By Calvin Biesecker
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to issue Requests for Proposal (RFP) in the first quarter of FY ’10 under the new Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions (EAGLE) program, called EAGLE II, for both unrestricted and small business set-aside competitions.
Under current plans, responses to the RFPs would be due in the second quarter of FY ’10.
The original EAGLE contracts, awarded to 25 large businesses in June 2006 in the unrestricted block and 28 small businesses in September 2006 in the set-aside block, were for a five-year base period and two one-year options. Using the EAGLE contract vehicles, DHS components and agencies can procure a wide range of information technology services by competing task orders among the select contractors.
As of July 2009, DHS has awarded 205 task orders worth $2.5 billion in the unrestricted block and 116 task orders worth $635 million under the set-aside program, according to recent briefing charts outlining the way forward for EAGLE II.
Ever since the original EAGLE contracts were awarded three years ago, there have been lessons learned as well as changes within the contracting community. For example, nine of the original EAGLE small businesses have been acquired by larger firms and no longer have small business status but can compete for task orders that are not set aside for small business, DHS told sister publication TR2.
Also, the current EAGLE contracts allow competitors to compete in five functional categories. These are: Engineering Design, Development, Implementation and Integration; Operations and Maintenance; Independent Test, Evaluation, Validation and Verification; Software Development; and Management Support Services. However, the Test and Evaluation category has “rarely” been used and the Management Support category is best “leveraged” when it is part of other task order requirements, DHS says.
Under EAGLE II, DHS is mulling a consolidation of some of the categories. For example, in the unrestricted block, DHS has issued a notice through the FBO.Gov website outlining two alternatives for realigning the functional categories. One alternative would maintain the category structure but eliminate the Test and Evaluation area and insert Management Support into the remaining functional categories.
The second alternative would eliminate all of the functional categories in favor of a single award pool in which all EAGLE contractors would compete for all unrestricted task orders.
Either way, DHS is expecting competitors for the unrestricted block to work with small businesses as the Mentor-Protege program will be part of the evaluation criteria.
For the small business block, DHS plans to create pools based on small business categories such as Hub-Zone and 8(a) rather than use functional categories. The department currently estimates that it will select between 40 and 60 vendors to compete for task orders in the small business block based on market research.