Decision Released: US Space Force Financial Support Services protest denial

B-422266.4

Digest

1. Protest that the agency’s determination of price reasonableness was unreasonable is denied where the agency reasonably compared the protester’s price to comparable historical pricing from various sources.
2. Protest that the agency’s best-value tradeoff was unreasonable and inadequately documented is denied where the redacted source selection decision produced by the agency in response to the protest sufficiently demonstrated that the agency reasonably concluded that the awardee’s higher-rated proposal was worth the associated price premium.

Discussion

The protester challenges the agency’s price reasonableness evaluation and best-value tradeoff. Protest at 7-24. Specifically, the protester alleges that each of the three price evaluation methods used by the agency to assess price reasonableness were unreasonable, and that the agency’s best-value tradeoff was unreasonable and inadequately documented. Id. We address these arguments in turn.

The agency employed three different price analysis techniques to evaluate the reasonableness of the awardee’s total price and average labor rates and concluded that each of those three analyses independently supported a finding that Tecolote’s price was reasonable. See AR, exh. 5, Award Decision Document at 47. Specifically, the agency compared the awardee’s labor rates to: (1) labor rates from the incumbent interim or “bridge” contracts;[2] (2) data from the CALC+ prices paid database; and (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) labor rates. Id. The protester challenges the reasonableness of all three of the agency’s analyses …

Decision

OBX-MCR Alliance, LLC, a small business of McLean, Virginia, protests the issuance of a task order to Tecolote Research, Inc., a small business of Goleta, California, pursuant to Task Order Request (TOR) No. 47QFPA23R0002 issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) under GSA’s One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) Small Business Pool multiple award contract for financial support services for the United States Space Force. The protester alleges that the agency’s price analysis and best-value tradeoff were unreasonable.

We deny the protest.

Read more here.

🔊 Listen to Story