Williamson County Ambulance Service, Inc., B-293811.5; B-293811.6; B-293811.7, December 15, 2004

Williamson County Ambulance Service, Inc., B-293811.5; B-293811.6; B-293811.7, December 15, 2004 TITLE: Williamson County Ambulance Service, Inc., B-293811.5; B-293811.6; B-293811.7, December 15, 2004 BNUMBER: B-293811.5; B-293811.6; B-293811.7 DATE: December 15, 2004 ********************************************************************** Decision Matter of: Williamson County Ambulance Service, Inc. File: B-293811.5; B-293811.6; B-293811.7 Date: December 15, 2004 Lawrence J. Sklute, Esq., Sklute & Associates, for the protester. Dennis Foley, Esq., and Phillipa L. Anderson, Esq., Department of Veterans Affairs, for the agency. Sharon L. Larkin, Esq., and Guy R. Pietrovito, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST 1. Protest challenging technical and past performance evaluation of proposals for ambulance services is denied where agency reasonably evaluated proposals consistent with evaluation criteria and record otherwise supports the agency's source selection decision. 2. Protest asserting a conflict of interest because evaluator's daughter now works for awardee is denied, where daughter did not seek employment until after evaluation had been completed, and the source selection official had no knowledge of this employment until after award. DECISION Williamson County Ambulance Service, Inc. protests the award of three contracts to MercyA Regional Emergency Health Services under request for proposals (RFP) No. V15-04-0026, issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), for ambulance services at various locations in Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana. Williamson challenges the agency's evaluation of proposals and source selection decision. We deny the protest. BACKGROUND The RFP sought proposals to provide ambulance services for VA hospitals in five locations: Marion, Illinois; Effingham, Illinois; Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Paducah, Kentucky; and Evansville, Indiana. Firms were invited to submit proposals for any or all of these areas. The RFP provided for the award of a fixed-unit-price contract for each geographic area, for a base year with 4 option years. Awards were to be made on a "best value" basis, considering technical, past performance, and price. The RFP stated that the technical and past performance factors, when combined, were approximately equal to price. The technical subfactors, listed in descending order of importance, were personnel qualifications, operational organization, and vehicle fleet management. The past performance subfactors, which were equally weighted, were quality of past work performance, timeliness of past performance, and customer satisfaction. RFP amend. 1, P 10. The statement of work set forth a number of service requirements. For example, calls for routine or non-emergency same-day service required that service be provided within 45 minutes of the call, and for next-day or "future time" calls, service was to be provided within 30 minutes of the planned time. RFP amend. 1, PP 5-6. The contractor was also required to provide a minimum number of ambulances for each service area for which it submitted a proposal--that is, threeA vehicles were required for Marion, one each for Effingham, Mt. Vernon, and Paducah, and two for Evansville. RFPA atA 45. In their technical proposals, offerors were required to provide: [a] copy of the Job Description; a current, completed Competence Assessment Checklist; a current performance evaluation[;] and listing of relevant continuing education for the last two years for each Contractor employee who is proposed to provide services under a contract resulting from this solicitation. RFP at 71. In addition, offerors were to provide: copies of licenses/certificates and list recent related experience, training, specialized experience and personnel qualifications of Dispatcher(s) and [Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs)], Paramedics/Nurses proposed to perform work on this contract. Information will include documentation fully describing the make of vehicle, model, and year of vehicles to be used, location of the facilities from which they will be dispatched and maintained, and information as to the metering devices or methods contractor proposes to use in determining mileage. RFP at 72. Mercy submitted an offer to provide ambulance services for all five geographical areas identified in the RFP. Williamson submitted an offer only for Marion, Mt. Vernon, and Paducah. Award was made to Mercy for all five service areas, and Williamson protested to our Office (B-293811.1, B-293811.2, B.293811.3). The agency took corrective action and reopened discussions with both offerors. We dismissed the protests as academic. See Williamson Co. Ambulance Serv., Inc., B-293811 et al., May 3, 2004.