Protest challenging the terms of the solicitation is sustained. The protesters argued that the solicitation did not provide enough information for offerors to understand the allocation of staffing between fixed-price and time and materials tasks. GAO agreed, finding that even after a hearing the agency could delineate which tasks would fall under the fixed-price or under the T&M portions. Indeed, the agency could not even defined the concepts it would use to determine fixed-price and T&M tasks. Without more information, the offerors were unable to intelligently bid on the proposal.
The Army issued a solicitation seeking a variety of IT services. Two companies, ASRC Federal Data Network Technologies and Ekagra Partners, filed protests challenging the terms of the solicitation. They argued that the solicitation did not contain for offerors to bid intelligently, did not reflect the Army’s needs, and improperly omitted evaluation information.
While the protests were pending, ASRC and Ekagra submitted proposals. Two of the files submitted by Ekagra were corrupted due to improper uploading. As a result, the Army refused to evaluate Ekagra, finding that it had not submitted a complete proposal. Ekagra then filed a supplemental protest challenging the Army’s decision to eliminate its proposal.
The Army argued that Ekagra’s protest should be dismissed because the company failed to submit a complete proposal, was ineligible for award, and thus not an interest party. GAO rejected this argument. Ekagra timely filed a protest before the proposal deadline. Additionally, the remedy it sought was revisions of the solicitation. If the Army revised the solicitation, Ekagra would be eligible to submit a proposal. A protester challenging solicitation terms remains an interested party without regard to later actions taken outside the protest.
As to the merits of the protests, ASRC and Ekagra contended that the solicitation did not provide enough information for offerors to understand the allocation of staffing between the PWS’s fixed-price and time and materials (T&M) tasks. The solicitation required offerors to trace labor category and hour information in their management plans to PWS tasks and subtasks. The PWS included tasks designated as both fixed-price and T&M. But the descriptions for these tasks, the protesters argued, did not indicate which part would be fixed-price and which would be time and material. Moreover, the protesters contended, the Army exacerbated this problem in discussions by indicating that allocation between fixed-price and T&M tasks would be based on changes in the technical landscape or changes to emerging/evolving mission requirements without defining those concepts.
GAO agreed that the Army had not provided enough information for the offerors to adequately understand the scope of the fixed-price portion and T&M portions of the PWS. For instance, even after a hearing, the agency was unable to delineate which emerging mission requirement fell within the fixed-price portion and which fell within T&M. In fact, the Army could not even provide a clear breakdown of what constituted an emerging/evolving mission. Given the seemingly unbound and amorphous scope of the staffing requirements, it was impossible for offerors to know with any level of meaningful detail what types of mission requirement changes the agency was anticipating and whether they would fall under the fixed-price portion of the requirement.
The Army argued that an experienced information technology officer would simply know which tasks would fall under the fixed-price portion and which would fall under the T&M. But GAO was not persuaded, noting that even armed with experience and expertise, an offeror could simply not understand the scope of the tasks.
ASRC and Ekagra challenged the sufficiency of help desk ticket information that the Army provided to offerors. The protesters contended that the ticket categories were undefined. But GAO thought the amount of information was sufficient. The desk ticket information provided was the same information the Army had used to prepare its estimates. While this information did not provide granular level detail or eliminate all uncertainty, the Army had not obligation to do so.
Finally, ASRC contended that the Army failed to provide information on how it would use labor mix and cost estimates in the evaluation. But the solicitation set forth the evaluation factors, their relative weights, and the evaluation consideration under each factor. The Army was not required to specify the precise methodology it would use to evaluate staffing against its estimates.
ASRC is represented by Amy L. O’Sullivan, Christian N. Curran, Christopher R. Hebon, and Olivia L. Lynch of Crowell & Moring LLP. Ekagra is represented by Jon D. Levin, W. Brad English, and Michael W. Rich of Maynard Cooper & Gale, PC. The agency is represented by Debra J. Talley, Angela M. Fortier, and Jonathan P. Summers of the Army. GAO attorneys Alexander O. Levine and Jennifer Westfall-McGrail participated in preparation of the decision.
