Protest that source selection decision was unreasonable is sustained where the best-value determination was based on an unreasonable and inadequately documented evaluation, and did not include consideration of the protester’s lowest-priced proposal in the tradeoff analysis.
GAO found that the agency’s assignment of an adjectival rating for technical approach does not comply with the RFP and was not adequately documented. The RFP established that a marginal rating would be assigned to a proposal that has one or more weaknesses that are not offset by strengths. In this regard, Arcadis received one significant weakness, twelve weaknesses, and seven strengths, and was assigned an overall rating of marginal. Despite the fact that the solicitation anticipated balancing of strengths against weaknesses, the SSA’s narrative discussion of Arcadis’ proposal only addressed the weaknesses, and included no discussion any of the seven strengths identified in the proposal.
Therefore, GAO found that the record failed to demonstrate a reasonable basis for at least five of the weaknesses assigned to the protester’s proposal, and indicated that a sixth weakness, which was addressed during the clarification process, should not have been identified as a weakness. Additionally, the record did not contain adequate documentation regarding the assignment of a marginal rating to Arcadis’ technical proposal.
In a best-value procurement, such as the one here, it is the function of the source selection authority to perform a tradeoff between price and non-price factors to determine whether one proposal’s superiority under the non-price factors is worth a higher price. Even where, as here, price is stated to be of less importance than the non-price factors, an agency must meaningfully consider cost or price to the government in making its selection decision.
Before an agency can select a higher-priced proposal that has been rated technically superior to a lower-priced but acceptable proposal, the award decision must be adequately documented and supported by a rational explanation of why the higher-rated proposal is, in fact, superior, and explain why its technical superiority warrants paying a price premium.
Here, the contemporaneous record lacks documentation of an adequate tradeoff analysis and consideration of Arcadis’ lower-priced, but not unacceptable, proposal. In this regard, the agency performed a price/technical tradeoff between only the two lowest-priced proposals with acceptable ratings. Specifically, the agency did not consider either of the marginal-rated proposals in its tradeoff analysis, even though Arcadis proposed a lower price than the awardee. Although Arcadis’ proposal received a marginal rating, the agency did not find the proposal unacceptable, which would have precluded it from issuance of the task order. As such, it should have been included in the tradeoff analysis.
