SOS Interpreting, Ltd., B-293026.4; B-293026.5, August 25, 2004

SOS Interpreting, Ltd., B-293026.4; B-293026.5, August 25, 2004 TITLE: SOS Interpreting, Ltd., B-293026.4; B-293026.5, August 25, 2004 BNUMBER: B-293026.4; B-293026.5 DATE: August 25, 2004 ********************************************************************** Decision Matter of: SOS Interpreting, Ltd. File: B-293026.4; B-293026.5 Date: August 25, 2004 Alison L. Doyle, Esq., and Jason N. Workmaster, Esq., McKenna Long & Aldridge, for the protester. Robert M. Moore, Esq., and Kelly L. Hellmuth, Esq., Moore & Lee, for McNeil Technologies, Inc., an intervenor. James Hicks, Esq., Department of Justice, for the agency. Charles W. Morrow, Esq., and David A. Ashen, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest against price/technical tradeoff which led to reselection of offeror whose technical proposal, like the protester's, was rated highly satisfactory, but whose price was higher, is denied where agency reasonably determined that protester's lower prices were based on prices and wage rates significantly lower than those historically paid by the agency, so as to create a significant risk that the protester would be unable to recruit and retain the highly qualified linguists with security clearances which the agency required so as to conduct sensitive drug enforcement wiretaps. DECISION SOS Interpreting, Ltd. protests the Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) award of a contract to McNeil Technologies, Inc., under request for proposals (RFP) No.A DEA-02-R-0001, for translation, transcription, interception, and monitoring support services. SOS challenges the evaluation of proposals undertaken by DEA after it reopened discussions in response to our decision, SOS Interpreting, Ltd., B-293026 et al., Jan. 30, 2004, 2004 CPD P __, sustaining SOS's prior protest against an initial award to McNeil under this solicitation. We deny the protest. Six offerors, including McNeil and SOS, submitted proposals in response to the RFP. SOS's and McNeil's proposals were included in the competitive range along with two other proposals. After conducting detailed discussions, DEA requested final revised proposals. Based upon its evaluation of the final revised proposals in the initial competition, DEA made award to McNeil as the best value on the basis of its low price. In this regard, in the initial competition, the technical evaluation panel (TEP) rated SOS's final revised proposal highly satisfactory with low risk overall and superior to McNeil's final revised proposal's rating of satisfactory with moderate risk overall.[1] The TEP assigned SOS's and McNeil's final revised proposals identical adjectival ratings under all of the factors and subfactors, except for the furnishing qualified personnel and security plan subfactors, and the quality control plan and transition plan factors, where SOS's proposal was rated outstanding and McNeil's proposal was rated highly satisfactory, which differences accounted for SOS's higher rating. However, the source selection authority (SSA) did not agree with the TEP's evaluation and instead determined that McNeil's and SOS's proposals were "technically/substantially equal." In her decision selecting McNeil for award, the SSA modified SOS's overall rating from highly satisfactory with low risk to satisfactory with a moderate risk in the source selection document; the SSA specifically lowered SOS's individual ratings under the furnishing qualified personnel and security plan subfactors and changed SOS's low risk rating to moderate risk because of performance problems experienced by SOS under prior similar contracts. The SSA also modified McNeil's rating from satisfactory with moderate risk to satisfactory with low risk. When DEA then made award to McNeil, SOS protested to our Office, asserting that the agency's best-value decision was unsupported and inconsistent with the stated evaluation approach. In sustaining SOS's protest, we noted that while the SSA had discussed the evaluation of SOS's proposal under the personnel and security plan subfactors and the past performance factor, and the evaluation of McNeil's proposal under the personnel subfactor, documenting her rationale for adjusting the adjectival scores under these subfactors and factor, she did not discuss or acknowledge SOS's evaluated advantage under the other two technical evaluation factors, quality control plan and transition plan, where SOS's proposal was assigned "outstanding" ratings and McNeil's proposal received only "highly satisfactory" ratings.