AFTER ALMOST 14 MONTHS, DOE COMPLETES FY 2012 FEE FOR CHPRC

More than a year after the evaluation period came to an end, the Department of Energy has completed its Fiscal Year 2012 fee determination for Hanford cleanup contractor CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. Out of an available $10.4 million in fee tied to performance measures, CHPRC earned $4.49 million, according to information DOE released yesterday. The earned fee consisted of $3 million in “provisional fee converted to earned fee” for work performed at the multi-year Plutonium Finishing Plant D&D project; $100,000 for completion of two waste management performance measures; and $1.39 million in “incremental fee” for early completion of four groundwater-related performance measures and one regulatory decision document, according to DOE’s one-page award fee scorecard.

CHPRC’s fee determination also included approximately $5.9 million in provisional fee, which consisted of approximately $5.5 million in unpaid fee and approximately $235,000 in paid fee for work at the PFP D&D project. Both the paid and unpaid fee can be earned upon completion of the multi-year performance measure, the scorecard states. The provisional fee also includes $150,000 of allocated fee tied to groundwater-related performance measures that is being “held until completion of predecessor decision document activities.” CHPRC did not forfeit any fee for the evaluation period. CHPRC’s fee determination was based “on work performed,” Geoff Tyree, a spokesman for the DOE Richland Operations Office, said yesterday. “Our role in the Department is to validate whether or not work is completed that the contractor has reported as completed, and if it has been completed, then the Department pays the contractor fee. It’s an objective determination. It’s not a subjective determination. It’s not meant to be a performance report on the contractor,” Tyree said. “The fee determination for this contractor is not meant to be a report card. It is an assessment of the work completed, a validation of whether or not the work has been completed, and if so, a determination of fee.”

When asked why it took so long to complete the FY 2012 fee determination, which was finalized Nov. 15, Tyree said, “Determining the fee requires coordination between the contractor, the DOR Richland Operations Office and DOE headquarters, and we took the time we needed to validate the contractor’s performance of work for fee it earned and has been paid.”  For its part, CHPRC is “pleased with the Department of Energy’s assessment of our performance for FY2012 work,” contractor spokeswoman Dee Millikin said in a written response yesterday. “We plan to continue building on our safe performance as we move into the next five years of our contract, completing some of the most hazardous and challenging cleanup work at Hanford,” she said.