The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has denied a protest submitted by Booz Allen Hamilton [BAH] after it lost out to Science Applications International Corp. [SAIC] on a task order from the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command to provide comprehensive cyber support services for the Marine Corps Forces Cyber Command and Component Commands.
The GAO made their decision following Booz Allen’s claim, filed on April 27, which argued that SAIC’s technical evaluation and cost analysis were unreasonable and flawed.
The Navy first announced it was accepting proposals on November 22, 2016 for a contract which was meant to consolidate the work of three contracts carried out during that time by Booz Allen into one task order.
Both companies then submitted their cost analysis for the order with Booz Allen’s projecting the cost for the contract at about $33 million and SAIC at $27 million.
In their protest, Booz Allen claimed the Navy could not reasonably expect SAIC to meet their much lower costs analysis, on the grounds that they didn’t take into consideration that the contract primarily will be performed in Fort Meade and Columbia, Md., where personnel demands of multiple government agencies are high, and that the order contained requirements allowing certain personnel to command higher salaries.
Booz Allen also pushed their role as a potential incumbent on the project as offering less performance risk.
In the GAO’s decision, the Navy was cited as finding nothing in Booz Allen’s proposal that otherwise exceeded or enhanced the requirements in the task order. In response to the incumbency argument, the GAO argued it was not required to give Booz Allen credit for its transition plan solely on the basis that it was previously working on a similar Naval contract.
The GAO’s decision is not based on a reevaluation of the merits of the proposals, but rather to determine whether the task order selection was reasonable and consistent with the Navy’s own evaluation criteria and regulations.