York Building Services, Inc.; Olympus Building Services, Inc.--Costs, B-282887.10; B-282887.11, August 29, 2000

York Building Services, Inc.; Olympus Building Services, Inc.--Costs, B-282887.10; B-282887.11, August 29, 2000 TITLE: York Building Services, Inc.; Olympus Building Services, Inc.--Costs, B-282887.10; B-282887.11, August 29, 2000 BNUMBER: B-282887.10; B-282887.11 DATE: August 29, 2000 ********************************************************************** York Building Services, Inc.; Olympus Building Services, Inc.--Costs, B-282887.10; B-282887.11, August 29, 2000 Decision Matter of: York Building Services, Inc.; Olympus Building Services, Inc.--Costs File: B-282887.10; B-282887.11 Date: August 29, 2000 Thomas J. Madden, Esq., and Fernand A. Lavallee, Esq., Venable, Baetjer, Howard & Civiletti, for York Building Services, Inc., and Ruth E. Ganister, Esq., Rosenthal & Ganister, for Olympus Building Services, Inc., the protesters. Kathy B. Cowley, Esq., and John A. Thompson, Esq., Department of the Navy, for the agency. Paula A. Williams, Esq., and Michael R. Golden, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST General Accounting Office (GAO) recommends that protesters be reimbursed the reasonable costs of filing and pursuing their protests challenging the Navy's evaluation and selection process where the contracting agency unduly delayed taking corrective action in response to the protests, which were clearly meritorious; Navy took corrective action only after GAO conducted "outcome prediction" alternative dispute resolution based on various improprieties readily apparent in the evaluation documents. DECISION York Building Services, Inc. and Olympus Building Services, Inc. request that our Office recommend that they recover the costs, including attorneys' fees, incurred in filing and pursuing a series of protests challenging the award of a contract to Federal Services, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. N00600-99-R-1335, issued by the Department of the Navy, Fleet and Industrial Supply Center Norfolk, for janitorial services to be provided at the Department of Agriculture's headquarters in Washington, D.C. We recommend that the agency reimburse York and Olympus the reasonable costs of filing and pursuing their protests. After learning of the award to Federal Services and receiving a debriefing, York filed its initial protest on January 28, 2000. York argued that the Navy improperly evaluated proposals; failed to follow the RFP evaluation scheme; improperly applied an unstated evaluation factor, i.e., a mandatory minimum staffing level; misled the protester during discussions, resulting in York raising its price; and made an improper best value determination that Federal Services' proposal was most advantageous to the government. On February 4, York filed its first supplemental protest alleging, among other things, that the agency's price analysis and risk assessment of its own and Federal Services' proposal were intrinsically flawed because the Navy lacked the information necessary to reasonably determine whether either offeror's proposal complied with the unannounced minimum staffing requirement. The Navy filed a consolidated agency report in response to York's initial and first supplemental protests, which denied the protest allegations and provided evaluation documents to support its position. [1] York then filed two additional supplemental protests asserting new allegations derived from these documents. Among other things, the firm alleged that Federal Services' proposal failed to meet the RFP requirements regarding key personnel; that the Navy's acceptance of Federal Services' noncompliant proposal was improper and prejudicial to York; and, that the Navy improperly failed to apply the weighted technical evaluation scheme when it evaluated York and Federal Services' revised proposals. [2] In its April 6 agency report on these supplemental protests, the Navy defended its evaluation of both offerors' technical and price proposals. On February 4, Olympus filed an initial protest challenging the exclusion of its proposal from the competitive range and the subsequent award to Federal Services. Among other allegations, Olympus protested the evaluation of its proposal under three of the four evaluation factors and the agency's use of an undisclosed minimum staffing requirement. On March 1, the Navy requested that we dismiss Olympus's protest; the protester responded on March 6. We declined to dismiss Olympus's protest and the agency filed its report on the scheduled due date. Following receipt of Olympus's March 18 comments on the agency report, the Navy sought permission from our Office to respond to certain issues in those comments which it characterized as new bases of protest.