BNUMBER:  B-271644
DATE:  July 15, 1996
TITLE:  Barnard Construction Company, Inc.

**********************************************************************

Matter of:Barnard Construction Company, Inc.

File:     B-271644

Date:     July 15, 1996

Gary Wilson for the protester.
Donald A. Tobin, Esq., Bastianelli, Brown, Touhey & Kelley, for Twin 
Buttes Constructors, an intervenor.
Sherry Kinland Kaswell, Esq., and Justin P. Patterson, Esq., 
Department of the Interior, for the agency.
C. Douglas McArthur, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of 
the General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the 
decision.

DIGEST

Decision to award to higher-priced, higher technically rated offeror 
was proper where the solicitation award criteria did not state that 
price was the determinative factor and the agency reasonably concluded 
that the higher total point score of the awardee's proposal, resulting 
from its technical superiority, established that it was worth the 
price premium.

DECISION

Barnard Construction Company, Inc. protests the award of a contract to 
Twin Buttes Constructors (TBC) under request for proposals (RFP) No. 
1425-5-SP-60-07610, issued by the Department of the Interior, Bureau 
of Reclamation, for modification of the Twin Buttes dam in Texas.  
Barnard contends that the selection decision was unreasonable and 
inconsistent with the stated evaluation factors.

We deny the protest.

On September 1, 1995, the agency issued the RFP for a firm, 
fixed-price contract for construction of a 1.4 million square-foot 
slurry cutoff wall and 2,600-foot cutoff trench, to reduce foundation 
seepage.  The base effort required construction of a test section to 
evaluate constructability of the cutoff wall, and the contract would 
contain an option for construction of the remainder of the wall, an 
abatement cutoff trench, upstream blanket, and geomembrane/geotextile 
installation.

The solicitation provided for award to the offeror submitting the 
proposal most advantageous to the government, considering technical, 
price, and other factors, with technical and price factors of equal 
weight.  Paragraph B.13 of the RFP advised offerors that the technical 
evaluators would consider experience, construction methodology, and 
construction schedule.

Experience, the most heavily weighted technical factor, was worth 50 
points.  Methodology and schedule were worth 30 points and 20 points 
respectively, for a total of 100 points.  For the purpose of 
evaluating experience, the RFP instructed offerors to provide 
information on any past contracts for slurry cutoff wall construction, 
particularly contracts of a nature similar to the effort involved 
here.  The RFP also provided for separate evaluation of the experience 
of key job site personnel and specifically stated that the Bureau 
would not consider the experience of subcontractors in its evaluation.

The agency received seven offers by the due date of November 21.  The 
agency evaluated the proposals and conducted discussions.  The agency 
then requested and received best and final offers on March 1, 1996.  
TBC's proposal received a technical score of 86.8.  Barnard's proposal 
received a technical score of 72.5 points and was lowest in price.  
Barnard's proposal's combined score--price was also scored--was 
therefore 172.5, including 100 points for price.  TBC's proposal, with 
a slightly higher price, earned a price score of 89.1, for a combined 
score of 176.  On March 26, 1996, the Bureau awarded a contract to 
TBC, and this protest followed.

Barnard contends that TBC's 3.5-point advantage in the total scoring 
does not override the protester's lower price--$34,186,500 versus 
TBC's price of $38,352,544.  Barnard argues that it is improper to 
make award to a higher-priced offeror where another, lower-priced 
offeror's proposal presents an acceptable level of competence.  
Barnard asserts that it is inconsistent with the solicitation, which 
stated that the agency would select the proposal most advantageous to 
the government, to make award at a higher price merely because one 
offeror's proposal scores more highly in a subjective technical 
evaluation.

As a preliminary matter, in a negotiated procurement, there is no 
requirement that the government make award to the lowest-priced, 
technically competent offeror unless the RFP specifies that price will 
be determinative.  Hornet Joint Venture, B-258430.2, Jan. 27, 1995, 
95-1 CPD  para.  55.  Price/technical tradeoffs may be made, and the extent 
to which one may be sacrificed for the other is governed only by the 
test of rationality and consistency with the established evaluation 
factors.  Grey Advertising, Inc., 55 Comp. Gen. 1111 (1976), 76-1 CPD  para.  
325.  Accordingly, since the RFP did not state that price was the 
determinative factor, the premise of Barnard's argument--that the 
agency could not, consistent with the RFP, select a higher-rated, 
higher-priced proposal--is incorrect.[1]  

Similarly, to the extent Barnard challenges the agency's tradeoff 
decision on the ground that the point difference between its and TBC's 
proposals does not warrant the price premium, the protest is without 
merit.  The formula stated in the RFP already accounted for both 
technical merit and price.  Our Office has specifically recognized the 
propriety of using such a formula in selecting an offeror.  See Stone 
& Webster Eng'g Corp., B-255286.2, Apr. 12, 1994, 94-1 CPD  para.  306; 
Management Sys. Designers, Inc., B-244383.3, Sept. 30, 1991, 91-2 CPD  para.  
310.  Because the awardee's proposal earned the highest combined 
price/technical score under the specified formula, the agency was not 
required to perform any further price/technical tradeoff analysis to 
justify the selection decision.  Id.  Nevertheless, as discussed 
below, the record supports the agency's assertion that it did in fact 
examine the difference in scoring, identified the factors that 
resulted in TBC's higher overall score, and reasonably concluded that, 
in accordance with the stated evaluation factors, TBC's proposal 
presented a real superiority that was worth the additional cost.

Under the most heavily weighted evaluation factor, experience, TBC's 
proposal received nearly twice the number of points as did Barnard's.  
TBC presented evidence of 55 concrete, slurry cutoff wall construction 
projects completed since 1984; 10 of these involved concrete 
backfilled, slurry cutoff walls similar to the project here.  TBC 
provided detailed information on these projects with its proposal, 
which demonstrated experience with projects of similar difficulty and 
complexity to the instant effort.  By contrast, Barnard provided 
evidence of only two slurry cutoff wall projects, neither of which 
appeared similar to the instant effort in complexity.  In selecting a 
contractor, the contracting officer considered the advice of 
evaluators that TBC's proposal demonstrated extensive experience in 
the excavation methods (both primary and contingency methods) and 
backfilling techniques proposed.

In contrast, the evaluators advised the contracting officer that 
Barnard had no demonstrated experience with its proposed equipment and 
techniques for either the primary or contingency method.  Rather, the 
projects cited in Barnard's proposal involved much easier excavation 
materials and shallower excavation depths than Barnard would encounter 
at the Twin Buttes site.  Specifically, as TBC points out, Barnard 
claims no experience in digging slurry wall trenches with vertically 
operated equipment in individual sections or panels; has no experience 
in going through hard soils and keying the excavation into a minimum 
of 30" of rock; and no experience in placing concrete backfill through 
tremie pipes[2] with the requirement of watertight joints between 
panels.  Barnard's proposal received the lowest number of points for 
experience of any offeror's.[3]

Neither in its proposal nor in its submissions does Barnard claim or 
present specific evidence of experience with similar projects.  
Barnard argues, instead, that it has a demonstrated history of 
completing projects for which it had no previous experience by 
subcontracting with experts within the relevant field.  The 
solicitation, however, specifically stated that the agency would 
consider only the experience of the offeror, not the experience of its 
proposed subcontractors.  Barnard takes no issue with the specifics of 
the technical evaluation, or the points cited by the agency and TBC in 
support of the asserted superiority of TBC's proposal, and we have no 
basis to question the agency's conclusion that TBC submitted a 
proposal substantially superior to Barnard's.  While Barnard argues 
that overall the evaluators found Barnard competent and its proposal 
acceptable, the RFP specifically advised offerors that the agency was 
seeking more than competence and acceptability and might pay a price 
premium for a superior proposal, particularly one that, like TBC's, 
demonstrated greater experience with slurry cutoff wall construction 
and specifically with projects of a similar nature.  Under these 
circumstances, we see no basis to object to the agency's decision to 
make award to TBC.

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General
of the United States

1. To the extent that Barnard argues that the agency should have given 
more weight to price in selecting an offeror, its protest constitutes 
an untimely challenge to the evaluation scheme that appeared in the 
solicitation.  See 4 C.F.R.  sec.  21.2(a)(1) (1996); Minigraph, Inc., 
B-237873.2, May 14, 1990, 90-1 CPD  para.  470. 

2. A tremie pipe is one through which concrete may be placed under 
water.

3. Under the other two evaluation factors, methodology and schedule, 
TBC's proposal received more points for methodology and Barnard's 
proposal received more points for schedule, which was the least 
important technical factor.