BNUMBER: B-270499.6
DATE: August 15, 1996
TITLE: Schleicher Community Corrections Center,
Inc.--Reconsideration
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Matter of:Schleicher Community Corrections Center,
Inc.--Reconsideration
File: B-270499.6
Date:August 15, 1996
Kent C. Dugmore, Esq., Parsons, Behle & Latimer, for the protester.
Aldo A. Benejam, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.
DIGEST
Request for reconsideration is denied where protester does not show
that prior decision denying its protest contained any errors of fact
or law or present information not previously considered that warrants
reversal or modification of our decision.
DECISION
Schleicher Community Corrections Center, Inc. (SCCC) requests that we
reconsider our decision in Schleicher Community Corrections Center,
Inc., B-270499.3 et al., Apr. 18, 1996, 96-1 CPD para. 192, in which we
denied SCCC's protest of the award of a contract to Cornell
Corrections of California, Inc. under request for proposals (RFP) No.
200-256-W. The RFP was issued by the Federal Bureau of Prisons for
residential community corrections services. SCCC argued that the
agency improperly evaluated its proposal with respect to the facility
it offered and failed to conduct meaningful discussions with SCCC. In
its request for reconsideration, SCCC contends that our decision
contains errors warranting reversal.
We deny the request for reconsideration.
The RFP contemplated the award of a requirements-type,
indefinite-delivery contract, for a 12-month base period, with up to
three 1-year option periods. Section M of the RFP listed the
following evaluation factors in descending order of relative
importance (subfactors within each factor are shown in parenthesis):
technical (reports/policy/procedure; facility; overall programs
approach); cost; and management (personnel and staffing; experience
and structure). Award was to be made to the offeror whose proposal
was determined to be "in the best interest" of the government.
The protester's central contention was that the evaluation of its
proposal under the "facility" subfactor was unreasonable. In this
connection, the protester asserted that it offered the only
operational facility accredited by the American Correctional
Association, and thus its proposal should have been rated higher under
that subfactor. SCCC also argued that the agency had failed to
conduct meaningful discussions with the firm. We disagreed with the
protester with respect to these allegations and denied the protest.
Under the "facility" subfactor, out of a maximum possible score of 150
points, SCCC's proposal received a total of 143 points--nearly a
perfect score--earning the proposal a rating of "excellent" under this
evaluation subfactor. In its protest, SCCC maintained that its
proposal should have received a higher rating under this subfactor
because it proposed an existing facility. As we pointed out in our
decision, however, the RFP did not require offerors to propose an
existing operational or accredited facility. The RFP required only
that the contractor's facility be "fully operational and ready for
performance to begin within 60 days after the date of contract award."
In other words, contrary to the protester's understanding of the RFP,
offerors were permitted to propose a facility which was not yet fully
operational by the time initial proposals were due. The protester,
essentially reiterating the arguments it made during consideration of
the initial protest, has presented no evidence or arguments in its
reconsideration request that warrant reversing our conclusion in this
regard.[1]
Also with respect to the "facility" subfactor, the protester
challenged the evaluation of the awardee's proposal, specifically, the
agency's decision to raise the awardee's proposal's score after
discussions from 122.6 to 145 points. The record reasonably supported
this change in score based on the evaluators' conclusion that the
awardee had "addressed all major and minor elements under this
factor." As with its challenge to the evaluation of its own proposal
under this subfactor, SCCC's criticism of the evaluation in this area
focused on the fact that the awardee did not offer an existing
facility. Although we did not address this rescoring issue in detail
in our initial decision, we did review the protester's contentions
and, as stated in our decision, concluded that they had no merit.
Other than asserting that the evaluation was insufficiently documented
in this regard, and urging us to reconsider our conclusion, the
protester has presented no basis showing that our original conclusion
was incorrect.
Regarding discussions, for each evaluation subfactor, the evaluators'
individual worksheets listed several items which were categorized as
either "major" or "minor" elements of the respective subfactor. For
each item, evaluators were to indicate with a check mark whether that
element had been satisfied, or enter some notation indicating a
deficiency. In its protest, SCCC argued that the agency failed to
conduct meaningful discussions with the firm because it did not
apprise it of several items identified on these worksheets as
deficient in SCCC's proposal, particularly under the "overall
approach" subfactor, where the protester's proposal was significantly
downgraded. We concluded based on our review of the record that the
agency's discussion questions accurately reflected the TEP's concerns
about SCCC's proposal, and adequately pointed out those areas of
SCCC's proposal requiring further clarification or explanation. In its
reconsideration request, SCCC asserts that we failed to fully address
its contentions.
As SCCC correctly points out in its reconsideration request, our
decision did not address whether the agency was required to raise
deficiencies identified under the "overall approach" subfactor as
separate discussion items, since the record shows that SCCC was not
prejudiced by the agency's failure to do so. Specifically, as we
stated in our decision, the record shows that even if SCCC had been
able to correct the deficiencies the TEP identified under the "overall
approach" subfactor concerning the organization and overall quality of
its proposal, and earn the maximum number of points in this area,
SCCC's proposal's overall technical score would have remained lower
than the scores of the awardee's and another offeror's lower-priced
proposals. Thus, the fact that the agency did not raise as separate
discussion items the TEP's concerns with SCCC's proposal under the
"overall approach" subfactor was immaterial to the relative standing
of SCCC's proposal with respect to the awardee's or offeror B's
proposal, and to the selection decision. Accordingly, the lack of
separate discussions under this subfactor provides no basis to object
to the award decision. See Lithos Restoration Ltd., 71 Comp. Gen. 367
(1992), 92-1 CPD para. 379 (competitive prejudice is an essential element
of a viable protest). The protester does not dispute our conclusion
in this regard, but merely repeats arguments it made during our
consideration of its protest and generally disagrees with our
conclusion that the agency's approach to discussions was reasonable.
Under our Bid Protest Regulations, to obtain reconsideration, the
requesting party must show that our prior decision may contain either
errors of fact or law or present information not previously considered
that warrants reversal or modification of our decision. 4 C.F.R. sec.
21.14(a). SCCC's repetition of arguments made during our
consideration of the original protests and mere disagreement with our
decision do not meet this standard. R.E. Scherrer, Inc.--Recon.,
B-231101.3, Sept. 21, 1988, 88-2 CPD para. 274.
The request for reconsideration is denied.
Comptroller General
of the United States
1. In its reconsideration request, the protester again complains that
the agency improperly failed to provide SCCC with all of the documents
concerning the evaluation of the proposals submitted by the other two
unsuccessful offerors. The protester does not provide any convincing
argument--and we see none--showing how the evaluation of the two
unsuccessful offerors' proposals is relevant to SCCC's protest. To
the extent that SCCC argues that the evaluation of the unsuccessful
offerors' proposals was unreasonable or inconsistent with the RFP's
evaluation scheme, SCCC is not an interested party to raise these
allegations. See 4 C.F.R. sec. 21.0(a) (1996). The proper parties to
raise these allegations are the other unsuccessful offerors, each of
whom has a more direct interest in the outcome of such a challenge.
See, e.g., Integrated Sys. Group, Inc., B-246446, Feb. 21, 1992, 92-1
CPD para. 213.