Multiple Award Construction IDIQ Samples

Task order pricing for construction MATOC’s may be based upon competition among pool members, rather than fixed contract level pricing. It is highly impractical to use fixed contract unit prices for ID/IQ task orders due to highly variable market conditions and individual scopes of work/locations.

Thanks @joel hoffman . We don't have the authority under 15.304(c)(1)(ii)(A) that DOD, NASA, and the Coast Guard have, so we are finding it more challenging, as we know that the best/real price competition actually occurs at the task order level. So I'm researching how other agencies are doing it - I should have clarified that if an agency is using a process developed with the 15.304(c)(1)(ii)(A) authority that I can't use that example.

On 5/8/2026 at 12:46 PM, Mike_wolff said:

I'm looking for examples

I have not been active in the arena for quite a while. Yet, here are a few thoughts/examples that may help in your research I found based on previous experience. You may have already found in your research but offered all the same.

https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/2b422539d44a4ec79de516056b8410db/view

When it came to some IDIQ's we used a sample project where actual order priciing was based on IDIQ prices say for furnish and install pipe and negotiations via "fair opportunity" for unique aspects of the project. We found borrowing from the Federal Highway Admistration and using the "FP-14" specifications was a sound basis for firm fixed prices in the IDIQ and prices for the unique side as well negotiated for a specific task order. https://highways.dot.gov/federal-lands/specs/fp-14

And then of course there is the evolution to BPA's rather than IDIQ's. Some agencies are finding them to be a useful alternative. Once again they use a sample project for the cost/price evaluation to issue BPA's with the pricing of Calls being much more specific and not based on specific schedule pricinig of the BPA. Example - https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/64fa02a81c3f49878afbffa8f6ad04d2/view

Finally this read of IDIQ's for Federal Aid construction might raise additional ideas for you on where to extend your research to. I especially like the hints in the actual Federal Register Final Rule that ellude to variety of names beyond MATOCS such as JOC, push button, on call, stand-by, etc. https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/construction/cqit/idiq.cfm

If you have not found these in your research to date I hope they help.

Thanks @C Culham !

I also just re-read Professor Nash's article Sample Task Prices in IDIQ Contracting: Valid Only With Binding Rates?, 25 N&CR ¶ 20 (April 2011)

I think this was the key takeaway from that article:

Having expressed our view that this rule makes little sense, we understand why the GAO has arrived at it. We put in under the heading of making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The sow’s ear is the fact that the statutes require price to be evaluated in competitively negotiated procurements, yet there is no way to price an IDIQ contract because the agency hasn’t decided what to buy. The silk purse is what we called a “level of fiction” in Evaluating Cost to the Government When Quantities Are Unknown: A Puzzlement, 14 N&CR ¶ 10. Agencies are required to call for a fictional price, either by using sample tasks or multiplying proposed unit “prices” by estimated quantities. In order to make the resulting fictional price seem real, the unit “prices” have to be “binding.”

Yes, “sample task orders” do result in fictional (non-binding) pricing.

Phase two, Competition for a construction or design-build construction “seed task order” would normally result in receiving prices that would bind an offeror, if they were awarded the seed task order. Therefore, we could evaluate pricing for selection of award of MATOC base contracts, even though the base contract wouldn’t include fixed prices.

Subsequent task order competitions would generally result in price competition.

I wrote two-phase Model RFP’s that were used USACE-wide for MATOC base contract competitions and another Model for task order competitions (for design-build and for some straight construction contracting).

Too bad, this method wasn’t available government wide.

Why can't the competition just be binding for one or so Firm-Fixed-Unit-Rate priced line item(s) integral to the whole MATOC? Proper pre-award requirements analysis could lead to this being solicited in the IDIQ Section B and described as "binding for the life of the contract" in Section L.

On 5/8/2026 at 7:17 PM, joel hoffman said:

Task order pricing for construction MATOC’s may be based upon competition among pool members, rather than fixed contract level pricing. It is highly impractical to use fixed contract unit prices for ID/IQ task orders due to highly variable market conditions and individual scopes of work/locations.

I agree with Joelwhen it comes to direct costs.

So try this: Instead of instructing prospective offerors for a construction MATOC to propose unit prices for construction tasks, instruct them to propose a fixed project profit rate and and a fixed indirect cost rate. Then, when conducting a fair opportunity project competition, ask only for proposed direct costs.

0001 Project Fixed Rates

0001AA Fixed Project Price Profit Rate

0001AB Fixed Project Price Indirect Cost Rate

Will that satisfy CICA? I don't know. So try it and see. Innovate! Isn't that what they keep teilling you to do? What have you got to lose? You might be a successful pioneer.

And remember, you can always tell the GAO to get lost if it sustains a protest. There has never been a better time to do it.

16 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

So try this: Instead of instructing prospective offerors for a construction MATOC to propose unit prices for construction tasks, instruct them to propose a fixed project profit rate and and a fixed indirect cost rate. Then, when conducting a fair opportunity project competition, ask only for proposed direct costs.

Great idea, Vern.

Because of highly variable market conditions and individual scope of work/locations Joel mentioned, evaluation of fixed costs at the contract level is not practical. Publish that notice in the solicitation and state what the evaluation will consists of. Offerors will then have a limited time to protest.

22 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

So try thi

I like it too and one could conclude it is a FFP contract.

It would be very interesting in the context of a MATOC where some work has more risk that other work what a contractor would propose and the in the end negotiate with the government as to the fixed profit rate for the entire MATOC. By saying this I am not suggesting varying profit rates just wondering what the final rate settled on would be.

I do like it.

Thank you all for the comments! What I'd REALLY like to do is pilot civilian agency use of 15.304(c)(1)(ii) [RFO 15.104(b)(1)(ii)] and not consider price at the master contract level and just make award to all qualifying offerors, and consider price only at the task order level where it makes sense, but I haven't been able to get approval to do that (at least not yet).

At the MATOC level, one could ask for:

Direct labor rates (fully loaded) for any in-house labor
Materials markup for any materials purchased directly by the prime contractor
Markup on subcontractors
Markup on other direct costs
Profit rate

Task order proposed fixed prices would be built under those parameters. So would requests for equitable adjustments. You could also ask for bond premium percentages, which I've seen vary between as low as 0.555% and 3%.

Also, great commentary above that if a sample task is priced, it is best if it is real and someone will actually have to do it for the proposed price. It keeps the sample task pricing from being totally fictitious.

4 hours ago, Mike_wolff said:

Thank you all for the comments! What I'd REALLY like to do is pilot civilian agency use of 15.304(c)(1)(ii) [RFO 15.104(b)(1)(ii)] and not consider price at the master contract level and just make award to all qualifying offerors, and consider price only at the task order level where it makes sense, but I haven't been able to get approval to do that (at least not yet).

I don't like the idea of making award to all qualifying offerors, unless you know you will have enough work to make it worth their while. Just having a government contract can be a burden to a business. Otherwise, that kind of approach qualifies as "typical" government employee thinking.

19 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

I don't like the idea of making award to all qualifying offerors, unless you know you will have enough work to make it worth their while. Just having a government contract can be a burden to a business. Otherwise, that kind of approach qualifies as "typical" government employee thinking.

Sadly that's the FAR language - even in the new RFO. But it doesn't define what "qualifying" means, so that's where I had planned to be innovative.

Ok, in refreshing myself over the FAR language regarding evaluating prices in the selection of MATOC awards, I remember that we were evaluating prices using the seed task order pricing in Phase 2 of a two phase design-build MATOC base contract awards.

We were doing that irrespective of and prior to the exemption for DOD MATOCs in FAR (now under RFO 15.104 (b)(1)(A)(3) :

“15.104 (b)(1)(A) Contracting officers may choose not to include price or cost as an evaluation factor for award when an RFP–

(3) States that the Government intends to make an award to each and all qualifying offerors.”

We did not state that “we would make an award to each and all qualifying offerors”.

We short listed a number of firms in phase I to compete for up to a stated maximum number of awards in phase 2. We didn’t intend or guarantee that we would make an award to each and all phase 2 offerors .

To my knowledge, the Corps of Engineers were never questioned or protested for not evaluating prices under this two phase approach. We determined that we were competitively evaluating prices under 15.304(b)(1) for the initial base contract awards when we used the initial (seed) task order award in establishing the MATOC pool(s) .

I developed that method for USACE MATOC awards in coordination with Contracting, Office of Counsel and Program Directorates at HQUSACE level back in the mid to late 2000’s.

On 5/18/2026 at 6:50 AM, Mike_wolff said:

Thank you all for the comments! What I'd REALLY like to do is pilot civilian agency use of 15.304(c)(1)(ii) [RFO 15.104(b)(1)(ii)] and not consider price at the master contract level and just make award to all qualifying offerors, and consider price only at the task order level where it makes sense, but I haven't been able to get approval to do that (at least not yet).

As I follow I research. Found this. Seems GSA has done it before on a class basis for other type work. Makes me wonder why "approval" of based on an individual deviation could not be pursued and approved?

https://thecgp.org/images/CD-2020-14_0.pdf

https://www.gsa.gov/system/files/CD-2020-14%20sups%201-2.pdf

On 5/20/2026 at 7:53 AM, C Culham said:

As I follow I research. Found this. Seems GSA has done it before on a class basis for other type work. Makes me wonder why "approval" of based on an individual deviation could not be pursued and approved?

https://thecgp.org/images/CD-2020-14_0.pdf

https://www.gsa.gov/system/files/CD-2020-14%20sups%201-2.pdf

The first deviation only applies as follows: "This class deviation is limited to new acquisitions that are— a. For the award of indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) multiple-award contracts for services that will be acquired on an hourly rate basis." So, it's not useful for a full construction IDIQ since that is not acquired on an hourly rate basis. The deviation for the second link posted only applies to the GSA FAS ITC Polaris Program.

I appreciate the ideas though!

@Mike_wolff

Yes I saw that and understand but it would seem it sets up other opportunity especially a try at an "individual" deviation. Just my thought anyway.

On 5/21/2026 at 10:16 PM, C Culham said:

@Mike_wolff

Yes I saw that and understand but it would seem it sets up other opportunity especially a try at an "individual" deviation. Just my thought anyway.

This is an excellent idea in my opinion. The times are right for experimenting with something different. Get an individual deviation as a pilot. It shouldn’t be too difficult especially with GSA.