Brian Bradley
WC Monitor
11/6/2015
URS | CH2M Hill Oak Ridge (UCOR) has reported that 76 percent, or $331 million, of its subcontracted work at East Tennessee Technology Park was awarded to small businesses from August 2011 to August 2014, surpassing UCOR’s own 65-percent goal stated in its small business subcontracting plan, according to an Energy Department inspector general’s report released on Tuesday. The IG’s office did not find any “material issues” in its review to determine whether the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management was ensuring UCOR was adequately progressing and properly reporting on its small business subcontracting goals for cleanup of the former uranium enrichment site. However, the report says UCOR had incorrectly reported the socioeconomic status of some of its small business awards and did not include the signature date on many attestation documents.
“Nothing came to our attention to indicate that UCOR had not made adequate progress in meeting and reporting on its overall established small business subcontracting goals,” the report states. “Nonetheless, during our review, UCOR initiated action to improve the overall accuracy of reporting its performance metrics.” For its review, the IG reviewed 83 small business subcontracts and all fiscal 2014 purchase and blanket order procurements processed by UCOR over $10,000. Specifically, the IG found inconsistent socioeconomic statuses in 23 percent of those subcontracts and 24 percent of purchase and blanket orders. Those statuses did not match the socioeconomic status in subcontractors’ documents. “While these inconsistencies resulted in UCOR inaccurately reporting small business subcontracting performance metrics to the Department, they would not have, in our opinion, affected UCOR’s overall performance in achieving its small business goals,” the IG stated.
EM awarded UCOR the contract for ETTP cleanup in April 2011. "UCOR’s commitment to the small business community has been integral to the success in completing the environmental cleanup work at the ETTP," said UCOR spokeswoman Anne Smith. "It is UCOR’s desire to continue this success by utilizing small businesses throughout the option period that will exceed the small business goals set forth by DOE."
The IG report also cited the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management contractor as saying that UCOR’s small business subcontracting performance and progress toward meeting established socioeconomic category goals were considered when evaluating UCOR’s award fee. The company earned 96 percent of its available fee in the second half of fiscal 2014, after earning 94 percent in the first half of that fiscal year.
UCOR establishes the socioeconomic status of its subcontractors through “representations and certifications” (reps and certs) documents. The company is taking several actions in response to the issues cited by the IG, including reps and certs training for procurement personnel, ensuring that reps and certs documents are received on all orders valued at $10,000 or above, and requiring vendors and subcontractors to correct and resubmit inaccurate socioeconomic data.
UCOR President Ken Rueter said in an email that he recently met with a public official of Scott County, Tenn., northwest of Oak Ridge, regarding how community businesses could be candidates for Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) procurements. HUBZone procurements help small businesses in urban and rural communities gain preferential access to federal procurement opportunities. UCOR’s supply-chain team plans to help usher better HUBZone participation of the county, which as of May 2015, had Tennessee’s second highest unemployment rate at 9.9 percent, according to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
Rueter attributed UCOR’s subcontracting successes to a focus on the company’s philosophy behind the 65-percent benchmark it set. “It isn’t so much about besting the goal, it is about our commitment to small business and our policy to aggressively encourage participation among all socioeconomic categories of small business when we acquire goods and services,” Rueter said. “It is embedded in our processes, and a fundamental characteristic of who we are as a company. It helps us serve as a better community partner, provides us with new ideas and approaches, and contributes to a win-win relationship with many of our stakeholders. And, through this commitment to partnering, we are able to reach and exceed our goals.”
