EastCo Building Services, Inc.

EastCo Building Services, Inc. BNUMBER: B-275334; B-275334.2 DATE: February 10, 1997 TITLE: EastCo Building Services, Inc. ********************************************************************** DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE A protected decision was issued on the date below and was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This version has been redacted or approved by the parties involved for public release. Matter of:EastCo Building Services, Inc. File: B-275334; B-275334.2 Date:February 10, 1997 Donald E. Barnhill, Esq., and Joan K. Fiorino, Esq., East & Barnhill, for the protester. Lee W. Crook, Esq., and Emily C. Hewitt, Esq., General Services Administration, for the agency. Sylvia Schatz, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Protest that agency improperly applied undisclosed evaluation criteria--whether prior contracts had been of 3-year duration and whether prior buildings serviced were at least 500,000 square feet in size--is denied where solicitation reasonably put offerors on notice of these considerations would be included in the evaluation. 2. Protest that agency improperly downgraded protester's proposal based on its mechanical application of an undisclosed estimate of full-time equivalents (FTE) rather than considering protester's overall unique approach to cost efficient staffing is denied where, although agency used its staffing estimates as a starting point for evaluation, agency fully considered and reasonably evaluated protester's staffing approach. 3. Discussions with protester were adequate where agency advised protester that its proposed staffing for mechanical requirements was inadequate, and discussions with awardee were virtually identical. 4. Agency's post-best and final offer communications with awardee constituted discussions, since the awardee revised its staffing and price in response, but this does not provide basis for sustaining protest, since there is no showing of competitive prejudice to protester. DECISION EastCo Building Services, Inc. protests the General Services Administration's (GSA) award of a contract to TECOM under request for proposals (RFP) No. GS-079-96-DRC-0110, for commercial facility management services at seven federal buildings in Houston and Galveston, Texas. We deny the protest. The RFP, issued on May 30, 1996, contemplated the award of a 4-year--1 base year with 3 option years--fixed-price contract to furnish all supplies and services for commercial facility management, operations and maintenance, and custodial services for the seven buildings. The RFP required offerors to demonstrate that within the last 5 years, they had satisfactorily performed all the commercial facility management services required by the RFP, under one or more contracts. Offerors satisfying this minimum requirement were to have their proposals evaluated based on the following technical evaluation factors: (1) past performance/experience on similar projects and (2) staffing and work schedules, which were of equal importance and more important than (3) management controls. The staffing and work schedules factor consisted of three subfactors: (a) productive and supervisory operation, maintenance, and repair staff, work schedules, and subcontracting list (hereinafter the "mechanical" subfactor); (b) productive and supervisory custodial staffing, work schedules and subcontracting list; and (c) proposed facility management staff and work schedules. Price, which was less important than the technical factors, was to be evaluated for realism, overall value, and reasonableness. Award was to be made to the responsible offeror whose offer conformed to the RFP and was most advantageous to the government. Eleven proposals were received, five of which--not including EastCo's and TECOM's--were included in the competitive range. After EastCo filed a protest in our Office (B-273019), however, GSA reevaluated the proposals and included both EastCo's and TECOM's in the competitive range.