Atlantic Coast Contracting, Inc.

Atlantic Coast Contracting, Inc. BNUMBER: B-270491; B-270590 DATE: March 13, 1996 TITLE: Atlantic Coast Contracting, Inc. ********************************************************************** Matter of:Atlantic Coast Contracting, Inc. File: B-270491; B-270590 Date:March 13, 1996 Ronald Draughon for the protester. Nicholas P. Retson, Esq., and Bryant S. Banes, Esq., Department of the Army, for the agency. Jerold D. Cohen, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Agency reasonably decided not to attribute a proposed key employee's experience to the protester for purposes of a hospital housekeeping solicitation's contractor-experience requirement where the requirement was designed to ensure that the offeror's performance of the services in healthcare/patient care environments demonstrated compliance with federal regulations and hospital accreditation requirements. 2. Where agency reasonably excluded the protester's proposal from the competitive range as technically unacceptable and thus ineligible for award, it is irrelevant that agency did not address the protester's proposed price during discussions. DECISION Atlantic Coast Contracting (ACC) protests its exclusion from the competitive ranges established in two Department of the Army procurements for hospital housekeeping services, one for services at Reynolds Army Community Hospital, Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and the other for services at Weed Army Community Hospital, Fort Irwin, California (request for proposals (RFP) nos. DADA10-95-R-0032 and -0040, respectively). ACC principally contends that the Army in each case improperly failed to attribute the experience of ACC's proposed Executive Housekeeper, who would be the key person under each contract, to the company for purposes of meeting the RFP's contractor-experience requirement. We deny the protests. The Fort Sill RFP required that the contractor have "experience in providing housekeeping services in healthcare/patient care environments (e.g. clinical, laboratory, etc. settings)"; the Fort Irwin RFP requirement was almost the same. The minimum level of acceptable experience required by each RFP was 24 months within the previous 36 months from the initial proposal due date. Each RFP also required the contractor to provide a contract manager, called an "Executive Housekeeper," who would be responsible for the performance of the work. The minimum requirement for the Executive Housekeeper was at least 1 year of experience as a hospital Executive Housekeeper or at least 2 years of experience as an assistant Executive Housekeeper within the last 3 years. The Army excluded ACC's proposals from the competitive ranges established in the procurements in part because the company did not meet the contractor-experience requirement. ACC, conceding that it does not, as a company, have 24 months experience within the previous 36 months, argues that the Army in each procurement should have accepted the company's proposed Executive Housekeeper as fulfilling the contractor-experience requirement. ACC points out that because it is a relatively new business the only way it can meet the contractor-experience requirement is through the proposed Executive Housekeeper's experience, unless the Army were to accept for purposes of the requirement ACC's experience in providing hospital food services. We find nothing unreasonable in the Army's decision that ACC does not meet the contractor-experience requirement, which, the record shows, led to a low score for ACC for technical experience under each RFP's technical approach evaluation factor.[1] We considered essentially the same contractor-experience requirement in our decision in Industrial Maintenance Servs., Inc., B-261671 et al., Oct. 3, 1995, 95-2 CPD para. 157, which concerned three other Army procurements of hospital housekeeping services. The Army there reported that the requirement that offerors have performed housekeeping services in a healthcare or patient care environment for 2 years within the past 3 years was needed to provide reasonable assurance that prospective contractors performing cleaning services in the hospitals had demonstrated experience in maintaining aseptic conditions in compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations implemented 3 years earlier. The OSHA regulations require employers to establish procedures to protect employees who stand a reasonable risk of occupational exposure to blood and infectious materials, and to protect employees against hazardous chemicals in the workplace.