Protests challenging protesters’ elimination from the competitive range are denied. The protesters alleged that weaknesses assessed for lack of detail were the result of unstated criteria. GAO, however, noted that the solicitation instructed offerors to describe their approaches in detail. The agency did not apply unstated criteria by finding a lack of detail. One of the protesters alleged that the agency disparately evaluated proposals in various ways. But GAO found that the disparate ratings were based on material differences in the proposals. Thus, for example, while the protester and one of the awardees had the same number of Good ratings under the technical subfactors, the awardee had a higher overall technical rating because it had been assessed Good ratings on more important subfactors.
The Department of Veterans Affairs obtains various professional and IT services through an IDIQ contract called the Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology Next Generation (T4NG). Several large and small businesses hold the T4NG contract. The contract had on-ramp procedures for adding additional SDVOSBs, veteran-owned businesses, and small businesses. The VA could implement the on-ramp procedure at any time by re-opening the competition.
The VA issued a T4NG on-ramp solicitation to SDVOSBs. The solicitation set forth a two-step evaluation process. In the first step, offerors would submit a response to a sample task, a price volume, and certification. The VA would establish a competitive range based on step one submissions and then evaluate the remaining offerors in step two. Under the second step, the VA evaluated responses to a second sample task.
The VA received 94 step one proposals. The VA established a competitive range with 33 proposals, including a proposals from Blue Water Thinking, LLC and AcesFed LLC. But after performing the step two evaluation, the VA determined that Blue Water’s and AcesFed’s proposals were not among the highest rated. Both companies were eliminated from the second competitive range. Following a debriefing, the companies protested.
Both Blue Water and AcesFed alleged that the agency had applied unstated criteria in evaluating their responses to sample task 1. The VA requested that GAO dismiss these protest grounds, arguing that unstated criteria issue had been previously decided in a protest before the Court of Federal Claims.
GAO will not review a protest where a court has reviewed the matter and issued an opinion. But this prohibition does not apply when the issues decided by the court are different than the issues before GAO. The matters raised in this protest had not been before the COFC. The protests in this case alleged that the VA applied unstated criteria to different aspects of the sample task 1 evaluation than the arguments raised in the COFC protest. GAO thus declined to dismiss the protests.
As to the merits of the unstated criteria arguments, Blue Water objected to a significant weakness it had received for systems architecture diagram in its proposal. The VA had found that the diagram failed to depict some aspects of Blue Water’s solutions. Blue Water contended the information missing from the diagram was included the narrative portion of its proposal. Blue Water alleged that the solicitation had not indicated that offerors would be downgraded for failing to include all of their approach in the diagram.
GAO found no basis to question the weakness. Blue Water’s diagram failed to depict its cloud services, environment, and cloud platforms even though the solicitation required offerors to include these elements in their diagrams. The VA had a reasonable basis to conclude that Blue Water had not demonstrated an understanding of the tasks. Additionally, even if the VA had looked to Blue Water’s narrative, the narrative was inconsistent with the diagram, and it was not clear which was accurate. The VA did not have a duty to resolve these inconsistencies.
Blue Water also alleged the VA applied unstated criteria when it assigned a weakness to its task order response for failing to provide detail about its proposed broadband and the equipment it planned to use. Blue Water complained that these features were not something that offerors could be reasonably expected to identify if their proposals.
GAO disagreed. The solicitation instructed offerors to describe in detail their approach to analyzing and remediating VA infrastructure and IT deficiencies. The solicitation cautioned offerors to provide detail sufficient for a complete evaluation. Offerors were thus on notice about the importance of including details in their proposal. It was reasonable for the VA to assign Blue Water a weakness for not including detail about its broadband and equipment.
AcesFed also argued that the VA applied unstated criteria when assigning the company a significant weakness for failing to provide detail about its approach to its enterprise high level planning and its understanding of the VA’s modernization schedule. But GAO found no reason to object to the weakness. The VA had considerable concerns about AcesFed’s understanding of the schedule. The evaluation also included other elements—lack of understanding of facilities planning and the scope of work—that contributed to the assessment of a significant weakness.
AcesFed further alleged that the VA had disparately evaluated its proposal relative to one of the awardee’s Offeror 96. AcesFed argued that it had correctly understood the number of VA work sites, but Offeror 96 had received a strength for understanding the work sites, while AcesFed had not.
GAO found that AcesFed argument oversimplified the record. Offeror 96 received a strength for the extensive detail it provided in demonstrating its understanding the work. AcesFed’s proposal, on the other hand, lacked detail and did not demonstrate an understanding of the problem. AcesFed’s focus on the number of work site failed to acknowledge the underlying bases of the evaluation.
AcesFed also argued that it had the same number of strengths and significant strengths as Offeror 96 under the sample task factor yet AcesFed only received an Acceptable rating under this factor while Offeror 96 received a Good. GAO found that the VA had looked beyond the strengths and weaknesses and reasonably considered the multiple bases for a significant weakness assigned to AcesFed for a lack of detail. This significant weakness supported the different ratings.
Lastly, AcesFed contended the VA disparately evaluated proposals because it had the same number of Good ratings under the technical subfactors as Offeror 96, but Offeror 96 received an overall Good rating under the technical factor while AcesFed was only Acceptable. But GAO found that this argument failed to consider the weighting of the technical subfactors. The solicitation provided that the sample task subfactor was significantly more important than the management subfactor. Offeror 96 had a Good rating under the sample task subfactor while AcesFed did not. Offeror 96’s Good on the sample task order outweighed AcesFed’s Good under the management subfactor.
Blue Water is represented by E. Sanderson Hoe and Brooke G. Stanley of Covington & Burling, LLP. AcesFed is represented by Alexander B. Ginsberg, Meghan D. Doherty, and Robert C. Starling of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. The agency is represented by Frank V. DiNicoloa, Desiree A. DiCorcia, Tara Nash, and Christopher Murphy of the Department of Veterans Affairs. GAO attorneys Stephanie B. Magnell and Evan C. Williams participated in the preparation of the decision.
