BNUMBER:  B-275319; B-275319.2
DATE:  February 7, 1997
TITLE:  Brazos Roofing, Inc.

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Matter of:Brazos Roofing, Inc.

File:     B-275319; B-275319.2

Date:February 7, 1997

Alan M. Grayson, Esq., and Ronald B. Vogt, Esq., Alan M. Grayson & 
Associates, for the protester.
Neil Lowenstein, Esq., and Howard W. Roth III, Esq., Vandeventer, 
Black, 
Meredith & Martin, for States Roofing Corporation, an intervenor.
Diane D. Hayden, Esq., George N. Brezna, Esq., and Patrick J. Coll, 
Esq., Department of the Navy, for the agency.
Christina Sklarew, Esq., and Michael R. Golden, Esq., Office of the 
General Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Where the bidder correctly added contract line item amounts together 
to arrive at a total base year price but then used another figure on 
the next page of its bid schedule as its total base year price when 
calculating its option year prices,
agency reasonably  permitted correction of the obvious transcription 
error as a clerical mistake.

DECISION

Brazos Roofing, Inc. protests the Department of the Navy's award of a 
contract to States Roofing under invitation for bids (IFB) No. 
N00187-96-B-6331 for roofing repair and replacement.  Brazos protests 
that the agency improperly changed the amount of States's bid in 
response to a perceived error, displacing Brazos's own apparent low 
bid.  We deny the protest.

The IFB was issued on May 20, 1996, as a multiple award, requirements 
solicitation and contemplated the award of separate contracts for a 
base year and two 1-year options for each of the five different 
locations in Virginia.  Five firms, including Brazos and States, 
submitted timely bids.  When these were opened, it was apparent that 
States had submitted the low bids for four of the sites, and Brazos's 
bid was low for the remaining site, which was Little Creek.  For this 
site, Brazos had bid $1,156,925 for the base year and each of the two 
option years, for a total of $3,470,775, while States's bid was 
recorded as $1,274,430 for the base year, $1,197,964 for the first 
option year, and $1,138,066 for the second option year, for a total of 
$3,610,460.  However, during the bid verification process, the Navy 
discovered a discrepancy in States's bid for that site which it 
believed to be a clerical error.  The agency corrected the error, 
lowering States's base-year bid to $1,169,780, its first option year 
bid to $1,099,593.20, its second option year bid to $1,044,613.54, and 
its total bid to $3,313,968.74 and displacing Brazos's $3,470,775 bid 
in the process.  When the Navy notified bidders that States had been 
awarded all five contracts, Brazos filed an agency-level protest, 
alleging that States's bid was "ambiguous and unbalanced."  The Navy 
denied Brazos's protest and awarded the five contracts to States.  
Brazos then filed a protest with our Office, and the Navy suspended 
performance of the Little Creek contract pending our decision.

Brazos protests here that it was improper for the agency to allow 
correction of States's bid because there was no clear and convincing 
evidence in the bid to support the figures that the agency accepted as 
the intended bid amount.[1]  We agree with the agency that correction 
of the bid as a clerical mistake was proper.

Federal Acquisition Regulation  sec.  14.407-2(a) permits the contracting 
officer to correct a clerical mistake "apparent on its face in the 
bid."  This section contemplates correction of minor errors or 
omissions in a bid, such as transcription errors.  Trade-Winds Envtl. 
Restoration, Inc., B-259091, Mar. 3, 1995, 95-1 CPD  para.  127; Cf.  
Pipeline Constr., Inc., 73 Comp. Gen. 228 (1994), 94-2 CPD  para.  21.

The bid schedule in the IFB included contract line items only for the 
base year.  The first 15 pages of the bid schedule listed all of the 
contract line items and an estimated quantity; bidders were to insert 
their unit price and multiply it by the given quantity to arrive at an 
extended amount for each item.  Bidders were to add all of the line 
item total amounts together, to arrive at a total contract price for 
the base year, and were to insert this figure in a blank provided for 
this purpose at the bottom of page 16 of the bid schedule.  On pages 
17 and 18, bidders were to compute their total option year prices by, 
for the first option year, copying the total base year bid from page 
16 and inserting a percentage figure representing the amount, if any, 
by which the option year price would increase or decrease from the 
base year price, and then calculating the actual option year price; 
for the second option year price, bidders were to apply a percentage 
figure to the computed first option year price.   

States completed its bid on the 15-page base year schedule, accurately 
calculating the various line item extended prices based on States's 
unit prices and accurately adding them together to arrive at a total 
base year bid amount of $1,169,780.   However, when calculating its 
option year prices on page 17, States used the figure $1,274,430 as 
its base year price and then calculated both option year prices based 
on that figure.  

Although Brazos argues that there is no evidence to demonstrate which 
of the two base year figures is the intended one, we think the only 
reasonable reading of the bid is that the page 16 figure is the 
intended bid.  In this regard, we note that the contract line item 
totals that are listed on the first 15 pages of the schedule and that 
represent the insertion and extension of more than 150 unit prices 
correctly add up to the figure that appears on page 16; there are also 
no discrepancies in the individual line item totals.  Moreover, page 
16 was the only place bidders were to enter their total calculated 
price for the base year--there was no requirement for a recapitulation 
of that price on page 17 or anywhere else.  Page 17 simply consists 
entirely of line item 15AA, representing the total estimated price for 
the first option year. On that page bidders were only to calculate the 
option year price by applying a percentage factor to the 
already-calculated base year total and then adding or subtracting the 
result to or from the base year amount. Under the circumstances, it is 
not reasonable to view the page 17 figure as States's intended base 
year price and it is not apparent why, in announcing and recording 
bids, the agency relied on the figure on page 17 for States's base 
year bid rather than the figure on page 16.  In other words, only the 
page 16 figure could reasonably be considered States's intended base 
year price and therefore the figure States used to calculate its first 
year option price on page 17 logically can only be viewed as simply 
reflecting some kind of transcription error.  That being so, we think 
the agency could reasonably allow correction of the mistake as it did.

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General 
of the United States

1. Brazos initially protested that the agency had failed to make 
individual awards for the five locations, as the IFB had established, 
and had alleged that States's  bid was unbalanced.  However, after 
receiving the agency report and other documentation, Brazos has 
withdrawn these bases of protest.