Main Building Maintenance, Inc., B-291950; B-291950.2, May 15, 2003

Main Building Maintenance, Inc., B-291950; B-291950.2, May 15, 2003 TITLE: Main Building Maintenance, Inc., B-291950; B-291950.2, May 15, 2003 BNUMBER: B-291950; B-291950.2 DATE: May 15, 2003 ********************************************************************** Main Building Maintenance, Inc., B-291950; B-291950.2, May 15, 2003 DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release. Decision Matter of: Main Building Maintenance, Inc. File: B-291950; B-291950.2 Date: May 15, 2003 Garreth E. Shaw, Esq., for the protester. Janice Davis, Esq., Davis & Steele, for American K-9 Interdiction, LLC, an intervenor. Clarence D. Long, III, Esq., Department of the Air Force, 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. Agency properly found awardee's technical proposal acceptable while finding protester's unacceptable, where record shows agency reasonably found material differences in the firms' proposed staffing. 2. Agency's alleged unduly favorable evaluation of awardee's proposal under past performance factor did not prejudice protester, and thus does not provide a basis for sustaining its protest, where record shows that protester's proposal was found technically unacceptable, making protester ineligible for award. 3. Protest allegation that awardee enjoyed unfair competitive advantage by having made a contingent offer of employment to a government employee performing some of the services being solicited is denied where record contains no evidence that the government employee either participated in preparing the solicitation or had access to procurement sensitive information. DECISION Main Building Maintenance, Inc. (MBM) protests the award of a contract to American K-9 Interdiction, LLC (AK-9) under request for proposals (RFP) No. F41636-02-R-0008, issued by the Department of the Air Force for animal caretaker and kennel management services at Lackland Air Force Base (AFB). MBM asserts that the agency misevaluated proposals in arriving at its award decision and that AK-9 had an improper competitive advantage. We deny the protest. The solicitation contemplated the award of a requirements-type contract for a base period, with four 1-year options, to perform animal caretaker services (including feeding, grooming, exercising, bathing, tracking and processing of military working dogs (MWD), and veterinarian clinic caretaker services), as well as kennel care and operations at Lackland AFB. The RFP divided the requirement into six contract line items (CLINS) for each performance period. The first two CLINS, for kennel care management and veterinary processing, were to be priced on a monthly lump-sum basis, while the remaining four CLINS were to be priced on the basis of graduated monthly levels of service. In this latter regard, for example, the grooming and exercising CLIN included four subCLINS for different levels of service; the first subCLIN for 1-3,000 grooming and exercising sessions per month, the second for 3,001-4,200 sessions, the third for 4,201-5,400 sessions, and the fourth for 5,401-8,520 sessions. The solicitation also stated a midpoint for each of the levels of service, as well the probability that the services would be required at the various stated levels. The grooming and exercise CLIN may be summarized as follows: +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |CLIN |Probability |Range |Midpoint | |------------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------| |SubCLIN 01 |3% |1-3,000 |1,500 | |------------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------| |SubCLIN 02 |70% |3,001-4,200 |3,601 | |------------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------| |SubCLIN 03 |25% |4,201-5,400 |4,801 | |------------------+-----------------+------------------+----------------| |SubCLIN 04 |3% |5,401-8,520 |6,961 | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Offerors were required to enter a unit price for the service in question, which would be multiplied by both the midpoint quantity and the probability of each service level to arrive at an extended price for each of the subCLINs; these extended prices then were totaled to arrive at an estimated monthly price for each CLIN for each performance period.