Link: GAO Opinion
Agency: Department of the Air Force
Disposition: Protest denied.
Keywords: Competitive Range
General Counsel P.C. Highlight: The agency is required to follow its announced evaluation methodology and an offeror can’t read additional requirements into the RFP regarding realism of price.
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GAO denies the protest of Luke & Associates, Inc., where its proposal was excluded from the competitive range under a request for proposals (RFP), issued by the Department of the Air Force for various advisory and assistance support services.
Luke asserts that the agency failed to evaluate the realism of offerors’ proposed prices under step one of the RFP’s evaluation methodology. Specifically, Luke contends that the RFP required that the agency’s ranking of offers under step one be based upon an “initial assessment of [the] offerors’ total overall evaluated prices.” GAO states that in reviewing protests against allegedly improper evaluations, GAO examines the record to determine whether the agency’s evaluation was, in fact, in accord with the stated evaluation factors.
Here, the record establishes that the Air Force evaluated proposals in accordance with the RFP’s announced methodology for evaluating proposals. With respect to Luke’s complaint that the Air Force did not assess the realism of offerors’ proposed prices in step one of its evaluation methodology, the RFP simply did not provide for such an assessment in this step. Rather, offerors were informed that the agency would assess price realism under step four. Although Luke argues that RFP indicated that the “initial assessment” of the offerors’ prices would include a price realism analysis, this interpretation of the solicitation is inconsistent with the announced evaluation methodology. The protest is denied.