Best Value, Not Best Ratings: GAO Rejects Protester’s Tradeoff Challenge

The protester objected to the agency’s issuance of a task order for support services, arguing, among other things, that the agency conducted a flawed best-value tradeoff based solely on adjectival ratings. GAO denied. Source selection officials have broad discretion in tradeoff decisions, and adequate documentation need only show the agency was aware of the relative merits and costs of competing proposals.

Absolute Strategic Technologies, LLC, B-424321.2; B-424321.3

Background – The Air Force issued a task order solicitation to support a web-based data system for equipment maintenance data. The solicitation contemplated a best-value tradeoff with three equally weighted technical subfactors—operations support, agile capability support, and staffing approach—and a cost/price factor combining firm-fixed-price (FFP) and cost-plus-fixed-fee level-of-effort (CPFF-LOE) CLINs. Both offerors received identical adjectival ratings, but the awardee’s price was roughly $8 million lower.
Evaluation of Protester’s Proposal – The protester argued its proposal deserved additional strengths under the operations support and agile capability support subfactors, primarily because its team included the incumbent subcontractor with extensive knowledge and experience. GAO denied this ground, noting the solicitation’s evaluation criteria did not provide for evaluating experience or incumbency under these subfactors. There is no requirement for an incumbent to receive extra credit for its status as an incumbent. The protester’s general references to automation and human-centered design—features already standard or expected—did not warrant strength assessments either.
Price Realism – The protester argued the agency was required to perform a price realism analysis on the FFP CLINs. GAO dismissed this ground for failing to state a valid basis of protest. While agencies have discretion to include price realism analyses for fixed-price work, they must give offerors notice that low prices could negatively affect the evaluation. Here, the solicitation referenced only “cost realism” tied specifically to the CPFF-LOE CLINs, required cost breakdowns only for those CLINs, and never warned offerors that FFP proposals could be rejected for being too low. Without such notice, the agency was neither required nor permitted to conduct price realism on the FFP CLINs.
Cost Realism of Awardee – The protester argued the awardee’s proposed CPFF-LOE costs were unrealistic because the protester’s own proposal reflected the “minimum” costs necessary for successful performance. GAO denied this ground, explaining a cost realism analysis need not achieve scientific certainty—it must simply be reasonably adequate. The agency compared the awardee’s fully burdened rates to a government estimate derived from Economic Research Institute data using the awardee’s indirect rates, and consulted the technical team to confirm the proposed level of effort matched the awardee’s technical approach. The protester’s own proposal was not a proper benchmark since offerors were directed to propose their own approaches.
Disparate Treatment on Technical Debt – The protester argued the agency engaged in unequal treatment by assessing a strength for the awardee’s technical debt team while denying the protester similar credit for what it claimed was “the same approach.” GAO denied the argument, finding the two approaches were not substantively indistinguishable. The awardee proposed a dedicated technical debt team within operations support to ensure technical debt analysis would not compete with other agile development priorities. The protester’s approach, by contrast, embedded technical debt work within an agile team that remained dependent on shifting PMO-defined priorities.
Best-Value Tradeoff – Finally, the protester argued the tradeoff decision was based “solely on adjectival ratings.” GAO denied this ground, pointing to a detailed Fair Opportunity Decision Document that included a comparative analysis of both proposals’ strengths and the specific reasoning for concluding that the awardee’s approach to addressing technical debt justified its lower price and outweighed the protester’s higher-priced proposal. The record showed the source selection authority looked beyond the ratings to the underlying merits.

The protester is represented by Gregory S. Jacobs, Erin L. Felix, Daniel H. Petkoff, and Eyasu Yirdaw of Polsinelli PC. The intervenor, Concept Plus, LLC, is represented by Olivia L. Lynch, Cherie J. Owen, William B. O’Reilly, and Adina B. Nelson of Crowell & Moring LLP. The government is represented by Col. Justin A. Silverman, Michael J. Farr, Matney E. Rolfe, Geoffrey R. Townsend, Lindsey A. Rasmussen, and Erika Whelan Retta of the Department of the Air Force. GAO attorneys Glenn G. Wolcott and April Y. Shields participated in the decision.