Has the Army Changed their Policy

Army Regulation 5104.502 states: ... Has there been a policy change and it just hasn't been posted yet?

Joyce,

if you are a Ktr, the best way to clear this up is to file a protest.

I assume you missed out on an opportunity because the Army didn't follow their own Reg.

Well, get USALSA on the case. They would be happy to research this for you.

And if, by some chance, you uncover a systemic abuse or violation, they will thank you for bringing it to their attention.

Do you mean FEDBID.com the reverse auction site or FEDBIZOPPs the site that all the Federal Government is supposed to post thier requirements on if they meet thresholds. All requirements over $25K without some other exemption should flow to FEDBIZOPPs no matter if it is on the Army web site or the FEDBID.com website. FEDBID.com authomatically advertises in FEDBIZOPPS unless they are specifically told not to by the Agency or CO.

Please note that simplified acquisitions, including those in the FAR 13.5 test program for certain commercial items, and most GSA FSS competitions do not have to be posted. At least not for most of us. I don't know about the Army regs.

Do you mean FEDBID.com the reverse auction site or FEDBIZOPPs the site that all the Federal Government is supposed to post thier requirements on if they meet thresholds. All requirements over $25K without some other exemption should flow to FEDBIZOPPs no matter if it is on the Army web site or the FEDBID.com website. FEDBID.com authomatically advertises in FEDBIZOPPS unless they are specifically told not to by the Agency or CO.

Please note that simplified acquisitions, including those in the FAR 13.5 test program for certain commercial items, and most GSA FSS competitions do not have to be posted. At least not for most of us. I don't know about the Army regs.

Yes, I mean FedBid.com - I've not found where the regulations tell us that we can use it, and much to my chagrin, I'm finding the vendors are now upping their bids to cover the charges that FedBid is imposing on them.

Joyce,

if you are a Ktr, the best way to clear this up is to file a protest.

I assume you missed out on an opportunity because the Army didn't follow their own Reg.

Well, get USALSA on the case. They would be happy to research this for you.

And if, by some chance, you uncover a systemic abuse or violation, they will thank you for bringing it to their attention.

Thank you!

joycemcd, you don't need to spend time looking for "where the regulations tell us that we can use it."

What you need to ask is where do the regulations tell me I can't?

From the FAR

1.102 Statement of guiding principles for the Federal Acquisition System.

......

(d) The role of each member of the Acquisition Team is to exercise personal initiative and sound business judgment in providing the best value product or service to meet the customer?s needs. In exercising initiative, Government members of the Acquisition Team may assume if a specific strategy, practice, policy or procedure is in the best interests of the Government and is not addressed in the FAR, nor prohibited by law (statute or case law), Executive order or other regulation, that the strategy, practice, policy or procedure is a permissible exercise of authority.

Boof explained that FedBid.com automatically posts to FedBizOpps. That means you comply with the regulations.

If you don't get better prices with Fed.Bid, don't use it. But from what I hear, many agencies have had very favorable experiences with it.

FedBid.com needs to make money and they don't charge the Government. Rather their fees come from the actual seller. So I can only assume since they are still in business, there's a demand for their services and agencies are seeing benefits.

FEDBID.com usually pushes the price of most items down about 8 to 10% off of government estimates. However, I saw one instance where the customer got a rock bottom quote for a item. The offeror had given their very best price considering the manufacturer had pricing agreements with all the resellers. It is that IPAD/IPhone issue where everyone charges the same price as "suggested" by Apple. So when it was post to FEDBID the company had to mark up by the FEDBID fee in order to keep their price margin. This is a somewhat unusual situation but if you have it just cancel FEDBID (they will let you, no problem) and award to the quote.

Overall FEDBID works great. You get lots of competition without much effort, prices are typically lower, FEDBID does the advertising for you, FEDBID tracks your small business and savings statistics to make Congressional reporting easy. Many more good reasons to use them than not.

FEDBID.com usually pushes the price of most items down about 8 to 10% off of government estimates. However, I saw one instance where the customer got a rock bottom quote for a item. The offeror had given their very best price considering the manufacturer had pricing agreements with all the resellers. It is that IPAD/IPhone issue where everyone charges the same price as "suggested" by Apple. So when it was post to FEDBID the company had to mark up by the FEDBID fee in order to keep their price margin. This is a somewhat unusual situation but if you have it just cancel FEDBID (they will let you, no problem) and award to the quote.

Overall FEDBID works great. You get lots of competition without much effort, prices are typically lower, FEDBID does the advertising for you, FEDBID tracks your small business and savings statistics to make Congressional reporting easy. Many more good reasons to use them than not.

Thank you. I'm sure it works well for most agencies, but it still goes back to my comment about AFARs. Since I work for the Army I wanted to know if the Army regulation changed and hasn't been updated.