Health Management Resources, Inc.

Health Management Resources, Inc. BNUMBER: B-270185; B-270185.2 DATE: January 25, 1996 TITLE: Health Management Resources, Inc. ********************************************************************** Matter of:Health Management Resources, Inc. File: B-270185; B-270185.2 Date: January 25, 1996 Terrence M. O'Connor, Esq., for the protester. Terrence J. Tychan and Mike Colvin, Department of Health and Human Services, for the agency. Paul E. Jordan, Esq., and Paul Lieberman, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Agency conducted meaningful discussions regarding the protester's proposed approach to a particular task through discussion questions which reasonably led the protester into the areas of concern. 2. Agency's decision not to rescore proposals is unobjectionable where record establishes that agency considered all matters contained in offerors' best and final offer proposal revisions, and reasonably determined that relative standing of offerors' proposals did not change as a result. 3. Award to offeror who submitted higher-cost, higher technically rated proposal is reasonable where solicitation evaluation scheme gives greater weight to technical merit than to cost, and record supports selection official's determination that the relatively slight cost savings associated with the protester's proposal did not outweigh technical superiority of awardee's proposal. DECISION Health Management Resources, Inc. (HMRI) protests the award of a contract to J&E Associates under request for proposals (RFP) No. HRSA 240-BPHC-38(5) NAB, a small business set-aside, issued by the Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services for furnishing travel and logistical support services. HMRI contends that the agency failed to conduct meaningful discussions and lacked a rational basis for its award decision. We deny the protest. The RFP, which was issued on March 6, 1995, sought proposals to furnish conference and travel support for National Health Service Corps activities and coordinate with other federal, state, and regional agencies in providing logistics for recruitment and retention conferences, management development/training conferences, and other meetings. The RFP contemplated award of a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for a base year with 4 option years. Award was to be made to the offeror whose proposal was most advantageous to the government with greater consideration given to the evaluation of technical proposals than to cost. Proposals were evaluated on the basis of cost and four technical factors: problem and approach; personnel and organization structure; facilities; and demonstrated capability of offeror. Eleven offers, including HMRI's and J&E's, were received by the April 20 closing time for receipt of proposals. Based upon an initial evaluation, the agency found three proposals, including those of HMRI and J&E, to be in the competitive range. Prior to discussions, HMRI's proposal was scored at 79.2 points and J&E's proposal was scored at 84 points. The agency conducted written and oral discussions with each competitive range offeror. At the close of discussions, the agency requested best and final offers (BAFO) from the three offerors. The agency reviewed the BAFOs and found that the offerors had responded to all questions asked by the technical review committee (TRC). The TRC determined that it was not necessary to rescore the proposals in light of the BAFOs. In reviewing HMRI's cost proposal, the evaluators determined that HMRI had understated the costs of tasks related to change of station travel and orientation conferences. Accordingly, the agency added more than $5 million to HMRI's evaluated total cost. The final scores and evaluated BAFOs are as follows: Offeror J&E HMRI Problem-Approach (35)30.6 24.6 Personnel/Org. (30) 26 24.6 Facilities (5) 4.8 3.4 Capability (30) 22.6 26.6 Total Score (100) 84 79.2 Evaluated BAFO Cost $27,591,534 $26,219,386 The third offeror, Casals & Associates, with a proposal score of 86.2 points and the lowest evaluated cost, was selected for award, but the Small Business Administration (SBA) determined that Casals did not qualify as a small business for purposes of this procurement.[1] The contracting officer, finding that the relatively small cost difference between the remaining proposals ($1.37 million) was not sufficient to warrant award to the technically lower rated offeror, determined to award the contract to J&E. Upon learning of the award, HMRI requested a debriefing and filed a protest with our Office.