coordinated and concurrent method is required. Enter stage left, McFry’s patented analysis tools. A request is in with the tech guys to re-visit their first (failed) attempt at generating the network environment needed to host the tools securely. The case is also to be sent directly to the USACE District commander to see if he can add some weight to it. It is clear that I won’t be around to see this one put to bed before phase 3 but at least I can still shape the response and begin the evaluations.

The subsequent work will now all be used to generate a negotiation plan to find some middle ground. Many of the contractor’s claims are sheer faced cheek and others he is definitely in the right. The grey areas are the ones that will cause us concern and this is where the coordinated thought is required. Further help and advice will be required from the Lawyers at District to keep everything in context.

EDC Solarwall

Relationships have now completely broken down and what was once a harmonious working routine is now painful and fraught with challenges…….but not between USACE and the Contractor…the difficulty is between the Huntsville and Harrisburg offices. Huntsville conducted the scoping and wrote the contract before awarding the job. We are responsible for the local execution of the contract, but after finding a number of errors with the contract (some of which could put us in hot water in legal and financial terms), certain personnel at the Huntsville office have become quite ‘anti’ to say the least. Some examples are as follows:

DAVIS BACON WAGE RATES: The department of Labo(u)r regularly publishes minimum wage rates that vary by trade and geographical location. These are to be published in site offices so the workers can compare what they are being paid to what the law states they should be receiving. This is enforced by myself and the Construction Representative through employee interviews. I was asked to check that the rates in the contract were the correct rates for the time of signature on the contract, and I found they were not. Upon raising this to the Huntsville office they just replied that ‘it’s ok – they signed the contract so it’s legal.’ After a lot of asking around and researching more thoroughly – we don’t have a leg to stand on. They must change the rates and recompense the workers accordingly (and one of the trades has a $14/hour difference!). It took about six attempts at raising it and threats to raise it to the contracting Officer directly before anything was done about it. Since then, everything I’ve raised with the Huntsville office is met with combative responses and unhelpful jibes…..All I did was point out they’d made a mistake.

PAYROLL INFORMATION: In order to confirm the information in the wage interviews (see above) I need to see the actual payroll information so as to corroborate all the figures before I can give the nod to the Contracting Officer’s Representative to actually authorise payments. I included this information in the Pre-Construction meeting and the minutes and the contractor was more than happy to provide the information. For some reason Huntsville decided that only the Contracting Officer needed this info and ordered the contractor not to send it to me or the ConRep. Long story short – we couldn’t approve the pay application and the contractor was not paid on time (Through no fault of his own I might add). There then ensued another protracted bout of quoting clauses from the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) before I finally had to spell out (and I was very pleased with this) exactly how and why we needed the info and exactly where in the FAR it states our case. The person who takes pride in reminding everyone that they are a ‘contracting specialist’ had to accede. All in all this was a painful and time consuming process which was ultimately very unproductive in terms of project progress….so I had to raise it higher.

THE MOTHER CONTRACT: Another long one shortened – we asked for the mother contract and we were told we didn’t need it. After questioning how we are expected to execute the contract without an actual copy of the contract we still had no joy. Had to find an alternative friendly forces within Huntsville to obtain it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see why this is not good. After seeking advice on the actual contract itself the response was a resounding ‘that’s a bit thin’ and ‘that would never have made it past first draft at District’. Having compared it to other contracts I also see how they achieve economy of effort by simple referring to FAR clauses instead of actually using them in the contract. It also appears though that they don’t read the clauses they quote!

1413 – CONTRACTOR INDEMNITIES AND INSURANCES: Again a pissing competition over why the Harrisburg Office is demanding certain procedures to be undertaken (because it’s the law) and Huntsville claim they never have to do them. More highlighter pen all over the FAR to prove our procedures aren’t just made up resulted in more blunt silences from the Huntsville crew.

Conclusion – the Huntsville team are more accustomed to working with service contracts where many of the issues we highlighted to them are never needed. There are some whacking great holes in the contract and now the contractor is aware of them. I feel another Request for Equitable Adjustment coming on…..and a headache. The working relationship between the offices is less than productive and severely unhealthy for the project. I put my thoughts down in a report for my boss to argue out with them. It came very close to us just pulling the plug all together and giving the whole thing back to Huntsville to figure out….and it’s a long drive from Alabama.

On the work front I had to issue a letter of concern about progress – the rate of work doesn’t match with the schedule. I’m not overly worried though because they are getting faster all the time as they get used to the procedures and materials. They also have no concurrent activity in the schedule and there is loads of scope to crash the programme.

Albright Avenue Closure Repair

This was a great opportunity to look at the levee systems and how the gate closures are designed. At the Albright location it was found that an error in construction drawings made it past the checking phase. (Design was good – drawing was clearly cut and pasted and tweaked badly). The finished product is a flood protection gate that floats…..even a PET student can see the irony in that. Work covered an appraisal of whether the choice of gate was correct, reason why it happened the way it did, how likely a significant flood event is (statistically) and what short term and long term fixes we can offer….. The result of my statistical analysis was that we are already late for the next significant event and that the latest it is likely to happen is August 2013. Since the report was finished we have the small issue of Hurricane Sandy rapidly approaching our doorstep…..it’s obviously sheer coincidence, but I hope they got the memo.

Neil – some pics I owe you…

Other News

The Embassy called me in to attend compulsory briefings in Washington DC in relation to Army 2020, MS briefs and the role and agenda for liaison officers and exchange officers. Not being entirely sure how an engineering exchange officer fits into the same category as an LO or EO I was still keen to attend just to feel like I’m part of the Army still. Ben wasn’t on the distribution so I subtly snitched on him (with his consent) and it was nice to catch up in DC. Also met Major Wayne Meek (PQE) who is working in Alabama (or the like), I completely ‘dissed’ the old CRE (Now General Le-Gris) by having one of those “you look familiar” moments (thanks Ben for rescuing me) and I also bumped into Major Rich Reese and Colonel Charlie Thackway – other Engineers from my past. So all in all – a very nice re-union…..depending on who you ask.

Just a thought – is it worth giving the next round of PQE attachment folk access to the blog so they can see the exploits and experiences so far? Either way – can someone please pass on mine and Ben’s e-mail addresses to Nick? I’m sure we’d both be happy to start comms now if he has any questions at all. The Ausie folks may also have some good early pointers?

Hurricane Sandy is reportedly going to smash the East coast within the next 24 hours. We have all been placed on a state of emergency and have been told to expect to be without electricity and running water for days. I have set up a basher in the bushes and have been stockpiling beer for days. Ulli on the other hand is due to fly to Germany on Monday night – so this could all turn into ging-gang at the airport. Walmart is sold out of batteries and flash lights and I have essentially been out and purchased a big pile of stuff that I actually already own in storage back in the UK.

Really sick of the elections…..please kill me…. – oops,  almost forgot – be careful what you wish for right? See you after the storm.