Link: GAO Opinion
Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Disposition: Protest denied.
General Counsel P.C. Highlight:
GAO denied the protest of United Contracting, LLC, regarding the award of a contract to Abrams Group Construction, LLC, under a request for proposals (RFP), issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), for construction and maintenance services at the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System (CAVHCS) medical centers in Tuskegee and Montgomery, Alabama.
The RFP was set aside for service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses and provided for the award of an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract for a base year and four option years. The factors to be considered included: experience/capability; past performance; and price. For the experience/capability factor, the RFP included a list of items that offerors were to provide: describing experience with managing construction projects, including any experience as an ID/IQ contractor; identifying proposed key personnel, their experience and percentage of each person’s workweek that would be committed to the contract. For past performance, offerors were to be evaluated based on their recent and successful performance under contracts within the last three years.
The protester argued that even though it was never awarded an ID/IQ contract, experience as an ID/IQ contractor was not a stated evaluation criterion. GAO found that the agency’s evaluation with respect to the protester’s experience was reasonable and consistent with the RFP’s stated evaluation criteria. The RFP explicitly listed experience as an ID/IQ contractor. Even though United claimed that its key personnel did have the requisite contract experience, the resumes it submitted only showed that one of its key personnel had the required ID/IQ experience.