Computer Information Specialist Case Analysis

Title and Citation

United States General Accounting Office (GAO) Decision

Matter of: Computer Information Specialist, Inc.

File: B-293049; B-293049.2

Date: January 23, 2004

Facts of the Case

Computer Information Specialist, Inc. (CIS) filed a protest with the GAO regarding the award of a contract to Open Technology Group, Inc. (OTG). CIS responded to a request for proposals (RFP) No. NLM-030101/SAN by the Department of Health and Human Services for telecommunications support services at the agency’s Bethesda, Maryland facility. CIS contends the agency misevaluation the proposals thus made a faulty selection of OTG. The solicitation quantified a requirements contract with fixed hourly rates for a base year with four 1-year options. The RFP stated the agency intended to award the contract based on “best value basis” with several non-price criteria significantly more important than the overall price. Solicitation specifies that proposals were to include fully-loaded, fixed hourly rates for various labor categories. The agency received numerous proposals from several firms from these proposals a competitive range of four firms were to be evaluated. The range of four included CIS as well as OTG the eventual awardee. Following the contract award to OTG; CIS underwent a debriefing and afterward filed a protest claiming that both its proposal and the proposal of OTG were misevaluated by the agency.

Issues

Proposals must be evaluated by agencies solely based on the evaluation factors identified in the solicitation. In addition, per the Federal Acquisition Regulation, they must adequately document the rationale for any business judgments leading to their evaluation conclusions (FAR§ 15.308). GAO recommendation to the agency was to, at a minimum, reevaluate all competitive range offers and make a new source selection decision.

Decisions (Holdings)

Anthony H. Gamboa, General Counsel wrote the recommendation. The protest was sustained....