Veda, Incorporated--Reconsideration, B-278516.3, B-278516.4,

Veda, Incorporated--Reconsideration, B-278516.3, B-278516.4, BNUMBER: B-278516.3, B-278516.4 DATE: July 8, 1998 TITLE: Veda, Incorporated--Reconsideration, B-278516.3, B-278516.4, July 8, 1998 ********************************************************************** Matter of:Veda, Incorporated--Reconsideration File: B-278516.3, B-278516.4 Date:July 8, 1998 Jerald S. Howe, Jr., Esq., Patrick O'Donnell, Esq., and John J. Duffy, Esq., Steptoe & Johnson, for the protester. Jacob B. Pompan, Esq., Pompan, Murray, Ruffner & Werfel, for Resource Consultants, Inc., an intervenor. Guy R. Pietrovito, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Request for reconsideration is denied, where the protester fails to show that the General Accounting Office erred in finding as a matter of fact that the contracting agency essentially had performed a cost/technical tradeoff, even though the agency asserted that no cost/technical tradeoff had been performed. 2. Awardee's recruitment of incumbent personnel after General Accounting Office decision denying allegations of awardee's bait-and-switch practices provides no basis for reconsideration of the decision. DECISION Veda, Incorporated requests reconsideration of our decision in Veda, Inc., B-278516.2, Mar. 19, 1998, 98-1 CPD para. 112, in which we denied Veda's protest of the award of a contract to Resource Consultants, Inc. (RCI) under request for proposals (RFP) No. N00244-97-R-5030, issued by the Fleet and Industrial Supply Center, Department of the Navy, for support services at the North Island Naval Aviation Depot (NADEP), San Diego, California. Veda challenges our findings that the Navy "essentially" performed a cost/technical tradeoff analysis in selecting RCI's offer for award, that the Navy erred in failing to credit RCI for that firm's proposed overhead cost cap in the agency's cost realism analysis, and that there was no evidence of RCI practicing a bait-and-switch in its offer of personnel. We deny the request for reconsideration. The RFP provided for the award of a cost reimbursable contract on a cost/technical tradeoff basis for support services for a base period with 4 option years. Evaluation factors and subfactors were stated, and offerors informed that the technical evaluation factors combined were significantly more important than cost. Offerors were also informed that cost realism would be evaluated. The RFP estimated an annual level-of-effort of 186,450 staff-hours, identifying labor categories and estimated staff-hours per category. Some of the labor categories were identified as key personnel labor categories. Under the personnel qualifications factor (the second most important technical evaluation factor), each of the offeror's proposed key personnel were to be evaluated for relevant experience and qualifications. Proposals were received from Veda and RCI, and evaluated as being essentially technically equal. In the agency's cost realism evaluation, RCI's probable costs of performance were determined to be approximately $2.2 million lower than Veda's probable costs of performance. Although RCI offered a contractual cap on its proposed overhead, which the agency calculated would further reduce RCI's evaluated probable costs by $1.7 million, the agency did not account for this contractual cap in its cost realism analysis because, in its view, RCI had not provided sufficient information to demonstrate that it could absorb this amount over the life of the contract. The contracting officer, who served as the source selection official, accepted the evaluators' conclusion that Veda's and RCI's proposals were essentially technically equal. However, prior to making his source selection, the contracting officer requested that an analysis of the cost impact of making award to RCI be performed to assess "how much would it cost RCI to get up to speed." The contracting officer's representative on the prior contract performed this analysis and concluded that additional effort would be necessary to bring RCI "up to speed." He identified for the contracting officer an estimate of the minimum numbers of hours of government effort and associated cost, and estimated a number of hours of contractor effort and associated cost for this additional effort.