Evaluating the Impact of the Employee Benefit Security Administration Civil Law Enforcement Program

This sources sought announcement is for information and planning purposes only; this announcement is not a formal solicitation and not intended as a commitment by the Government. A contract may not be awarded as a result of this sources sought announcement. The Office of Procurement Services, on behalf of the Employee Benefits Security Administration, is seeking qualified and capable vendors to provide economic research and statistical services, with an emphasis on identifying capable HUBZone Small Business, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, and Small Business concerns. The Government intends to solicit and procure the required services under set-aside or full and open procedures supported by this source sought announcement. If at least two responsible SDVOSB, or HUBZone providers are determined by the Government to be capable of performing this requirement based on an evaluation of the capability packages submitted by Wednesday, May 11, 2016 12:00 PM EST, the requirement will be solicited as a 100% for SDVOSB or HUBZone. If two or more SDVOSB or HUBZones are not found capable, and two or more small business have been identified that are capable of providing these services this requirement will be solicited as a 100% set-aside for small business concerns. If capability packages are not received from at least two responsible small business concerns in accordance with FAR Part 19 by the response date, or if the Government determines that no small business concerns in accordance with FAR Part 19 are capable of performing this requirement based upon an evaluation of the capability packages submitted; this requirement will be solicited under full and open competitive procedures. Only small businesses are to submit capability packages. Interested small business concerns capable of providing services under NAICS code 541720 with a size standard of $20.5M are encouraged to submit their capability packages. The capability packages for this sources sought market survey are not expected to be proposals, but rather statements regarding the company's existing experience in relation to the areas specified in the PWS. Capability packages must not exceed 15 pages and must be submitted electronically. All contractor questions must be submitted no later than April 29, 2016 at 10:00 AM EST. Small business concerns are to outline their experiences in the following: 1. Determining sampling methodology, estimating variance from complex survey designs, implementing and monitoring random samples, and analyzing sample responses. 2. Analyzing and summarizing data related to private sector employee benefit plans, both retirement plans and welfare plans. 3. Knowledge of ERISA laws and regulations and analysis of policy issues relating to ERISA covered benefit plans. 4. Experience in statistical analysis, preparing statistical reports, and generating documentation of underlying statistics. 5. Experience with SAS and the SAS programming language, as well as SQL and Excel. 6. Experience analyzing EFAST and Form 5500 data as well as other EBSA program datasets 7. Experience analyzing enforcement data and calculating compliance measures. Areas or tasks where a contractor does not have prior experience should be annotated as such. A written Request for Proposal (RFP) will be posted on or about 30 May 2016, depending on funding availability. The RFP must be retrieved and downloaded from FedBizOpps at www.fbo.gov. No hard copies of the RFP will be issued. All amendments will be posted and must be retrieved from this website. Responses to the RFP must be submitted by email to the POC identified below. No solicitation mailing list will be compiled. Contractors are responsible for all costs for submitting their capability packages. POC is Daniel Rosenstengel, at Rosenstengel.Danie@dol.gov.