Deva & Associates, P.C., B-281393, February 1, 1999

B-281393 Feb 01, 1999 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Protest that awardee should not have received favorable past performance rating because it is not an accounting firm is denied where solicitation provided that past performance evaluation would be based on offeror's performance of similar services. Protest that agency's failure to consider references precluded it from properly evaluating past performance is denied where solicitation required offerors to furnish detailed past performance information and provided only that references may be contacted. Protest that awardee's technical score should have been lowered based on the awardee's low proposed wage rates for accountants and its low overall price is denied where agency reasonably concluded that awardee's rates were not substantially different from rates offered by other competitive range offerors. View Decision Matter of: Deva & Associates, P.C. File: B-281393 Date: February 1, 1999 * Redacted Decision DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Deva & Associates, P.C. protests the award of a contract to Tessada & Associates, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. MDA220-98-R-0005, issued by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) for contract reconciliation and special studies services. Deva argues that DFAS improperly evaluated past performance, failed to adequately assess the risk involved in awarding a contract to Tessada, and performed an improper price/technical tradeoff. We deny the protest. The solicitation was issued on February 17, 1998 for contract reconciliation and special studies services, including identifying and correcting out-of-balance conditions in contract payment and accounting records and systems; identifying and correcting unmatched disbursements and negative unliquidated obligations; performing tasks to support contract close-out requirements; and identifying and correcting problems with outstanding or remaining unliquidated obligations. RFP Sec. C.1.1. The solicitation contemplated the award of an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, and provided that proposals would be evaluated against (in descending order of importance) technical, past performance and price factors. /1/ RFP Sec. M. DFAS received nine proposals and, following the initial evaluation, selected four, including Tessada's and Deva's, to be included in the competitive range. After final proposal revisions were evaluated, Tessada's proposal was rated "better" under the technical factor and satisfactory under past performance, while Deva's was rated "better" under both factors. Contracting Officer's Statement at 6. However, Tessada's offered price ($7,667,551.37) was the lowest received, and Deva's ([DELETED]) the highest, id., and the agency determined that Tessada's proposal represented the best value to the government based on its low price. Technical Evaluation Report at 1; Post Negotiation Business Clearance Memorandum at 8. PAST PERFORMANCE Deva protests that the agency improperly evaluated the proposals under the past performance factor. First, Deva argues that because Tessada is not an accounting firm, it should not have received a favorable past performance rating. /2/ This argument is without merit. The solicitation neither required that offerors be accounting firms, nor provided that the past performance evaluation would take into consideration whether an offeror was an accounting firm. Rather, offerors were to submit detailed performance information on directly related or similar contracts, that is, information regarding contracts for reconciliation and special study work. RFP Sec. L.4(c). It thus was evident from the RFP that the past performance evaluation was to focus on offerors' performance of the type of services under the contract. Consequently, the fact that Tessada is not an accounting firm does not provide a basis for questioning Tessada's past performance rating. /3/ Deva also argues that DFAS did not evaluate the quality of Deva's and Tessada's past performance, as required by the solicitation. Specifically, Deva asserts that the agency did not contact the references provided by Deva, and received information from only one of Tessada's references. Deva concludes that the agency had no basis on which to evaluate the quality of the offeror's past performance. Procuring agencies are required to evaluate proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria listed in the solicitation. 10 U.S.C. Sec. 2305(b)(1) (1994); Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Sec. 15.304(d). Here, the solicitation stated that the government would evaluate the quality of the offerors' past performance. RFP Sec. M.7(b). It did not state, however, that the quality of past performance would be evaluated through information obtained from references provided in the proposals. Rather, the solicitation stated only that the government might obtain information from sources to aid in its past performance evaluation.