TITLE:  BTC Contract Services, Inc., B-295877, May 11, 2005
BNUMBER:  B-295877
DATE:  May 11, 2005
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   Decision

   Matter of: BTC Contract Services, Inc.

   File: B-295877

   Date: May 11, 2005

   Benjamin N. Thompson, Esq., and Jennifer M. Miller, Esq., Wyrick Robbins
Yates & Ponton LLP, for the protester.

   Michael A. Gordon, Esq., and Fran Baskin, Esq., Holmes & Gordon, for Joppa
Maintenance Company, an intervenor.

   Maj. Rebecca R. Vernon, and Capt. Paul E. Cronin, Department of the Air
Force, for the agency.

   Paul N. Wengert, Esq., and Michael R. Golden, Esq., Office of the General
Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

   DIGEST

   Protest is denied where agency record provides reasonable basis for
selecting the higher-priced proposal because of awardee's more favorable
past performance evaluation. 

   DECISION

   BTC Contract Services, Inc., a small business, protests the award of a
contract under request for proposals (RFP) No. FA4418-04-R-0007, issued by
the Department of the Air Force, for grounds maintenance and
sprinkler/irrigation maintenance services at Charleston Air Force Base
(AFB), South Carolina.  BTC objects that the agency's evaluation of past
performance was unreasonable and, as a consequence, the source selection
decision to award to Joppa Maintenance Company, the incumbent contractor,
whose proposal was higher-priced and higher-rated, was unreasonable.

   We deny the protest.

   The procurement was conducted as a commercial item acquisition under
Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 12, and was a total set-aside
for Historically Underutilized Business Zone small businesses.  RFP at 1. 
The RFP sought fixed-price proposals to furnish services for a base period
of 8 months and four 1-year option periods.  RFP amend. 23.  The RFP
provided that the award would be based on the evaluation of past
performance and price, with past performance being considered
significantly more important than price.  RFP at 22-23. 

   Under the heading of "PAST PERFORMANCE INFORMATION," the RFP noted that
"Only references for [the] same or similar type contract [are] desired,"
and also stated:

   Provide a list of no more than seven (7) contracts, performed for Federal
Agencies and commercial customers that have been performed within the last
three (3) years.  Relevant contracts include, but are not limited to,
those contracts where Grounds Maintenance and Sprinkler/Irrigation
Maintenance Services, of similar scope, magnitude and complexity to the
services required to be performed at Charleston AFB, SC.  Items to include
but not limited to are pruning shrubs, policing grounds and maintaining
grounds of Taxiways and Runways, coordinating and multitasking of various
areas to include runways, residential housing and common areas.  Contracts
under which more than one grounds maintenance type of service has been
performed will

   The purpose of the past performance evaluation is to allow the Government
to assess the offeror's ability to perform the efforts as described in the
solicitation, based on the offeror's demonstrated present and past
performance.  The assessment process will result in an overall risk rating
of exceptional, very good, satisfactory, neutral, marginal or
unsatisfactory.

   RFP at 23. 

   The RFP also explained that, "In evaluating past performance, the
Government reserves the right to give greater consideration to information
on those contracts deemed most relevant to the effort described in this
solicitation."  Id.

   The agency received 15 proposals, conducted discussions with three
offerors (including both BTC and Joppa), and thereafter selected for award
the proposal of the second lowest priced offeror, Joppa, on the basis of
its superior record of past performance.  Although BTC's proposal was
lower-priced than Joppa's proposal, the agency rated BTC's past
performance less favorably than Joppa's. 

   While the services required under the contract included grounds
maintenance operations for housing and common areas, approximately 60
percent of the grounds that the contractor must maintain are those
surrounding the airfield.  The RFP indicated that maintenance of the
airfield area requires additional training for maintenance operations on
the flight line and involves different standards for maintenance of the
vegetation surrounding the airfield.  RFP amend. 19 at 10; RFP amend. 20,
Revised Statement of Work, at 2, 6.  As explained by the Air Force,
performance of the grounds maintenance at an active airfield, such as
Charleston AFB, poses more complications than more typical grounds
maintenance service contracts, including significant risks to life and
property.  Contracting Officer's Statement at 7.  In conducting her
tradeoff between past performance and price, and concluding that Joppa's
proposal offered the best value, the contracting officer specifically
noted, among other things, that 60 percent of the area being maintained
under the contract at Charleston AFB was the grounds surrounding the
active airfield and that, in contrast to Joppa, "BTC has no experience in
maintaining areas in and around active taxiways and runways."  AR, Tab 10,
Revised Source Selection Decision (Jan. 13, 2005), at 5. 

   BTC raises a number of objections related to the agency's conduct of the
past performance evaluation and the agency's conclusions.  Where a
solicitation requires the evaluation of offerors' past performance, we
will examine an agency's evaluation only to ensure that it was reasonable
and consistent with the solicitation's evaluation criteria, since
determining the relative merits of offerors' past performance information
is primarily a matter within the contracting agency's discretion.  DGR
Assocs., Inc., B-285428, B-285428.2, Aug. 25, 2000, 2000 CPD P 145 at 11. 

   As quoted above, the RFP required that the offerors furnish no more than
seven contract references.  Joppa furnished 16 references; BTC furnished 6
references.  Since Joppa exceeded the number of references to be provided
for evaluation purposes, the agency reports that it selected for
evaluation the seven most relevant references.

   BTC argues that the agency should not have allowed Joppa to submit more
references than the limit specified in the RFP.  Protester's Comments at
14.  BTC objects that the agency "cherry-picked" past performance
references that favored Joppa, and that the agency's explanation that it
selected the most relevant references is "not supported by anything in the
record."  Id. at 14; Protester's Supplemental Comments at 4.  BTC argues
that the agency simply should have used the first seven references listed
by Joppa. 

   However, BTC concedes that "the Air Force presumably had no way of knowing
at the time it selectively chose Joppa's references for [evaluation]
whether or not these contracts were the 'five most highly-rated.'" 
Protester's Supplemental Comments at 4.  While Joppa did submit more than
the RFP limit of seven references, BTC has not shown that it was
competitively prejudiced by the agency's selection of the seven references
on which to evaluate Joppa, nor does BTC argue that it could have provided
additional relevant references beyond the six that it furnished to the
agency in its initial proposal. 

   BTC next argues that the agency treated BTC and Joppa unequally with
respect to the use of database past performance information.  The record
shows that the agency utilized the Past Performance Information Retrieval
System database, which collects past performance data on contractors in
its evaluation here. See, e.g., AR, Tab 8, Past Performance Evaluation, at
2.  As relevant here, the record shows that the database contained some
unfavorable past performance ratings for a BTC grounds maintenance
contract at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.  The record also shows that the
database contained unfavorable past performance ratings for Joppa's
grounds maintenance contract at Pope AFB and for Joppa's incumbent
contract at Charleston AFB. 

   BTC argues that the agency unreasonably downgraded BTC on the basis of a
less favorable database rating for BTC's performance at Fort Jackson,
rather than consider a more favorable (and more recent) survey response
for that contract.  Protester's Comments at 15.  BTC then argues that when
the agency evaluated Joppa, the agency discounted the less favorable
database information in two instances--specifically that the agency used a
survey response regarding a contract at Pope AFB, rather than less
favorable information in the database and that the agency relied on the
contracting officer's favorable personal assessment of Joppa regarding
performance at Charleston AFB, rather than less favorable information
contained in the database.  Id. at 16.[1] 

   With respect to BTC, the contemporaneous evaluation record shows that the
agency based its past performance evaluation of BTC on the more favorable
survey response; while recognizing the lower database rating, the agency
did not actually use that less favorable information to downgrade BTC's
overall past performance.  AR, Tab 8, Revised Past Performance Evaluation,
at 3. 

   With respect to Joppa, the contemporaneous evaluation record shows that
the database information reflected a review of Joppa's performance at
Charleston AFB from October 2002 through September 2003 and did not
include any past performance information for the intervening period of
nearly 2 years.  AR, Tab 16, Contractor Past Performance Assessment Report
for Charleston AFB, at 1.  The contracting officer relied more on her own
current evaluation of Joppa's performance at Charleston AFB than the less
favorable database information.  At Pope AFB, the database information
again related to a period more than 2 years old.  AR, Tab 16, Contractor
Past Performance Assessment Report for Pope AFB, at 1.  The contracting
officer also relied more on a current reference obtained from Pope AFB. 
The record thus shows that the contracting officer treated both offerors
fairly and equally; that is, she relied on the more favorable assessment
in each case (in favor of both offerors). 

   BTC also argues that the agency, in determining the relevance of the
contracts furnished under the past performance factor, unreasonably
emphasized offerors' past performance contracts that included grounds
maintenance on an active airfield and contracts that were
"performance-based," that is, contracts that required less direction by
the agency and more coordination by the contractor.  Protester's
Supplemental Comments at 12-13.  BTC bases its argument on the fact that
it initially received an adjectival rating of "Very Good" under the past
performance factor, but after receiving feedback from an internal agency
review, the agency conducted discussions focusing on past performance at
active airfields.  AR, Tab 17, E-mail from Chief of the Operational Branch
to Contracting Officer (Sept. 24, 2004).  After discussions, the agency
then revised the past performance evaluation of BTC downward to
"Satisfactory." 

   In response, the agency explains that during discussions, it determined
that BTC's reference for grounds maintenance at the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Glynco, Georgia had been
incorrectly characterized during the original evaluation as "the same
services . . . on a smaller scale." AR, Tab 8, Past Performance
Evaluation, at 2.  After discussions, the agency determined that the lack
of an active airfield at FLETC, and the absence of any significant
performance-based requirements under the FLETC contract, meant that the
FLETC contract was actually "less complex than [the work to be performed
at] Charleston."  AR, Tab 8, Revised Past Performance Evaluation, at 3. 
BTC argues that "the Solicitation simply does not support the Contracting
Officer's elevation of these two types of experience to the exclusion of
all others in determining the relevanc[e] of a given contract." 
Protester's Supplemental Comments at 12.  However, as described above,
under the RFP, the agency would consider contracts that were "similar
scope, magnitude and complexity to the services required to be performed
at Charleston AFB," and specifically identified such things as maintaining
grounds of taxiways and runways and coordinating multitasking of various
grounds maintenance areas as relevant to its evaluation.  RFP amend. 20,
at 29-30. 

   An offeror's mere disagreement with the agency's assessment of its past
performance, or the merits of its proposal relative to others, does not
render the source selection unreasonable.  Encorp-Samcrete Joint Venture,
B-284171, B-284171.2, Mar. 2, 2000, 2000 CPD P 55 at 4.  Here, since the
RFP indicated that the past performance evaluation would take into account
the similarity in scope, magnitude, and complexity of an offeror's past
performance to the services required to be performed at Charleston AFB,
the record, as described above, supports the reasonableness of the
agency's evaluation of BTC's past performance as "Satisfactory."

   Finally, BTC objects to the tradeoff decision.  Where, as here, the RFP
allows for a price/technical tradeoff, the selection official has
discretion to select a higher-priced, but technically higher-rated
proposal, if doing so is reasonably found to be justified.  4-D
Neuroimaging, B-286155.2, B-286155.3, Oct. 10, 2001, 2001 CPD P 183 at
10.  The RFP award criteria emphasized past performance over price and,
consistent with the RFP, the contracting officer placed significant
emphasis on the importance of excellent performance in highly similar
work, and concluded that the evaluation record supported the award to
Joppa at a price premium on the basis of its "exceptional" past
performance rating on very relevant contracts.  AR, Tab 10, Revised Source
Selection Decision (Jan. 13, 2005), at 4.  We have no basis to question
the reasonableness of the contracting officer's decision to award to
Joppa. 

   The protest is denied.[2] 

   Anthony H. Gamboa

   General Counsel

   ------------------------

   [1] In a supplemental agency report requested by our Office, the agency
conceded that it erroneously treated two separate contracts, both being
performed by Joppa at Charleston AFB, as one contract in the past
performance evaluation.  The agency acknowledges that the RFP required the
agency to treat these separately.  Supplemental Contracting Officer's
Statement at 6.  However, other than alleging "unfair and unreasonable
evaluation," BTC does not meaningfully challenge the agency's assertion
that the error did not prejudice BTC because if the two contracts had been
properly evaluated separately, Joppa would have received a favorable
evaluation on two contracts, instead of one. 

   [2] BTC challenged the past performance evaluation on multiple grounds.
    This decision addresses BTC's key arguments.  However, we have reviewed
the record and find all of BTC's arguments to be without merit.