Northern Rockies Strategic Action Committee
December 18th, 2008
Attendees: Tim Murphy, Kevin Erickson, Jane Haker, Debby Wessilius,
Kathy Elzig, Ken Homick, Gayle Schultz,
Jeff Williams, Mary Clark, Velvett Cummins and Pam Okon
Guests: Rick Grady and Duane Turk
NRCG BOD meeting update (Tim)
The Board of Directors as recommended by the SAC committee, approved the solicitation plan
out to 2011. The solicitation plan is posted on the NRCG website.
Bob Gillman and George Weldon approved moving Kevin permanently into a Fire Ops. Contract
Administrator position. His primary work site will be on the Bitterroot N.F.
For 2010 NRCG is looking into assigning CORs to the WMT, EMT and NID zones. These are
already pre existing jobs that are not filled at this time.
There are also three job positions funded by NRCG that they are looking to fly, one Procurement
Tech in 2009, and 1 Procurement Tech and 1 Administrative Tech in 2010. NRCG will put on
their task assignment list. Money and FTE an issue, but at least the position are on the list for
consideration as money and FTE come available.
The Board of Directors approved the position task book and training for ICPI (Interagency
Contract Project Inspector) to replace what we currently use CANR (Contracting Northern
Rockies). Nationally the CETT will propose the ICPI as a USFS 5109.17 position & a NWCG
310-1 position.
Inspection Workshops are scheduled in Coeur D’Alene on April 21-22 and in Helena on April 28,
29 and possibly the 30th. Advanced Inspection Workshop is scheduled in Missoula on May 12th
and 13th. On May 19-21st Interagency Contract Project Inspector ( ICPI) training is tentatively
scheduled. A web based conference, hosted out of Missoula.
Kevin, Tim and Debby will post last year’s agenda from COR training to the website for
everyone to view. The training will be updated for the new proposed ICPI training. This year
real life scenarios from this past summer will be added to the agenda for individuals to learn
from.
VIPR Update (Jane)
VIPR went live on December 16th. There is a COR team consisting of R1 and R4 representatives
that have had conference calls to discuss issues and answer questions.
The current user guide for VIPR is 80 pages. A quick reference guide will be available and
posted to the website by mid January. Tim will link to the NRCG website.
There will be 5 Contracting Officers going to VIPR training in Portland, Or the first week of
January, to include Debby Wesselius.
Web based training will be scheduled for January 14th from 2-4pm MST for any FS personnel
wanting to see how the program works. All the training will be recorded and posted for vendors
to view.
The VIPR working Group has submitted to the NMAC group an issue paper for implementing
personnel qualifications and performance evaluations into VIPR.
Level 2 eAuthentication has been going really well. There have not been any complaints so far
from the vendors with getting signed up. Contractor Performance System registration has been
slow. Both links are on the NRCG website. PTAC will offer training to vendors in March 2009.
US Govt. v Jay Gasvoda & Dave Monington (Tim)
These cases are in regards to contractors falsifying training, WCT testing and Red Card
qualifications. Jay Gasvoda was found guilty and will be sentenced in February and Dave
Mannington is still waiting his court date.
Impacts on Agency:
The Board feels that with only 2 cases presented so far, there will be no changes with contractor
training and verifications for the 2009 solicitation Plans.
BLM Solicitation Issues (Mary)
New Positions: Velvett has finished school and will be transitioned into Peg’s old position. The
new Supervisory Procurement Analyst has accepted the position and plans on starting in a couple
months. There is still one vacant GS-11 on the procurement staff not filled.
The BLM is looking into alternative ways to get the signing authority on the solicitations. Might
have a COR from Denver to sign. This will need to be figured out soon.
Kevin will get with Mary to help with the Statement of Work for Potable Water.
The Potable water trucks solicitations we do not have to re-solicited every year. We are coming
up on the third year. Mary will just do a modification to the service wage rate and submit them to
Debby to sign.
The primary contact for the BLM will be Velvett and Mary
Gayle Schultz brought up doing random drug testing this year on vendors. The BIA will be
implementing this, this year with their vendors. The SAC committee will discuss next winter
how the process went.
.
CETT Report (Kevin)
The Contracting Equipment Task Team has developed standardized templates for the best value
equipment for 2009 and for the non-competitive equipment. They have posted them to the
website. www.fs.fed.us/business/incident/solicitations.gov The website is updated every 2-3
weeks and is linked to the NRCG website.
The committee is looking at developing a Mob Guide on how to use all the priority lists
established. Judy Dunnam NICC is the dispatch representative and she is going to put together a
dispatch priority briefing paper for the dispatch centers for the priority lists.
The committee had brought forward using the State IQS system for personnel tracking and
qualification verification. R6 does not like that idea and has implemented a new system named
Mongoose. There might be national funding for other agency’s to use this system as well.
Tim, Julie and Kelly will talk with a representative from R6 about the new program and see if the
program will meet our region time frames and if it will work for us. If not, we will discuss and
create a data table/excel spreadsheet which will have listed all the vendors and personnel
qualifications. We will look into who will keep the spreadsheet updated throughout the season.
Inspection/Verification MOUs (Tim and Ken)
The Washington Office AQM has concerns as well as the OGC folks on the use of our MOU
holders. Tim presented to the OGC that it may be helpful having another agency host the MOU
holders. Tim had discussed this with Ken from IDL. Ken had proposed it to IDL and they would
be willing to host the MOU holders. Not sure if this will be approved though since the USFS is a
part of the NRCG. There will be a meeting at the end of January or early February with the OGC
to discuss the concerns and see if the IDL would be able to host the MOU holders. R1 Fire &
NRCG board support the continuation of the MOUs per current processes,
Equipment Committee Update (Kevin and Tim)
The committee discussed the Basic Equipment Workshops to be held in April and the Advanced
Equipment Workshop in May. They will be looking at revising the inspection forms this year to
meet the new standards. The committee is looking at having one main website page designated to
find the form. It is currently located in a couple different places. It has been proposed removing
the forms from the other sites and replacing them with a link that takes you to the main page for
the inspection form. Tim & Kevin will work with Julie.
There was a NR task group created for standardizing Road Graders & developing specs. The
group will need the final specification submitted by next November for the 2011 solicitations.
A question was brought forward on the requirements on the type of foam methods used on
engines. Kevin sent an email with the following remarks.
Foam device requirements- Type 3-6 fire apparatus that are under best value agreements will be
required to have foam devices. Batch mixing is not acceptable.
Siphon Foam devices include the venturi style device such as the Blizzard Wizard, Scotty 100,
etc. These devices are equipped with a dial to adjust the rate of foam to add into the stream of
pressurized water. The foam device adds a fairly constant rate of foam regardless of the volume
of water that is being flowed through hoselay and therefore is not metered to a constant
percentage.
Automatically adjustable foam device include a foam device that controls the addition of foam
concentrate to the pressurized water through either a pressure sensing system or a paddlewheel
that measures the volume of water that is being flowed through the metering block. This style of
foam device will automatically adjust the addition of foam concentrate into the stream of clear
water and therefore give a precise percentage of foam at varying pressures and volume rates.
Another question was the different qualities of the various suspensions for off road tanker use.
Walking beam suspension vs. airbag suspension
Contract equipment task team is working with SDTDC to gather data on the qualities of the
various suspensions for off road tanker use. Currently more value is given to a walking beam
style suspension due to the use of this style suspension for vocational style applications. Most air
bag suspensions are not marketed as an off road suspension due to the automatic leveling affect of
the bags during suspension movement. Adding a sloshing tank of water above this suspension
may magnify the movement of water and make the load more unstable over very rough roads.
USFS Solicitation Plan (Debby)
Heavy Equipment: All awards except buses are in VIPR.
Contingency Plan: Will know by May if VIPR is not going to work. If it does not work we will
do external or internal awards. Jane brought up an idea of doing trigger points if we are not
meeting time frames. This would work with communicating to dispatch the time frames for
solicitations to be submitted to them. In mid February if roll over happens, we will use March to
verify the information going into VIPR. We will want a functioning system by March. Debby
will create a plan with time frames so vendors and other personnel will be able to visualize the
time frames being met. She will also work with Tim and Kevin in staggering the rewards. The
ultimate goal is to have all the best value solicitations done by June 1st to the dispatch centers.
HUB Zone Set-A-Sides:
For next year the tiered set asides will be 8a, hub zone, service disabled veteran then small
business. There are no awards to large businesses. Engines and Water Tenders in 2010 will fall
under the set aside tiers.
DHLS eAuthentication:
Debby is pretty sure this will not apply to us since it is a commercial item.
CPS:
So far, about 1/3 of the vendors are registered in CPS. A worksheet has been created to fill out
from all the performance evaluations received from the vendors. Tim and Kevin will fill out
these worksheets and then they will be attached to the final CPS form. Each CPS form will only
be entered once. The evaluation form will list a summarization of all the fires the vendor was on
in the season. Debbie will then enter them into CPS and the vendors can reply with any
comments they may have.
A question was brought forward asking if team members could have access to CPS to enter poor
performance evaluations. As of right now only CORs have authority to enter them into CPS.
Business Committee (Jane)
Presented having company’s list their Workers Comp. policy number and company name
in VIPR to be easily tracked. This will not happen anytime right away. VIPR is looking at
several Work Comp. (WC) issues.
Motnana Worker’s Comp. is currently working with Workers. Comp. issues.
It was proposed that the Workers Comp. to create SOPs for going into fire camps and getting
information on contractors for verification. Ed Dawes in Helena is drafting SOPs. We would like
to have these SOPs by the time of the Incident Management Team meetings in April so Finance
individuals can be aware of the WC procedures. Jane will call WC to follow up and check on the
status of the SOPs and information on states not having an extra –territorial agreement with Mt.
Debby also brought up that an informational sheet or submission form be sent to the contractors
to be filled out and then sent to WC to check for compliance. Jane will also propose this to the
WC to see if they feel that process would work easier.
VIPR Conference Call Update: The biggest issue is that the training that the COs will receive
in January is on new solicitations only. This will not account for the roll over solicitations.
Training for roll over training will be scheduled for mid February. For vendor training with
re-solicitations, that training will not be ready until March. Non-competed will have training
scheduled for April. The FESSA group needs to know that we need to have these done by June
1st.
The web cast demo scheduled for January 14th is mainly for dispatch personnel or anyone dealing
with vendors.
DNRC Solicitations (Jeff)
After looking at the National templates, they do not really fit the specs. geared to the current
solicitations on the Resource List. They are mainly geared to the best value equipment. Jeff can
try to use the National Template, but if what is working is working, we will just use what we have
to stay on target.
Idaho cancelled the EERA for helicopter trailers because it was basically the same as the
communication trailer EERA. Right now there is a National committee working to put together
the template for helicopter trailers. For this year we may just use the communication trailer
solicitation plan.
For this season, Debby will work with Jeff on signing EERAs. If this does not work, Debby and
Jeff will come up with a contingency plan for signing the EERAs.
All the solicitations are ready to go. Jeff will send them out for review, before posting them.
GACC vs. Zone Priority Lists (Kathy)
Nationally the decision was made to standardize priority lists and have all solicitations assigned
to host dispatch centers in their jurisdictions. For the 2009 season in the Northern Rockies it has
been proposed to continue to use the Master Priority List since this is the 3rd year for the
solicitations. In 2010 we will switch to the host dispatch zone priority list.
Since this year the lists will be generated from VIPR, Debby will work with Kathy in generating
the master list for this season. It will reflect the tiered set-a-sides and pricing changes though.
At the National Dispatcher Conference there was discussion about the naming standards for
equipment being entered into ROSS. There is a Dispatch Efficiency Work Group that is working
together to establish guides for the standard naming conventions and for individuals who should
enter the information. The Geographic areas will be in charge of designating individuals to enter
the equipment to meet the naming standardization protocols. The Northern Rockies will probably
put together a working group to do this. Also there was conversation at the conference at where
to post the GACC Dispatch Priority Lists so dispatchers can easily locate. It was presented to add
links at the GACC websites so that there would be just one standard location for all the priority
lists.
For service items such as tents, weed washing stations and hand washing stations will be filled by
agreement.
When the priority lists are established this season from VIPR, we will need to make sure that the
correct dispatch centers are assigned to the equipments location.
Public Input
Richard Grady, who is the Executive Secretary for the Northern Rockies Wildfire Contractors
Association was very happy being a representative at the meeting. He takes the information and
passes it along to the NRW Contractor Association as a liaison to help with questions that the
contractors have.
A question from Duane Turk a MOU representative in Helena was in regards to issuing task
books before all the training was being met. Individuals are still required to take the courses
needed before getting signed off on any task book. An individual can get a task book issued for
ENGB and can start working on it, but will not be able to get signed off until all the required
training courses required for ENGB are successfully completed.
Next Meeting:
Tentatively a video conference has been scheduled for February 20th at 0830hrs.-1500hrs. at the
Northern Rockies Coordination Center.