First take on $8.4B DHS Program Management, Administrative, Clerical, and Technical Services (PACTS) III Solicitations – Still Daunting

The highly anticipated PACTS III Solicitations were just released and to follow up his previous – A first look at the $8.4B PACTS III Third Draft RFP – Bottom Line: This will be extremely competitive!, Steve Delahunty, CEO of Arcetyp, a consultancy that provides growth consulting services to GovCon, shares some notes after a first read.   

By Steve Delahunty 

Bids are due March 29th. This will still be very daunting to bid and win and there are still a limited numbers of awards. 

https://sam.gov/opp/09c8417f343a442ba593f5b8369280f2/view 

Reminder on Functional Categories (FCs): 

• Functional Category 1 Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Service (NAICS 541611 size standard $24.5m) 
• Functional Category 2 Office Administrative Services (NAICS 561110 size standard $12.5m) 
• Functional Category 3 Engineering Services (NAICS 541330 size standard $25.5m)  

The Solicitations related to each Functional Category are available here: 

• Functional Category 1 RFP: https://sam.gov/opp/2bc7f92f922a41d290ba927ae9229773/view 
• Functional Category 2 RFP: https://sam.gov/opp/afe6e2bf19dd41e7acd9793b15808be2/view 
• Functional Category 3 RFP: https://sam.gov/opp/46979bf42e914630ab4978cb2a42964f/view 

A new item, Competitive Scoring point ranges have been established but that is not too helpful since you need to score well above those to win one of the limited awards per Functional Category.  The minimum obligated value for projects has been reduced from $1M to $250K for all three Functional Categories (was at $10k for FC1 previously at $250k and varied for FC2 and FC3).  

 This is still extremely competitive with only 8 awards per socio-economic category (8a, WOSB, HUBZone, SDVOSB) per Functional Category (32 total awards per Functional Category, 3 Functional Categories). Within each of the 8 awards 2 will be to Primes w/o teammates, 2 to Small Business Teams, 2 to Small Business JVs, 2 to MP/JVs. 

Any hope of winning still requires a ton of project experience (nearly limitless allowable to submit, for example could allow 50 projects per the projects self-scoring sheet to score at top level. For example 250 projects in Functional Category 1 with projects falling into a mix of up to 8 dollar ranges stratified from $250k to $10m+ and project values based on obligated dollars and less than 2yrs old. 

Same as Previous Draft: 

• Still requires that projects and past performance projects must be ongoing or have been completed within 2 years of the solicitation date which is February 5, 2024. 
• Still no limit on the numbers of projects that a bid team can submit.  So you could be competing with a team that submits something like 200+ experience projects 
• Still just 8 awards per functional category and socioeconomic track. Still an approach where each Functional Category will have awards for 8a, WOSB, HUBZone, SDVOSB and 8 awards within each (meaning for instance 8 WOSB awards for Functional Category 1). 
• Still an approach were each of the 8 awards noted still further stratified as two awards per type of teaming: Prime Offeror, Prime/Sub, Joint Venture, and Mentor Protégé. 
• For prime/sub and JV bids, minimum 40% of projects must come from the prime contractor or the protégé member of the JV. 

Your teaming option is to JV or go with a traditional prime/sub arrangement but, for example, there will only be 2 WOSB Prime/Sub awards in Functional Category 3 and only 2 WOSB JV awards in that functional category. 

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