A -- BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT

REQUEST FOR QUOTES Description The Office of Policy and Research of the Employee Benefits Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor solicits a proposal for research projects focused on private employment-based health and pension benefits and plans, and related public policy issues. For consideration, projects shall propose a budget of $25,000 or less, and a performance period of 12 months or less. This is an unrestrictive solicitation. The NAICS Code for this acquisition is 541720. Proposals shall describe new research that would be undertaken, and not work currently funded or completed. Proposals will be evaluated on the basis of: policy relevance, study design and implementation, work plan and schedule of deliverables, qualifications and past performance of primary researcher, and proposed cost. Offerors should be alert for any BAA amendments that may permit extensions to the proposal submission date or that may otherwise modify this announcement. Proposals received after Thursday, June 23, 2006, will not be considered under this solicitation. Proposals shall be written. Orders awarded will be firm-fixed price. Introduction Landmark employee benefits legislation enacted in 1974 gave the Federal government primary responsibility for protecting the rights of workers covered by private employee benefit plans. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 places oversight responsibilities at the Department of Labor (DOL) in the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). Section 513 of Title I of ERISA directs and authorizes the Secretary of Labor to undertake research on employee benefit plans. SOLICITATION FOR PROPOSALS Introduction Landmark employee benefits legislation enacted in 1974 gave the Federal government primary responsibility for protecting the rights of workers covered by private employee benefit plans. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 places oversight responsibilities at the Department of Labor (DOL) in the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). Section 513 of Title I of ERISA directs and authorizes the Secretary of Labor to undertake research on employee benefit plans. Statement of Work DOL solicits proposals for research projects focused on private employment-based health and pension benefits and plans, and related public policy issues. For consideration, projects shall propose a budget of $25,000 or less, and a performance period of 12 months or less. It is the intention of the DOL to make up to four awards under this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). With these constraints, this solicitation seeks to attract the interest of academic researchers who may be in the process of completing a dissertation or in the early stages of establishing an academic career. The funds made available with the solicitation could fund work conducted by the primary researcher or support research assistance related to the primary researcher's project. Proposals shall describe new research that would be undertaken, and not work currently funded or completed. Projects shall not involve primary data collection. Employee benefits policy issues and research projects of particular interest would include, although not exhaustively: 1. Employers and workers access to affordable health benefits coverage, and the nature and quality of such coverage, including the effects of: - Proposals affecting health insurance market structure and regulation; - Tax preferences for health insurance purchased in group and individual markets; - Consumer-driven choices of health plans or providers, including health savings accounts; - Effect on health costs of quality reporting (including efficiency and effectiveness measures); - Relationship of health costs to state benefit mandates; relationship of health costs to state proportion of aging population; and - Efficiency and effectiveness initiatives in other countries and their effect on the health marketplace. 2. Workers strategies to ensure retirement security, including the causes and effects of: - Individual account participant contributions, investments and distributions (e.g., lump-sum or annuitized payments); - Role of professional financial advice and investment education; - Automatic enrollment provisions to improve participation rates and retirement income (e.g., auto-rebalancing, auto-escalation, auto-rollover, and other techniques); - Competing saving priorities, e.g., retirement income needs, healthcare and long-term care costs, and near-term education and housing costs; - Transitional employment or phased retirement; and - Management of longevity risk by exploring alternative payout strategies (e.g., life annuity and phased withdrawal). 3. Determinants of employers decision to offer, freeze, amend or terminate employee health and pension plans, including: - Applicable federal laws, regulations, and programs, including recent and proposed changes to such laws, regulations, and programs; - Motives prompting some plan sponsors to freeze defined benefit pension plans and the effect on participants and public policy implications; - Demographic and economic trends, including labor, capital and healthcare market trends; - Healthcare cost increases, drivers and control efforts; - Pension plan financial risks, including strategies for management of funding/investment risk; - Pension and health care legacy costs; and - Role of global competition. 4. Developments in financial markets and instruments and corporate finance, and the implications for defined contribution accounts and defined benefit funds, including issues related to: ? Plan fees and transaction costs; - Accounting standards reform for ERISA plans; and - Alternative trading systems (ATS), automated quotation systems (AQS) and electronic communications networks (ECNs). Employee benefits research projects could be based on population or employer (i.e., plan-sponsor) databases. Frequently applied secondary databases of both types are briefly described below: Population Databases. Several federally funded household surveys are used to study employee benefits. Relevant surveys include: employee benefit modules of the Survey on Income and Program Participation (SIPP); employee benefit supplements to the Current Population Survey (CPS); the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Household Component (MEPS-HC); the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF); the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS); and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The 2001 SIPP included two employee benefit modules: a module on employment-based health coverage conducted in 2002 and released in 2004; and a module on pension coverage status of workers and pension benefit amounts paid to retirees, which was conducted in 2004 and released in 2005. Supplements to the CPS that provide employee benefit information include the April 1993 supplement, the September 1994 supplement, the contingent worker supplements fielded in February of 1995, 1997, 1999, and 2001, and the annual March income supplement. The contingent worker supplement to the CPS was not fielded in February 2003. (The Appendix describes how to obtain further information on these surveys.) Employer Databases. Some projects lend themselves to investigation with the use of employer or plan-sponsor databases. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey - Insurance Component (MEPS-IC) collects information on employer-sponsored health plans. Form 5500 Annual Report files, which are jointly produced by Treasury, PBGC and EBSA, are publicly available. Employer studies might also rely on proprietary data collected from a group of employers (or intermediaries) sharing characteristics of interest. If confidentiality with respect to the identity of these employers is required, assurances of appropriate protection measures must be provided at the time of submission of the proposal. (The Appendix also describes how to obtain further information on Form 5500 files.) Procedures for Submission Deadline. Proposals received after Friday, June 23, 2006, will not be considered under this solicitation. Proposals. Proposal submissions shall consist of a maximum of 10 double-spaced pages providing the information listed below. Submissions shall also include a vita for the primary researcher and a budget. (NOTE: Projects shall not involve primary data collection.) Proposal submissions shall contain the following information: 1. Name, telephone number and address of primary researcher; 2. Name, telephone number, address, and social security number or employer identification number (EIN) of party to whom payment for purchase order should be made; 3. Title; 4. Abstract of a 100 words or less; 5. Policy rationale; 6. Objectives; 7. Review of research literature; 8. Methodology; 9. Database; 10. Deliverables (e.g., interim and final reports); and 11. Schedule. The budget shall itemize expenses for: 1. Personnel; 2. Computer usage, if significant; 3. Electronic submission of all deliverables, and three hard copies of final report; and 4. Other significant expenses. Please note that EBSA does not reimburse expenses for the purchase of a computer or related equipment or software, or travel. Evaluation. The following criteria will be used for scoring the proposals: Policy relevance Study design and implementation Work plan and schedule of deliverables Qualifications and past performance of primary researcher Proposed Cost General. Eight copies of proposal submissions shall be mailed to: Tonya McClinton, Room N5416 OASAM Office of Procurement Services U.S. Department of Labor 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, DC 20210 Inquiries concerning the submission procedures for this BAA may be directed to: Helen Lawrence, as follows: lawrence.helen@dol.gov or 202-693-8429. Deliverables 1. Draft and Final Reports Eight months from the date of award, a Draft Report shall be electronically submitted to the COTR. Twelve months from the date of award, a Final Report shall be electronically submitted to the COTR. 2. Quarterly Reports Quarterly Reports shall be submitted to the COTR to document the progress of the project. 3. Publication of Final Reports EBSA reserves the right to publish Final Reports on the EBSA Website. Final Reports shall include an abstract of 100 words or less, and cite the funding source. The funding citation shall include a disclaimer for DOL responsibility for the author's work. Payment Schedule An invoice for half the value of the contract may be submitted to DOL for payment when the Draft Report is accepted by the COTR. An invoice for the final half of the contract value shall be submitted to DOL for payment when the Final Report is accepted by the COTR.