Allstate Van and Storage, Inc.--Reconsideration

B-270744.2 Aug 20, 1996 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Request for reconsideration is denied where the request is based on information that was available to. Allstate challenged the award to P&C on the ground that the awardee's offer was both mathematically and materially unbalanced. Either because they were too large (e.g. Were to be transported by the contractor to the contractor's local facility for special packing in a contractor-provided box and then reunited with the remaining CLIN No. 0001 containers for shipment to the appropriate outbound destination. Allstate maintained that the services required by CLINs 0001 and 0003 were substantially similar. Allstate contended that the $103 difference between the awardee's proposed CLIN 0001 price ($7 per net hundred weight count (NCWT)) and its proposed CLIN 0003 price ($110 NCWT) demonstrated that P&C's offer was mathematically and materially unbalanced. View Decision Matter of: Allstate Van and Storage, Inc. -- Reconsideration File: B-270744.2 Date: August 20, 1996 Request for reconsideration is denied where the request is based on information that was available to, but not proffered by, the protester during consideration of the initial protest, and on mere disagreement with prior decision. Attorneys DECISION Allstate Van and Storage, Inc. requests reconsideration of our decision, Allstate Van and Storage, Inc., B-270744, Apr. 17, 1996, 96-1 CPD para. 191, denying its protest of the award of a contract to Pack & Crate Services, Inc. (P&C) under request for proposals (RFP) No. N00244-96-D-5009, issued by the Department of the Navy for residential packing and moving services for military families located in the San Diego, California area. We deny the request for reconsideration. In its initial protest, Allstate challenged the award to P&C on the ground that the awardee's offer was both mathematically and materially unbalanced. Allstate argued that the awardee had understated its proposed prices for contract line item number (CLIN) 0001, Complete Outbound services, and offered inflated prices for CLIN 0003, Overflow Outbound services. In this regard, CLIN 0001 required the contractor to survey and pack a service member's household furnishings and belongings into government-provided 196 cubic foot standard shipping containers and ship the goods to the appropriate outbound destination. Under CLIN 0003, any items that would not fit into the CLIN 0001 standard containers -- either because they were too large (e.g., motorcycles or oversize sofas), too fragile (e.g., antiques), or undersized (e.g., overflow articles), were to be transported by the contractor to the contractor's local facility for special packing in a contractor-provided box and then reunited with the remaining CLIN No. 0001 containers for shipment to the appropriate outbound destination. In its protest, Allstate maintained that the services required by CLINs 0001 and 0003 were substantially similar. As such, Allstate contended that the $103 difference between the awardee's proposed CLIN 0001 price ($7 per net hundred weight count (NCWT)) and its proposed CLIN 0003 price ($110 NCWT) demonstrated that P&C's offer was mathematically and materially unbalanced. After reviewing the agency's and awardee's explanations of the pricing disparity, we concluded that the differences between the awardee's proposed CLIN 0001 and CLIN 0003 prices reasonably could reflect different costs involved in performing these two CLINs. In our view, the record -- which included a showing that the awardee's CLIN pricing was consistent with competitive awards made for similar moving services in other contracting regions, including Lemoore, California and Corpus Christi, Texas -- demonstrated that the additional special handling, packaging, and shipping involved in dealing with overflow and/or oversize articles under CLIN 0003 reasonably could require a more expensive packaging and moving approach by the contractor because of additional costs necessary to minimize the contractor's risk of damage to the CLIN 0003 items -- which are typically higher priced, valuable goods. On reconsideration, Allstate for the first time requests that this Office "consider one item of additional evidence demonstrating that the arguments and limited evidence offered by the [a]gency and [P&C] were inaccurate, illogical and unreliable." Specifically, in its reconsideration request, Allstate has introduced pricing data from a "late 1995" Camp Pendleton, California procurement which indicates that P&C's proposed prices for its standard packing/moving services CLINs and overflow packing/moving services CLINs differed by only $10 NCWT per CLIN. Allstate contends that this evidence demonstrates that the awardee's CLIN 0001 and CLIN 0003 prices for this procurement -- which, as noted above differ by $103 -- are mathematically and materially unbalanced.