Update
This is a follow-up to our previous update, posted on October 30, 2011.
Unfortunately, looks like I was right in not believing that the DCMA attorney is going to do the right thing. We were notified that she is going to continue with her motion to dismiss.
In a short email on November 17th, Ms. Sri Schaffner, the DCMA attorney handling the case for the government, wrote:
We have reviewed the issues in this appeal, and are withdrawing our request for a stay. We are going to notify the Board to proceed with issuing a decision on our motion to dismiss.
She did not explain how paying us around $30K and demanding a refund of $90K+ in overpayment figured in her decision – despite the DFAS statement that proved the payment amounts to Quimba.
This, in my opinion, is a bit of playing the odds, combined with loophole lawyering. Again, in my opinion, she is betting that her motion to dismiss will be granted and that she won’t have to deal with the case. Given the facts of the case, she knows she will lose in trial since you can’t get $60K+ as refund in monies the government did not pay. So, in my view, so she is turning tail.
Sad, really. She had a chance to do the right thing and intentionally ignored it.
If the motion to dismiss is granted, we’ll have to push this to the Federal Court which, as you may imagine, will become more expensive for us – and that, right there, speaks loudest about the ethics, morality, and practices of the DCMA.
People in this post:
Bob Dourandish – bob@quimba.com
Srikanti Schaffner, Esq., Srikanti.Schaffner@dcma.mil
PROBABLY, DCMA thinks that DFAS over paid you the $90k. It may be something other than the $30k you are refering to. It is an easy question to answer, however. You can look in Shared Data Warehouse (https://www.sdw.dcma.mil/) to see all payments senT out on a contract by DFAS, including vouchers, invoices and collections. NexT, I would compare that to the actual voucers and invoices in Wide Area Work Flow (https://wawf.eb.mil) to see if everything matches. Ask the ACO for a face-to-face to show you (from the docs I refered to above) where the overpayent is coming from. He should have NO problem doing this, as he wants to clear this up, too.
John, thanks for the great leads and comment. Just now I tried to access those systems and my passwords no longer work. But your suggestion to look into the shared system is great and I hope to get my access restored so I can take a look. We do have a copy of the DFAS Payment History Report that shows every payments and invoices on the contract. The report also backs up our position that we were only paid the $30K+ that we claim. We have provided a copy of that report to the ACO and the DCMA attorney and, I am sorry to say, nothing changed.
I looked at your payments on that contract in SDW (I cant see your vouchers because I dont have access to the DoDAAC, but they need to match). There are very few payments, so the problem SHOULD be easy to find and solve. There may be other issues they are looking at (gov’t acceptance, work finished with PoP, etc). Make sure you have all the docs regarding gov’t acceptance and performance according to the terms of the contract. I cant stress enough, have a nonconfrontational sitdown with the ACO for the purpose of finding where the descrepency is coming from. He cant just say this is what you owe because he says so. He has to show you where his numbers come from and how they add up.
DCMA’s goal is to enforce the terms of the contract and pay the contractor what is due, not arbitrarily screw the contractor.
John,
THANKS, once again, for your interest and attention. I don’t think a “sit down” is now possible since we we had no choice but to file a complaint with the Court of Federal Claims. We waited until the very last possible day to file because we hoped DCMA would correct the ACO’s error. When that did not happen, we had to file the complaint or, in accordance with the law (and FAR,) the ACO’s ruling would have become final.
I agree with you that DCMA probably does not want to be in this position either. However, sadly in my opinion, the organization has a broken management infrastructure. I can’t imaging this happening – and dragging on so long, costing both us and taxpayers money – if the DCMA had even the most minimal of effective management controls in place.
I am hoping it’ll be over this year!
Best regards,
Bob