Career Quest, a division of Syllan Careers, Inc., B-293435.4, March 31, 2005

B-293435.4 Mar 31, 2005 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Career Quest, a division of Syllan Careers, Inc. (CQ) protests the General Services Administration's (GSA) determination that it would be more economical to continue to perform services in-house at the agency's National Customer Support Center for Federal Supply Schedule users (NCSC) than to contract for the services with CQ under request for proposals (RFP) No. TFTP-MN-03-R-0001, issued pursuant to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-76. CQ maintains that the agency's cost comparison improperly failed to account for all of the costs that will be required for in-house performance. We deny the protest. View Decision B-293435.4, Career Quest, a division of Syllan Careers, Inc., March 31, 2005 Decision Matter of: Career Quest, a division of Syllan Careers, Inc. File: B-293435.4 Date: March 31, 2005 Darcy Hennessy, Esq., Moore Hennessy & Freeman, PC, for the protester. John E. Cornell, Esq., General Services Administration, 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 Protest raising various challenges to agency's conduct of a cost comparison study pursuant to Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 is denied where record shows that preparation of agency's most efficient organization, and evaluation thereof, were reasonable and consistent with solicitation's performance work statement and applicable guidance. DECISION Career Quest, a division of Syllan Careers, Inc. (CQ) protests the General Services Administration's (GSA) determination that it would be more economical to continue to perform services in-house at the agency's National Customer Support Center for Federal Supply Schedule users (NCSC) than to contract for the services with CQ under request for proposals (RFP) No. TFTP-MN-03-R-0001, issued pursuant to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-76.[1] CQ maintains that the agency's cost comparison improperly failed to account for all of the costs that will be required for in-house performance. We deny the protest. This is the second occasion where we have considered GSA's actions in connection with this A-76 cost comparison study. The agency announced in August 2002 that it would perform an A-76 study regarding its NCSC operations and, pursuant to that announcement, issued the RFP in April 2003. In response to the solicitation, the agency received three proposals, two of which were found to be in the competitive range. After engaging in discussions with the competitive range offerors and obtaining final proposal revisions, GSA selected CQ's proposal as the private sector proposal offering the best overall value to the government. The agency then performed its cost comparison and determined that performance in-house by the agency's most efficient organization (MEO) would cost11,604,402, compared to an evaluated cost of $12,501,638 for contracting with CQ. [2] Agency Report (AR), exh. 51, at 1. The agency concluded that it would save897,236 by keeping the requirement in-house. Id. CQ appealed the matter to the agency appeal authority (AAA), which affirmed GSA's decision to keep the requirement in-house (although in so doing it added327,000 to the MEO's cost of performance, increasing it to $11,931,402, which was still $570,236 less than the evaluated cost of contracting with CQ). CQ then protested to our Office, maintaining that the agency had improperly failed to account for all of the costs of performing the requirement in-house. In the course of that protest, the agency conceded several issues that it maintained would have added324,968 to the cost of in-house performance; the agency nonetheless maintained that the cost of in-house performance continued to be less expensive than CQ's evaluated cost by $245,268. We sustained CQ's protest, however, finding that there were two issues that could potentially affect the outcome of the cost comparison. Career Quest, a division of Syllan Careers, Inc. , B-293435.2, B-293435.3, Aug. 2, 2004, 2004 CPD 152. First, the record showed that there was an apparent discrepancy between the number of full-time equivalents (FTE) accounted for in the MEO technical performance plan (TPP) (38.5 FTEs) versus the cost calculations for the MEO (34.5 FTEs). This discrepancy had a potential cost impact of1,236,524 in upward adjustments to the cost of in-house performance, and therefore could have resulted in the cost of in-house performance being higher than CQ's evaluated cost. Id. at 2-4.