B-299369, AMS Group, April 12, 2007

B-299369 Apr 12, 2007 Jump To VIEW DECISION DOWNLOADS RELATED PAGES GAO CONTACTS Highlights AMS Group protests the terms of request for proposals (RFP) No. PIDAC-07-01, issued by the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for security guard services at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. AMS contents that the solicitation contains inconsistent training provisions which prevented the preparation of its proposal. AMS primarily contends that a chart in the RFP that summarizes some training requirements omits the hours for additional training requirements called for in the RFP, such as government-provided basic training, baton training, and chemical agent spray training. We deny the protest. View Decision B-299369, AMS Group, April 12, 2007 Decision Matter of: AMS Group File: B-299369 Date: April 12, 2007 Leo Reijnders for the protester. Jennifer L. Longmeyer-Wood, Esq., Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 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 that solicitation for security guard services contains inconsistent terms regarding required training is denied where solicitation read as a whole provides no support for protester's general allegations of impropriety or its allegation that it could not prepare a proposal in response to the solicitation. DECISION AMS Group protests the terms of request for proposals (RFP) No. PIADC-07-01, issued by the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for security guard services at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. AMS contends that the solicitation contains inconsistent training provisions which prevented the preparation of its proposal. AMS primarily contends that a chart in the RFP that summarizes some training requirements omits the hours for additional training requirements called for in the RFP, such as government-provided basic training, baton training, and chemical agent spray training. We deny the protest. The RFP, issued as a small business set-aside on December 6, 2006, contemplates the award of a fixed-price contract for security guard services for a base year and four 1'year option periods. RFP at 1-3. The contractor is responsible for the provision of personnel and equipment to meet the agency's requirements, including the training of security guards. Id. at 15. The RFP's training requirements are primarily set out in a series of solicitation attachments, exhibits 4A through 4F of the RFP.[1] Id. at 84-106. The training required under the RFP constitutes a minor portion of the overall guard services work called for under the solicitation. Lists of topics to be covered in the training sessions were provided in the RFP; while the agency included recommendations for the amount of time to be spent on certain training topics, the RFP specifically advised that the contractor was to determine the amount of time to spend on any topic depending on the guards' comprehension of the material. Id. at 84, 101. To assist in the preparation of their price proposals, all offerors were instructed to refer to a pricing template located at attachment A to the RFP. Id. at 125. The pricing template listed the estimated number of hours of required training. These estimates were presented in terms of the estimated number of yearly training hours anticipated for an estimated number of 45 guards. AMS contends that the solicitation was defective for containing inconsistent training terms which allegedly prevented the firm from being able to prepare a proposal in response to the RFP. Specifically, AMS alleges that although there were additional training requirements provided in other sections of the RFP, a chart (at page 27 of the RFP) failed to list all of the RFP's training requirements, including the government-provided basic training required by exhibit 4C. Similarly, AMS argues that the chart failed to specifically mention the baton training requirement of exhibit 4E and the number of hours to be spent on chemical agent spray training under exhibit 4E. Another alleged inconsistency involves the RFP's requirement for 40 hours of annual refresher weapons training under exhibit 4F; the protester contends that this training requirement is inconsistent with an RFP instruction (at page 29, paragraph D of the RFP) that no specific additional training is required for a guard's annual requalification. [2] The agency, which reports that it received 12 proposals under the RFP, and that no other offeror questioned the RFP's training requirements, contends that, when read as a whole, the solicitation adequately presents the agency's training requirements, and that the protester's generally stated assertion that it was unable to prepare its proposal because of allegedly inconsistent terms in the RFP is unpersuasive.