Kori K. Best

Contracting Officer Lead:

• Award contracts and orders using FAR 15, FAR 13, FAR 16 and FAR 8 procedures
• Review and approve pre-award and post-award requirement documents for cost reimbursement, fixed-price, and labor-hour contracts, including acquisition plans, acquisition strategies, statements of work, evaluation criteria, justification for other than full and open competition, requests for proposals, proposals, technical evaluation reports, cost analyses, negotiations, competitive range determinations, source selection determinations/basis for award decision, determinations and findings, and awards.
• Execute modifications to exercise options, add new work, close out contracts, and other administrative actions.
• Possess an unlimited warrant with FAC-C Professional Certification

Policy and Systems Lead

• Develop and update templates and standard operating procedures based on FAR and HHSAR policies and regulations; communicate changes to staff.
• Prepare reports and data calls related to Category Management, Service Contract Inventory, E-Verify, Health Information Technology, Quarterly Closeouts

Agency Program Coordinator/Purchase Card Lead

• Issue, establish and terminate government purchase card accounts. Conduct purchase card Program audits.
• Coordinate internal audits of contracted services and products for quality assurance purposes.
• Collaborate with IT teams to develop and maintain key AHRQ systems, enhancing invoice processing and proposal review capabilities.

• Perform Contracting Officer (CO) duties which includes awarding task orders and contracts for a variety of specialized requirements, prepare Request for Proposal (RFP) documents for Solicitations, Obtain results of technical review to determine if there are issues to address in preparing for cost analyses, Complete cost analyses on proposals, Develop competitive range determinations to assist in making decisions on which offerors’ proposals to negotiate, Conduct negotiations with offerors and obtain agreement on amounts, terms and conditions, Develop Source Selection Determinations for review
• Review and approve modifications, copyright approvals, Contracting Officer's Authorizations and other contract actions for Contracts Management (CM) staff
• Serve as acting team leader
• Review acquisition plans and supporting documents before solicitation and provide feedback to CORs and recommendations to AHRQ acquisition staff
• Review and approve invoices for payment; track status of invoices paid against amount funded
• Conduct closeout audits and prepare the modification for CO to sign off on closing the contract

• Participate in the pre-award and award process of contracts and task orders
• Help CORs and TOOs develop acquisition plans
• Prepare RFP document for solicitations
• Conduct negotiations with offerors
• Conduct cost analyses on proposals
• Administer contracts and task order awards
• Review and approve invoices for payment
• Write Contracting Officer’s Authorizations
• Prepare modifications
• Communicate with COR’s and Contractors
• Complete audits of existing task orders
• Participate in training less experienced specialists