TITLE: B-296435.12, Department of Agriculture--Reconsideration, November 3, 2005
BNUMBER: B-296435.12
DATE: November 3, 2005
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B-296435.12, Department of Agriculture--Reconsideration, November 3, 2005

   DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
   The decision issued on the date below was subject to a GAO Protective
   Order. This redacted version has been approved for public release.

   Decision

   Matter of: Department of Agriculture--Reconsideration

   File: B-296435.12

   Date: November 3, 2005

   Byron W. Waters, Esq., Department of Agriculture, for the requester.

   John Lukjanowicz, Esq., Oles Morrison Rinker & Baker LLP, for the
   protester.

   John L. Formica, Esq., and Jerold D. Cohen, Esq., Office of the General
   Counsel, GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

   DIGEST

   Statutory and regulatory mandate that an agency consider cost to the
   government in evaluating proposals applies to both requirements and
   indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts; analysis addressing
   difficulty of doing that necessarily applies to both types of contracts,
   since in both the exact quantity to be delivered is unknown at contract
   award.

   DECISION

   The Department of Agriculture asks that we reconsider our decision in R&G
   Food Service, Inc., d/b/a Port-A-Pit Catering, B-296435.4, B-296435.9,
   Sept. 15, 2005, 2005 CPD para.___, sustaining Port-A-Pit's protest of its
   nonselection for contract award under request for proposals (RFP) No.
   49-05-07, issued by the National Interagency Fire Center, Forest Service,
   for mobile food services in various locations.

   We deny the reconsideration request.

   The RFP provided for multiple awards of fixed-price requirements contracts
   for a base year and four 1-year options. The successful contractors under
   the RFP will be required to provide hot and cold meals and various
   supplemental items at 27 field locations (referred to as designated
   dispatch points, or DDPs) during wildland fires and other types of
   activities throughout the contiguous western United States and Alaska by
   means of mobile food service units (MFSU). The RFP permitted offerors to
   propose for multiple DDPs, and provided for the award of one contract for
   each location.

   The solicitation required offerors to submit unit prices for meal services
   (e.g., breakfast, sack lunch, dinner), MFSU mileage, and handwashing
   units, which would form the basis of a requirements-type contract, as well
   as unit prices for additional refrigeration storage space, additional
   tents and seating, and supplemental food and beverage items, which would
   form the basis of a blanket purchase agreement. The solicitation did not
   provide estimated quantities for any of these items, including the meal
   services, MFSU mileage, and handwashing units, and as such did not request
   extended prices or total prices for the services to be provided.

   The solicitation identified a number of technical evaluation factors, and
   informed offerors that the technical factors, when combined, were
   approximately equal in importance to price. Contract awards were to be
   made to the offerors submitting the proposals determined to meet the
   minimum requirements of the solicitation and to be the most advantageous
   to the government. Port-A-Pit received no awards because of the agency's
   determination that the firm's prices for MFSU mileage were not fair and
   reasonable.

   Port-A-Pit protested that the agency's determination was improperly based
   upon only one component of its proposed price (i.e., its mileage price).
   The firm argued that given the relative proportions of the items likely to
   be required under the contracts (meals, mileage, handwashing units), an
   offer with a higher MFSU mileage price could nevertheless represent a
   lower overall cost to the government. Port-A-Pit further contended that
   the Forest Service's price evaluation was irrational because it only
   considered offerors' unit prices.

   In sustaining the protest, we found the price evaluation fundamentally
   flawed because, in considering only the unit prices proposed, it did not
   reflect the actual cost to the government of the offerors' competing
   proposals.[1] Specifically, our examination of the record showed that
   meals were the primary cost for the services to be provided under the
   contract. As an example, we noted that under a predecessor contract,
   Port-A-Pit provided a total of [DELETED] meals and drove a total of
   [DELETED] miles in response to a fire in Ash, Arizona. Using the unit
   prices proposed by Port-A-Pit here, meal costs would have been
   approximately $39,644, while mileage costs, in comparison, would have been
   approximately $17,100.[2] We concluded that because of the substantial
   difference in the relative costs for meals and mileage, the agency's price
   evaluation, to the extent that it considered only the offerors' unit
   prices, failed to reflect the likely actual cost to the government of the
   offerors' approaches. We stated (at 7):

   In light of the fact that the Forest Service's price evaluation was not
   meaningful--because, as explained above, there is no necessary
   relationship between an offeror's unit prices and the likely actual cost
   of the contract to the government--we find the rejection of Port-A-Pit's
   price proposal to be unreasonable.

   We recognize that the evaluation of price in the award of an
   indefinite-quantity contract can be challenging. Nonetheless, in our view,
   the way in which the agency evaluated prices here (i.e., examining only
   unit prices without also considering the estimated quantities of each
   item) does not satisfy the legal requirement to consider cost to the
   government.

   We further stated that there appeared to be no reason why the Forest
   Service could not develop estimates for each of the items to be considered
   in the contract award determinations, since the agency had historical data
   on both the meals and MFSU mileage billed under prior contracts. We
   concluded that

   [w]ithout using such estimates, the Forest Service's evaluation here
   failed to account for the difference in the relative proportions of the
   cost for meals and mileage in the total cost to the government, and, as a
   result, there was no direct relationship between the evaluated prices of a
   particular offeror and the actual price of performance by that offeror.

   We recommended that the Forest Service reevaluate offerors' prices and
   make a new source selection decision for all locations for which
   Port-A-Pit submitted a proposal, employing a price evaluation method that
   would allow comparison of the relative cost to the government of the
   offerors' competing proposals.

   In requesting reconsideration, Agriculture argues that the decision "was
   premised on the mistaken understanding that the contracts to be awarded
   under [the solicitation] were to be indefinite delivery/indefinite
   quantity contracts (`ID/IQ') when in fact the Solicitation clearly
   provided for requirements contracts." Request for Reconsideration at 2. In
   support of this assertion, the agency points to the above-quoted sentence
   in the decision in which we acknowledged that "the evaluation of price in
   the award of an indefinite-quantity contract can be challenging." The
   agency also argues that while certain of the decisions cited by our Office
   in determining that the agency had erred in its price evaluation "support
   the assertion that it is unreasonable to evaluate only unit prices in a
   solicitation for an ID/IQ contract with multiple unit prices because the
   result does not adequately consider total cost to the government . . .
   [t]hese decisions do not support the same assertion as to a requirements
   contract which does not contain a minimum quantity to purchase . . . . "
   Request for Reconsideration at 6.

   We fully recognized, as noted four times in the decision, that a
   requirements contract was at issue in Port-A-Pit's protest, so that
   Agriculture is incorrect in alleging that our decision was premised on the
   mistaken understanding that the contracts to be awarded were ID/IQ
   contracts. In any event, the statutory and regulatory mandate that an
   agency consider cost to the government in evaluating proposals does not
   exempt proposals for either requirements or ID/IQ contracts. See 41 U.S.C.
   sect. 253a(b)(1)(A), (c)(1)(B) (2000); Federal Acquisition Regulation
   (FAR) sect. 15.304(c)(1). The main distinction between those two types of
   what FAR sect. 16.501-2 labels "indefinite-delivery" contracts is that in
   one instance the government commits to purchase from the contractor all of
   an uncertain quantity of goods or services (a requirements contract),
   while in the other the government commits to purchase from the contractor
   at least a stated minimum of an uncertain quantity of goods or services
   (an ID/IQ contract). The analysis in our decision, focused on the legal
   requirement to evaluate costs to the government, and the difficulty of
   doing that, necessarily applies to both, since in either case the exact
   quantity to be delivered is unknown at contract award.[3]

   With regard to our recommendation, Agriculture complains that "requiring
   the Forest Service to supply more precise estimated quantities for meals
   and mileage in the Solicitation" "would have the consequence of increasing
   the risk to the Forest Service for a later contract claim for breach of
   contract should an unusually low activity fire season occur." Request for
   Reconsideration at 7; see Rumsfeld v. Applied Cos., Inc., 325 F.3rd 1328
   (Fed. Cir. 2003) (inadequate or faulty estimates in a solicitation for a
   requirements contract can form the basis of a claim). Agriculture notes
   that the accuracy of any estimates, despite being prepared in good faith
   and with due diligence and care, may be compromised by the vagaries of
   whether wildland fires occur.[4]

   This aspect of the request for reconsideration mischaracterizes our
   recommendation. We did not recommend that the Forest Service "supply more
   precise estimated quantities for meals and mileage in the Solicitation."
   Rather, we recommended that the agency "reevaluate offerors' prices and
   make a new source selection decision for all DDP locations for which
   Port-A-Pit submitted a proposal, employing a price evaluation method that
   allows comparison of the relative cost to the government of the offerors'
   competing proposals." Decision at 8. As explained below, this distinction
   is important.

   Our recommendation was crafted so as to leave to the Forest Service the
   determination of the most appropriate method to evaluate the price
   proposals for calculating the expected overall costs of performance, and
   to disturb the acquisition as little as possible. As such, it is
   consistent with other decisions of our Office recommending a reevaluation
   of proposals, where a contract for an uncertain quantity is at issue,
   using a price evaluation methodology that considers overall costs to the
   government, without amending the subject solicitation or seeking revised
   proposals.[5] See, e.g., Health Servs. Int'l, Inc.; Apex Envtl., Inc.,
   B-247433, B-247433.2, June 5, 1992, 92-1 CPD para. 493 at 5-6. Moreover,
   in determining the appropriate recommendation in this case, we considered
   the fact that no offeror had complained or otherwise argued that the
   solicitation as issued (without estimated quantities) precluded the
   submission of intelligent and reasonable proposals, and that any such
   complaint raised during the pendency of the protest would have been
   untimely. See Bid Protest Regulations, 4 C.F.R. sect. 21.2(a)(1) (2005) (a
   protest alleging improprieties in a solicitation that are apparent prior
   to the time set for receipt of initial proposals shall be filed before
   that time); Neil R. Gross & Co., Inc., B-275066, Jan. 17, 1997, 97-1 CPD
   para. 30 at 4.

   With regard to the asserted difficulty in developing reasonable estimates
   of meals, MFSU mileage, and handwashing units for price evaluation
   purposes, although the development and use of such estimates is generally
   both appropriate and consistent with the requirement set forth in FAR
   sect. 16.503(a)(1) that solicitations providing for award of requirements
   contracts include "a realistic estimated total quantity," we have found
   unobjectionable alternative methods of price evaluation, such as an
   agency's use of notional or hypothetical work orders, where the agency has
   demonstrated that the development of reasonable estimates is not possible.
   Aalco Forwarding, Inc. et al., B-277241.15, Mar. 11, 1998, 98-1 CPD para.
   87 at 10-13; High-Point Schaer, B-242616, B-242616.2, May 28, 1991, 91-1
   CPD para. 509 at 6-8. Our decision that we would not expressly recommend
   that the Forest Service develop estimates for price evaluation
   purposes--and instead to leave it to the contracting agency to determine
   the most appropriate method of price evaluation--reflected our recognition
   of the difficulty in developing estimates in the circumstances of this
   acquisition. Nonetheless, as noted in the decision, the Forest Service
   does possess historical data on both the meals and mileage billed under
   prior contracts for these items, and did in fact consider the relative
   significance of offerors' mileage costs by examining the total number of
   miles incurred and billed by a selected MFSU during a prior fire season.

   The request for reconsideration is denied.

   Anthony H. Gamboa

   General Counsel

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

   [1] Port-A-Pit also challenged the evaluation of other offerors'
   proposals, but upon review there was no basis for our Office to find such
   evaluations unreasonable or otherwise objectionable.

   [2] We cited as another example a fire in Montana where meal costs to the
   government would have been approximately $69,285 while mileage costs would
   have been approximately $35,600.

   [3] The applicability of our analysis to requirements contracts can be
   readily demonstrated in our caselaw. We have long stated that where a
   solicitation provides for the award of a requirements contract, an agency
   generally will be unable to determine which vendor's response will result
   in the lowest overall cost of performance absent the development of
   reasonably reliable quantity estimates. Beldon Roofing & Remodeling Co.,
   B-277651, Nov. 7, 1997, 97-2 CPD para. 131 at 7; Respiratory &
   Convalescent Specialties Inc., B-255176, Feb. 14, 1994, 94-1 CPD para. 101
   at 4.

   [4] The agency suggests that any estimates the Forest Service may prepare
   would be "wholly fictitious" or "arbitrary." Request for Reconsideration
   at 9.

   [5] Our Office has also recommended that an agency amend a solicitation
   that provides for the award of such a contract to include estimated
   quantities in order to allow for the preparation of reasonable and
   intelligent bids or proposals. See, e.g., Beldon Roofing & Remodeling Co.,
   supra, at 7; Respiratory & Convalescent Specialties Inc., supra, at 4.