Dismas Charities, Inc.�, B-292091, June 25, 2003

B-292091 Jun 25, 2003 Jump To VIEW DECISION RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Protest is sustained where agency applied an evaluation scheme other than that established by the solicitation. Which was conducted "in the heat of an adversarial process". An increase to the awardee's rating which is unsupported by objective documentation. GAO declines to afford any material weight to the reevaluation activities and rejects the assertion that the reevaluation demonstrates that protester was not prejudiced by the agency's errors in the conduct of the procurement. BACKGROUND The RFP at issue here was published on January 10. Offerors were advised that proposals would be evaluated on the basis of cost/price /2/ and the following non-cost/price factors. No relative weights were assigned to these subfactors. View Decision Dismas Charities, Inc., B-292091, June 25, 2003 * REDACTED DECISION DIGEST Attorneys DECISION Dismas Charities, Inc. protests the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons' (BOP) award of a contract to Alston Wilkes Society (AWS) pursuant to request for proposals (RFP) No. 200-0724-SE to establish, operate, and maintain a community corrections center for federal offenders in Charleston, South Carolina. /1/ Dismas protests, among other things, that the agency failed to evaluate proposals in a manner consistent with the RFP's stated evaluation criteria and failed to conduct meaningful discussions. We sustain the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP at issue here was published on January 10, 2002 and contemplated award of a fixed unit-price requirements contract for a 2-year base period and three 1-year option periods. Offerors were advised that proposals would be evaluated on the basis of cost/price /2/ and the following non-cost/price factors, listed in descending order of importance: past performance, community relations, technical, and management. /3/ The RFP further provided that the agency's evaluation under the technical factor would reflect consideration of three subfactors--reports/policy/procedures, facility, and overall programs approach; no relative weights were assigned to these subfactors. Finally, offerors were advised that the non-cost/price evaluation factors, combined, were "significantly more important than cost[/price]," and that cost/price would become a "major factor" only if "evaluations result in substantially 'technically equal' scores." Agency Report, Tab 1, RFP, at 64. Initial proposals were submitted by three offerors, including Dismas and AWS, by the June 7, 2002 closing date. These proposals were evaluated by the agency's source selection evaluation board (SSEB) and, thereafter, written and oral discussions were conducted with each offeror. /4/ Following discussions, the agency requested that each offeror submit its final proposal revisions (FPR). The SSEB evaluated the FPRs and assigned the following scores: . AWS Dismas Offeror X Past Performance[/5/] (400 max.) [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] Community Relations (350 max.) [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] Technical (250 max.) [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] Management (250 max.) [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] Cost/Price (250 max.) [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] Total (1500 max.) [deleted] [deleted] [deleted] Agency Report, Tab 8, at 4. The contracting officer states that, based on this evaluation, Dismas's and AWS's proposals were determined to be "substantially equal overall," Agency Report, Contracting Officer's Statement, at 12-13, and that, "based on the overall equality of the technical proposals" AWS's proposal, which offered the lowest cost/price, was selected for award. /6/ Id. This protest followed. DISCUSSION Dismas challenges the agency's evaluation of its and AWS's proposal under several of the stated evaluation factors. Overall, Dismas protests that the agency failed to adhere to the RFP's evaluation scheme for evaluation of the technical factor; failed to consider all of Dismas's proposal information with regard to the community relations factor; failed to obtain past performance information in a consistent manner and as specified by the RFP; and failed to permit Dismas to respond to adverse past performance information. The agency acknowledges that it made various errors in conducting this procurement. /7/ Agency Response to Dismas Comments, May 12, 2003, at 8. For example, the agency acknowledges that, pursuant to the RFP, the technical evaluation subfactors should have been accorded equal weight; /8/ that the agency actually accorded twice as much weight to the first two technical subfactors as it accorded the third; /9/ and that it was "likely improper" for the agency to have accorded the subfactors differing weights.