ASBCA 60331

ARMED SERVICES BOARD OF CONTRACT APPEALS Appeal of -- ) ) LKJ Crabbe Inc. ) ASBCA No. 60331 ) Under Contract No. W9124E-15-D-0002 ) APPEARANCE FOR THE APPELLANT: Mr. Kevin Crabbe President APPEARANCES FOR THE GOVERNMENT: Raymond M. Saunders, Esq. Army Chief Trial Attorney CPT Harry M. Parent III, JA Trial Attorney OPINION BY ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGE WOODROW This appeal arises from Contract No. W9124E-15-D-0002 (the contract) between appellant, LKJ Crabbe Inc. (LKJ Crabbe or appellant), and the Army Mission and Installation Contracting Command - Fort Bragg (Army or government) for custodial services at buildings located in two different locations at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. LKJ Crabbe appeals the Army's termination for cause, contending that the Army's termination was unjustified and that the Army breached the contract by failing to reform the contract after learning of an alleged mistake in LKJ Crabbe's bid. LKJ Crabbe also alleges that the Army breached the contract by violating its duty of good faith and fair dealing. The appeal is denied. FINDINGS OF FACT A. Solicitation and Bids 1. On January 7, 2015, the Army issued a solicitation to fulfill a requirement from the Fort Polk Department of Public Works for custodial services for various buildings and activities located on North and South Fort Polk and the Toledo Bend Army Recreation Site (TBRS) at Ft. Polk, Louisiana (R4, tab 17). 2. The requirement was set aside for a HUBZone Small Business and the award process was conducted in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 14 sealed bidding procedures (R4, tab 17 at 1). 3. The Army issued three amendments to the solicitation. Amendment Nos. 0001 and 0003 both pertained to the bid opening date. Amendment No. 0002, dated March 17, 2015, released (among other things) all questions and answers received from contractors during the solicitation period (R4, tab 19 at 5-12).  4. Fifteen ( 15) bids were received in response to the invitation to bid. LKJ Crabbe's bid was the lowest total bid amount received. (R4, tab 22 at 2) B. Price Analysis and Contract Award 5. Ronald Newlan was the contracting officer (CO) responsible for awarding the contract (tr. 1/84; R4, tab 1 at 1). Mr. Newlan determined whether appellant's price was fair and reasonable (R4, tab 22), and conducted an unbalanced price analysis (tr. 1/91; R4, tab 22 at 2). 6. Mr. Newlan developed a pricing matrix that compared pricing from all offerors for the base year and option years by contract line item number (CLIN). A condensed version of this document is located at tab 21 ofthe Rule 4 file. (R4, tab 21) 7. Mr. Newlan concluded that the bids were materially balanced in accordance with FAR 15.404-l(g) (R4, tab 22 at 2). 8. Mr. Newlan testified that his unbalanced price analysis sought to determine whether there was consistency in the prices for each CLIN across the base and option years. He testified that the bids were balanced in this case, because each CLIN was priced the same across the base and option years. (Tr. 1/ 141) His analysis did not compare individual CLINs to other CLINs within the same year, nor did it compare the pricing for particular types of buildings. He acknowledged that his analysis did not include calculating a price per square foot for appellant or any of the offerors. (Tr. 1/93- 97) 9. Mr. Newlan also determined that appellant's price was fair and reasonable pursuant to FAR 15.404-l(b)(2)(i), Commercial and Non-Commercial Items. Mr. Newlan conducted the fair and reasonable price determination by comparing the proposed bids received in response to the solicitation. (R4, tab 22 at 2) 10. Appellant's bid for CLIN 0110 for "Routine Project Cleaning" was $0.0095 per square foot (R4, tab 1 at 111; tr. 1/117). 11. The Army's solicitation procurement desktop computer system (PD2) only accepts entries up to two decimal places (tr. 1/110-11, 113). The system automatically rounded up appellant's proposed price of $0.0095 per square foot to $0.01 per square foot for CLIN 0110 (tr. 1/114-16, 127-28). 12. Mr. Newlan testified that he did not know whether the government had entered appellant's price into the procurement system as $0.0095 or $0.01.