Sayres & Associates Corporation, B-295946; B-295946.2, April 25, 2005

Sayres & Associates Corporation, B-295946; B-295946.2, April 25, 2005 TITLE: Sayres & Associates Corporation, B-295946; B-295946.2, April 25, 2005 BNUMBER: B-295946; B-295946.2 DATE: April 25, 2005 ********************************************************************** Decision Matter of: Sayres & Associates Corporation File: B-295946; B-295946.2 Date: April 25, 2005 Robert M. Moore, Esq., Kristen A. Bennett, Esq., and Kelly L. Hellmuth, Esq., Moore & Lee, LLP, for the protester. Brian W. Craver, Esq., Person & Craver LLP, for Navarro Research and Engineering, Inc., an intervenor. Gena E. Cadieux, Esq., Patricia D. Graham, Esq., and Patricia A. Walters, Esq., Department of Energy, for the agency. Sharon L. Larkin, Esq., and James A. Spangenberg, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. DIGEST Agency properly excluded from consideration some of the protester's descriptions of past performance and a late submitted reference, where the descriptions exceeded the page limit set forth in the solicitation and the agency made reasonable efforts to contact the reference but the reference failed to timely respond. DECISION Sayres and Associates Corporation protests the award of a contract to Navarro Research and Engineering, Inc., issued by the Department of Energy (DOE) under request for proposals (RFP) No. DE-RP36-04FO94027 for administrative and technical support services. Sayres challenges the evaluation of its past performance and the agency's selection of Navarro for award. We deny the protest. The RFP, issued as a section 8(a) set-aside, provided for award of a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with performance-based incentive fees for a 2-year base period with three 1-year options. The solicitation stated that award would be made on a "best value" basis, considering technical and price criteria, with the technical criteria being "predominant in importance." RFP S M.3. The technical evaluation factors, listed in descending order of importance, included staffing and management approach (50 percent), technical approach (40 percent), and past performance (10 percent). RFP S M.4. The RFP instructed offerors to "fully address" in their technical proposals the areas identified as technical evaluation factors, and advised them that failure to do so "may result in lower evaluation scores." Specifically with regard to past performance (the evaluation of which is protested here), offerors were instructed to "fully discuss their performance under existing and prior contracts" for both themselves and any proposed subcontractors, and advised that "[p]articular attention should be given to" five specific subfactors for past performance. RFP S L.16(c). In addition, offerors were to complete "Reference Information Sheets" for at least three contracts or subcontracts, performed within the last 3 to 5 years, that were similar in size and scope to the work required by the solicitation. These sheets were 1-page forms provided in the RFP that sought general contract information (e.g., contract number, type, period of performance, dollar value, contracting agency, and whether the contract involved on-site support services), a description of the work, a list of subcontractors and the percentage of work they performed, and contact information for the references. The RFP, as amended, provided that technical proposals were limited to 20 pages, "exclusive of resumes and Past Performance Reference Information Sheets." RFP amend. 1, S L.16. Thirty-four offerors, including Sayres and Navarro, submitted proposals in response to the RFP. For those proposals that exceeded the page limitation, the agency did not consider the excess pages. In this regard, in addition to its 20-page technical proposal and Reference Information Sheets, Sayres submitted as an attachment to its proposal additional documents, including a descriptive overview of its past performance and detailed descriptions of how each of its identified contracts met the past performance criteria. Agency Report (AR), Tab C.2, Sayres' Technical Proposal, attach. B. The agency did not consider this additional descriptive information in its evaluation of Sayres' proposal. Sayres had also proposed to perform the work with a subcontractor, and provided the agency with a list of past performance references for both itself and its subcontractor, which the agency contacted by e-mail on December 2, 2004. The agency claims that none of Sayres' references responded; only two references for the subcontractor responded, which the agency considered in its evaluation.