National City Bank of Indiana, B-287608.3, August 7, 2002

B-287608.3 Aug 07, 2002 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights National City Bank of Indiana (NCB) protests the award of a contract by the Department of Defense (DOD), Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), to Bank of America (BOA) under request for proposals (RFP) No. MDA210-00-R-CPB3 to provide banking services for United States personnel stationed overseas. NCB protests that DFAS improperly permitted BOA to revise its proposal, improperly evaluated BOA's past performance, improperly evaluated BOA's proposed costs, and failed to perform an appropriate cost/technical tradeoff. We sustain the protest because the cost realism evaluation is unsupported. View Decision National City Bank of Indiana, B-287608.3, August 7, 2002 * REDACTED DECISION DIGEST Attorneys DECISION National City Bank of Indiana (NCB) protests the award of a contract by the Department of Defense (DOD), Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS), to Bank of America (BOA) under request for proposals (RFP) No. MDA210-00-R-CPB3 to provide banking services for United States personnel stationed overseas. NCB protests that DFAS improperly permitted BOA to revise its proposal, improperly evaluated BOA's past performance, improperly evaluated BOA's proposed costs, and failed to perform an appropriate cost/technical trade-off. We sustain the protest because the cost realism evaluation is unsupported. BACKGROUND On January 13, 2000, DFAS published the solicitation at issue, seeking proposals to provide commercial banking services to U.S. personnel stationed overseas under the authority of DOD's Overseas Military Banking Program (OMBP). /1/ The solicitation contemplated award of a multi-year, cost-reimbursement contract for a 5-year base period with five 1-year option periods. /2/ The RFP provided that award would be based on the proposal offering the best value to the government considering cost, past performance, and technical factors, and stated that technical factors were more important then either cost or past performance, which were of equal importance. In April 2001, the agency selected NCB for contract award. Following that selection, BOA filed a protest with our Office challenging the source selection decision on several bases. In July 2001, we sustained BOA's protest based on the agency's failure to conduct meaningful discussions. Bank of Am., B-287608, B-287608.2, July 26, 2001, 2001 CPD Para. 137. /3/ Our decision also noted that the agency had apparently applied certain, undisclosed technical evaluation "standards," and had made various errors in evaluating cost proposals. Id. at 12 n.23. We recommended that the agency amend the solicitation to disclose all evaluation criteria, conduct meaningful discussions with the offerors, request final proposal revisions (FPR), evaluate those proposals consistent with the terms of the amended solicitation, and make a source selection decision based on that evaluation. Id. at 14. By letters dated September 21, the agency advised the offerors that it was implementing our recommendations. With those letters, the agency provided the offerors with RFP amendment No. 10, /4/ and asked various questions regarding each offeror's proposal. On October 3, the agency issued RFP amendment No. 11, formally notifying both offerors that they would be permitted to change "any or all" portions of their prior proposals. /5/ Specifically, this amendment published various questions and the agency's response to those questions, including the following: Question: Is it the Government's plan to re-evaluate the entire technical proposal or to evaluate only the changes made- Answer: The Government will evaluate the response to the questions and any impact they may have to the technical proposal. The Government may re-evaluate other areas of the proposal as deemed necessary. [Question:] Will DFAS allow the contractor to change any or all portions of their existing proposals as deemed appropriate prior to award- Answer: Yes, the offeror will be afforded the opportunity to submit a final proposal upon the government[']s call for final proposal revision. At this time the contractor can change any or all portions of their proposal. Agency Report (AR), Tab H, RFP amend. 11 (emphasis added). The agency engaged in ongoing discussions with both offerors regarding various aspects of their cost and technical proposals, and both offerors responded by submitting various proposal revisions. Among other things, NCB's submissions indicated that it intended to perform the contract using staffing levels roughly equivalent to the current levels. In contrast, BOA's submissions indicated that it intended to [deleted] decrease current [deleted] staffing levels [deleted]. BOA explained that it had successfully decreased staffing levels during recent years, and that its proposed staffing reduction "[deleted]." AR, Tab T-2, BOA Updated Cost Proposal, Nov.