Decision Released: Army Online Training and Education Support Services protest denial

File No. B-422570,B-422570.2

Digest

Protest challenging agency’s evaluation of proposal as technically unacceptable is denied where the record shows that certain required information was in proposal pages that exceeded the solicitation’s page limits, and the agency’s decision not to consider that information was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation’s terms.

Discussion

The protester argues that the agency unreasonably determined that the firm’s volume I and II proposals exceeded applicable page limitations, resulting in the agency unreasonably downgrading Tipping Point under the technical approach and management and staffing approach factors. Protest at 2-3, 6-8. Specifically, the protester contends that the agency improperly included Tipping Point’s cover pages and tables of contents in the page calculation for both volumes. Id. at 3, 6-9. Tipping Point argues that the solicitation specifically differentiated between the table of contents and the narrative discussion, and hence, only pages comprising the narrative discussion were subject to the RFP’s page limitation.[2] Id. at 6-10. Had the agency not improperly excluded portions of the narrative discussion sections for both volumes, the protester contends that its proposal would not have received deficiencies under either the technical approach factor or the management and staffing approach factor.[3] Id.

The agency responds that it reasonably excluded excess pages from the first two volumes of Tipping Point’s proposal, in accordance with the requirements of the solicitation. MOL at 14-17; COS at 7-11. For the volume I proposal, the Army explains that the protester’s failure to respond, within the page limits, to required questions on two practical scenarios rendered Tipping Point unacceptable under the technical approach factor, and hence …

Decision

Tipping Point Solutions, Inc., a small business of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, protests the award of a contract to AIM-KeyBridge Alliance, LLC (AKA), of Columbia, Maryland, under request for proposals (RFP) No. W911S0-23-R-MCTU, issued by the Department of the Army for online training and education support services. The protester asserts that the agency improperly downgraded Tipping Point’s proposal based on a misinterpretation of the applicable solicitation page allowance requirements. Tipping Point also challenges the Army’s evaluation of past performance proposals as unreasonable and unequal.

We deny the protest.

Read the decision here.

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