Tessada & Associates, Inc., B-293942, July 15, 2004

B-293942 Jul 15, 2004 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights Tessada & Associates, Inc. protests the agency's evaluation of its proposal and the award of a contract to BearingPoint, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No. HQ0423-04-R-0002, issued by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) for accounting reconciliation services. Tessada contends that its technical proposal should have been evaluated more favorably and that the firm's offer should have been considered the most advantageous to the agency in light of its lower price. The protester contends that the award to BearingPoint on the basis of that firm's technically superior, higher-priced proposal was unreasonable. We deny the protest. View Decision B-293942, Tessada & Associates, Inc., July 15, 2004 Decision Matter of: Tessada & Associates, Inc. File: B-293942 Date: July 15, 2004 Antonio R. Franco, Esq., Andrew P. Hallowell, Esq., Jennifer M. Morrison, Esq., and Jennafer M. Smoker, Esq., Piliero, Mazza & Pargament, for the protester. William A. Roberts, III, Esq., Paul F. Khoury, Esq., Timothy W. Staley, Esq., and William J. Grimaldi, Esq., Wiley Rein & Fielding, for BearingPoint, Inc., an intervenor. Michael B. Majeski, Esq., John F. Ruoff, Esq., and John Thompson, Esq., Defense Finance and Accounting Service, for the agency. Susan K. McAuliffe, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Protest of proposal evaluation and source selection is denied where record shows evaluation and award decision were reasonable and consistent with solicitation's evaluation terms and applicable procurement rules. DECISION Tessada & Associates, Inc. protests the agency's evaluation of its proposal and the award of a contract to BearingPoint, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No.HQ0423-04-R-0002, issued by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) for accounting reconciliation services. Tessada contends that its technical proposal should have been evaluated more favorably and that the firm's offer should have been considered the most advantageous to the agency in light of its lower price. The protester contends that the award to BearingPoint on the basis of that firm's technically superior, higher-priced proposal was unreasonable. We deny the protest. The RFP, issued on December 17, 2003, contemplated the award of an indefinite-quantity contract for a base and 4 option years. [1] The services called for by the RFP, which are required to resolve out-of-balance conditions between accounting records and systems to facilitate contract closeout processes, include both full and limited scope reconciliations. [2] All reconciliation requests were to originate as limited scope reconciliations requiring performance within a total of 35 hours and payment at a fixed price; full reconciliations, providing additional time for completion (as requested by the contractor and approved by the agency), were to be charged at an hourly rate for all work done (including the initial 35 hours of work prior to conversion of the effort to a full reconciliation). RFP at 18. The RFP contemplated a best value source selection and provided that award would be made to the offeror providing the greatest confidence that it will best meet or exceed the requirements affordably. Id. at 87. Offerors were specifically advised that [t]his may result in an award to a higher rated, higher priced offeror, where the decision is consistent with the evaluation factors and the Source Selection Authority (SSA) reasonably determines that the technical superiority and/or overall business approach and/or superior past performance of a higher price[d] offeror outweighs the cost difference. Id. The RFP provided the following three evaluation factors for award: past performance, technical, and price. Past performance was the most important factor; the past performance and technical factors combined were significantly more important than price. The technical factor consisted of the following three subfactors: technical approach (requiring responses to two sample tasks); key personnel (requiring program manager and alternate program manager resumes demonstrating for each individual a minimum of 6 years of general experience in task management related to contract finance, contract reconciliation, accounting, business, and financial management services of similar size and complexity to the work described in the RFP); and management plan. Id. at 22, 73-78, and 88. Offerors were instructed that price was the least important evaluation factor for award and would be evaluated for realism and consistency with the technical proposal; the RFP cautioned that unbalanced prices could result in a negative risk assessment. Id.