BNUMBER:  B-277273 
DATE:  September 24, 1997
TITLE: Consolidated Engineering Services, Inc., B-277273, September
24, 1997
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Matter of:Consolidated Engineering Services, Inc.

File:     B-277273

Date:September 24, 1997

David M. Nadler, Esq., and Tina M. Ducharme, Esq., Dickstein Shapiro 
Morin & Oshinsky, LLP, for the protester.
Jerry Ann Foster, Esq., General Services Administration, for the 
agency.
Mary G. Curcio, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General 
Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Agency reasonably downgraded protester's proposal significantly under 
experience and past performance factor where only one of four 
references identified in proposal responded to agency's inquiry; that 
reference was from protester's parent company, leading agency to 
question its impartiality; and protester failed to include information 
in proposal showing work performed under that contract was similar to 
work under the solicitation.

DECISION

Consolidated Engineering Services, Inc. protests the elimination of 
its proposal from the competitive range under General Services 
Administration (GSA) solicitation    No. GS-07P-97-HXC-0007, for 
commercial facilities management services at four federal buildings in 
Texas.  

We deny the protest.

The RFP indicated that the awardee would be selected on a best value 
basis considering two technical factors--staffing and work schedules 
(with three subfactors), and experience and past performance--and cost 
(less important than technical).  Eleven offers were received and were 
evaluated with scores ranging from 2.3 to 8.7 (on a 10-point scale).  
GSA determined that the three top-rated offers--with scores of 8.7, 
8.1, and 8.0--were significantly superior to the others (the next 
highest-ranked offer received 5.9 points) and should be included in 
the competitive range.  Consolidated's proposal was ranked tenth, with 
a score of 3.5.  Consolidated's score reflected a finding of 
deficiencies in the experience and past performance factor and the 
operation, maintenance, repair, and supervisory staff subfactor.

EXPERIENCE  AND PAST PERFORMANCE

The experience and past performance factor was worth 40 percent of the 
evaluation score.  The RFP required that offerors provide specific 
information on prior contracts; specifically, offerors were to 
"demonstrate that, within the last 5 years, for a minimum of three (3) 
contracts, each of which must have been at least 12 months in duration 
. . . and for services similar in size and scope to those required by 
this solicitation and that [they] have provided satisfactory 
services."  The RFP stated that the agency would contact the firms for 
which the work was performed for an evaluation of the offeror's 
performance, and added:  "Offerors are cautioned to submit accessible 
references.  References which cannot be contacted and/or verified will 
not be considered."  The information required to be provided included:  
type of facility and gross square footage; type of services performed 
under the contract  (i.e., mechanical maintenance and operation, 
custodial, etc.); date of contract start and expiration; and name, 
title, complete address, and telephone number of reference contact.

Consolidated's proposal included information pertaining to four 
clients for which it had performed contracts:  the Office of Thrift 
Supervision; NationsBank; the Washington Navy Yard; and the Charles E. 
Smith Company (Smith).  However, some of the required information was 
omitted.  For NationsBank, the protester submitted the name of a 
reference and a telephone number, but no address, and when the agency 
attempted to contact the reference, it was told that the number was 
disconnected or not in service.  The agency sent letters to the three 
other references.  Neither the Navy Yard nor the Office of Thrift 
Supervision responded to the letters, and when the agency then 
attempted to contact the Navy Yard by telephone, it learned that the 
number provided by Consolidated was not a Navy Yard number, and that 
no one recognized the name of the individual Consolidated identified.  
Smith did respond to the reference request with an excellent rating.  
The agency noted, however, that Smith was the parent company of the 
protester and, further, that it was not clear that the work performed 
for Smith was similar to that required by the solicitation.  Based on 
these considerations, GSA assigned Consolidated's proposal 0.8 (out of 
4 available) weighted points for this factor.

Consolidated challenges the evaluation under this factor on several 
grounds.  First, it maintains that GSA should have made a better 
effort to contact the references it provided in its proposal.  Thus, 
for example, Consolidated believes that when the agency could not 
contact the NationsBank reference, the agency should have attempted to 
get a more recent phone number and an address from directory 
assistance.  This argument is without merit.  It was the protester's 
responsibility--not the agency's--to obtain and provide accurate 
information regarding its prior contracts, and the RFP specifically 
warned offerors that the agency would not consider references that 
could not be contacted.

Second, Consolidated maintains that it was improper for GSA to 
discount Smith's "excellent" rating on the basis that Smith is the 
protester's parent company.   However, we find nothing unreasonable in 
the agency's factoring of this consideration into the evaluation.  It 
is only logical that the impartiality of a reference would be deemed 
relevant in assigning the reference evaluation weight, and, we think, 
a parent/subsidiary relationship between a reference and offeror 
reasonably may be viewed as bearing negatively on the reference's 
impartiality, since a favorable evaluation could result in monetary 
gain to the reference.  

Third, Consolidated asserts that its proposal did in fact clearly 
indicate that the work it performed for Smith was similar to the 
services requested by the instant solicitation.  However, while 
Consolidated's proposal did specifically explain that the firm had 
performed operation and maintenance services at Smith properties 
ranging in size from 100,000 to 1,000,000 square feet, including 
Smith's Crystal City complex in Virginia (which consists of 25 office 
buildings, 2 hotels and 11 apartment buildings), the proposal failed 
to indicate gross square footage for specific facilities, or to 
indicate the services performed at any specific facility, as required 
by the RFP.  As this omission precluded the agency from determining 
whether the work performed for Smith had been performed in similar 
sized buildings, these contracts with Smith provide no basis for 
concluding that Consolidated's proposal was improperly downgraded 
under this factor.  

UNFAIR EVALUATION

Consolidated maintains that its proposal was scored unfairly under the 
experience and past performance factor compared to the competitive 
range proposals.  Specifically, Consolidated notes that two other 
offerors, for which only two references responded to GSA's request for 
information, received 2.4 points compared to Consolidated's 0.8, 
despite the fact that the references' ratings were lower than those 
provided by Smith for Consolidated.  Consolidated further notes that, 
unlike the evaluation of its own proposal, the agency did not reduce 
the scores of these offerors' proposals, or draw negative inferences, 
based on the failure of other references to respond.  Consolidated 
asserts that a third offeror received 3.6 points because four 
references responded, even though one response was for a contract that 
was in place for only 2 months (not the 12 months requested by the 
RFP), and a second was a base services contract which did not call for 
services similar to those required under this RFP.

This argument is without merit.  While it is true that only two 
responses were received for two of the offerors, the references for 
both involved similar projects of similar size, the entities providing 
the references were not affiliated with the offerors and, for both, 
one reference rated the firm's past performance "excellent" and the 
other "very good."  With respect to the third offeror, while one of 
the references involved a contract for less than 12 months, the other 
three references involved contracts for more than 12 months, and all 
rated the offeror's performance "excellent" or "very good."  While one 
of those three contracts was for base services, the record shows that 
the services performed were similar to those under the RFP, i.e., 
facility management, operation and maintenance of mechanical systems, 
and custodial services.  Given that Consolidated received only one 
reference, and that one's impartiality was in question, and that its 
proposal omitted information required to demonstrate similarity of 
prior work, there is no basis for concluding that Consolidated's 
proposal was scored unfairly.

OPERATION, MAINTENANCE, REPAIR STAFF, SUPERVISORY STAFF, 
SUBCONTRACTING PLAN AND WORK SCHEDULES SUBFACTOR

Consolidated takes issue with the scoring of its proposal under the 
operation, maintenance and repair staff subfactor (which was assigned 
30 percent of the weight under the staffing and work schedules 
factor); GSA downgraded Consolidated's proposal (0.6 points) on the 
basis that its proposed supervisory personnel were insufficient to 
perform the work and showed a lack of understanding of the 
requirements.  However, even if Consolidated received all points 
available for this subfactor, its score for the factor would increase 
by 2.4 points (from 0.6 to 3), and its overall score only from 3.5 to 
5.9.  Since the agency determined that only those proposals with 
scores of at least 8.0 had a reasonable chance of being selected for 
award, Consolidated's increased score would not result in its 
proposal's inclusion in the competitive range.  Accordingly, 
Consolidated was not prejudiced by any improper evaluation under this 
factor, and we will not consider this issue.  See Executive Sec. & 
Eng'g Techs., Inc., B-270518 et al., Mar. 15, 1996, 96-1 CPD  para.  156 at 
3-4.

The protest is denied.

Comptroller General 
of the United States