Matter of:Sylvest Management Systems Corporation

Matter of:Sylvest Management Systems Corporation BNUMBER: B-275935; B-275935.2 DATE: April 21, 1997 TITLE: Matter of:Sylvest Management Systems Corporation ********************************************************************** 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:Sylvest Management Systems Corporation File: B-275935; B-275935.2 Date:April 21, 1997 William F. Savarino, Esq., Cohen & White, for the protester. William M. Rosen, Esq., and Robert J. Moss, Esq., Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky, for BTG, Inc., an intervenor. Michael L. Wills, Esq., Tennessee Valley Authority, for the agency. Scott H. Riback, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Act, 16 U.S.C. sec. sec. 831-831dd (1994), and "procurement code" adopted by TVA Board require, at a minimum, that TVA consider total price in evaluating proposals and making award decisions. 2. Protest is sustained where record shows that price evaluation improperly failed to include the cost of all required items in its evaluation of awardee's price for computer systems; some required hardware items were listed in the proposal as optional equipment and were priced separately from the systems prices, and a certification executed by the awardee in its best and final offer was not sufficient to include those optional items in the systems at no additional cost. Award therefore improperly was based on less than the actual price of the awardee's systems. DECISION Sylvest Management Services Corporation protests the award of a contract to BTG, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. YD-142201, issued by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for the purchase of computer hardware and maintenance support services. Sylvest argues that the award to BTG is improper because its evaluated price did not, as TVA believed, include all required equipment. We sustain the protest. The RFP included three broad schedules of products and services. Schedule I was for the purchase of computer maintenance services, and Schedules II and III were for the purchase of various hardware and software upgrades to existing TVA computers, as well as for the purchase of new hardware. The solicitation also permitted the award of multiple contracts, and the agency advised that it reserved the right to award one contract for Schedule I and another for Schedules II and III; this protest concerns only the new hardware requirements under Schedule III, and thus only the portion of BTG's contract covering that equipment. Under schedule III, firms were required to offer nine servers--three different-sized servers (small, medium, and large) from three different manufacturers. Offerors were required to run both industry standard and TVA needs-specific benchmark testing. The RFP required offerors to certify as follows: "Regarding the benchmark requirements, whatever configuration you use to run the benchmark successfully shall be the same configuration you use in your pricing proposal." The acquisition was conducted on a best value basis, with the RFP specifying that TVA would make award to the offeror whose proposal received the highest cumulative score for both technical and price evaluation factors. TVA received numerous offers in response to the RFP and, after evaluating the proposals, engaging in discussions and soliciting two rounds of best and final offers (BAFO), made award to BTG as the firm submitting the proposal deemed to offer the best overall value to the government. SCOPE OF REVIEW As an initial matter, TVA argues that this acquisition is not subject to generally applicable procurement statutes and regulations, including the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (FPASA) as amended, 41 U.S.C. sec. 253-266 (1994), and the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), 48 C.F.R. chap. 1 (1996). In this regard, TVA notes that Congress, through the enactment of the Information Technology Management Reform Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-106, sec. 5101, 101 Stat. 679, 680 (1996), recently repealed the Brooks Act, 40 U.S.C. sec. 759 (1994); the Brooks Act was the authority under which TVA previously conducted its automatic data processing (ADP) acquisitions (such as the one here), and which required it to abide by the various statutes and regulations noted above in conducting ADP procurements. Telos Field Eng'g, B-257747, Nov. 3, 1994, 94-2 CPD para. 172, at 3, and authorities cited therein.