Incumbent Not Entitled to “Extra Credit” in Transition Evaluation, GAO Says

An incumbent contract wasn’t entitled to receive “extra credit” in the agency’e evaluation of offerors’ transition plans.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that the agency reasonably awarded a non-incumbent more strengths than the incumbent in the evaluation of transition plans, writing that incumbency alone doesn’t automatically entitle the incumbent to the highest-possible transition plan score.

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Ostensible Subcontractor Affiliation: Hiring Third-Party Employees OK

Under the SBA’s ostensible subcontractor affiliation rule, hiring incumbent employees can be evidence of affiliation, but the importance of that staffing plan in an affiliation analysis depends on what role the incumbent contractor will play in the awardee’s performance of the contract.

In a recent size appeal decision, the awardee proposed to hire 85% of its personnel from the incumbent contractor, but the incumbent wasn’t proposed as a subcontractor–in fact, the incumbent was the company protesting the awardee’s small business size.  Under these circumstances, the SBA Office of Hearings and Appeals held, the awardee’s hiring of incumbent employees did not establish ostensible subcontractor affiliation.

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Unequal Evaluation: Incumbent Not Credited For Retaining Its Own Employees

In its evaluation of proposals, a procuring agency gave a challenger a strength for proposing to recruit incumbent employees, but didn’t give the incumbent contractor a strength–even though the incumbent contractor proposed to retain the very same people.

Unsurprisingly, the GAO found that the evaluation was unequal, and sustained the incumbent’s protest.

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Senate 2018 NDAA Re-Introduces Flawed GAO Bid Protest “Reforms”

Last year, during consideration of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, the Senate proposed to “reform” the GAO bid protest process by forcing some unsuccessful protesters to pay the government’s costs, and (more controversially) by denying incumbent protesters profits on bridge contracts and extensions.

Congress ultimately chose not to implement these measures.  Instead, Congress called for an independent report on the effect of bid protests at DoD–a wise move, considering that major reforms to the protest process shouldn’t be undertaken without first seeing whether hard data shows that protests are harming the procurement process.

But now, six months before that report is due, the Senate has re-introduced its flawed bid protest proposals as part of the 2018 NDAA.

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Board: Contractor On Hook For Incumbent Employees’ Vacation Time

The Service Contract Act requires contractors to pay certain provide no less than certain prevailing wages and fringe benefits (including vacation) to its service employees. The amount of vacation ordinarily is based on an employee’s years of service—and service with a predecessor contractor counts. The FAR’s Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers provision, in turn, requires follow-on contractors to offer a “right of first refusal” to many of those same incumbent employees.

A follow-on contractor is to be given a list of incumbent service personnel, but that information ordinarily isn’t available at the proposal stage. So what happens when a follow-on contractor unknowingly underbids because it isn’t aware how much vacation is owed to incumbent service personnel? The answer, at least in a fixed-price contract, is “too bad for the contractor.”

So it was in SecTek, Inc., CBCA 5036 (May 3, 2017)—there, the Civilian Board of Contract appeals held that a contractor must pay employees retained from the incumbent nearly $170,000 in wage and benefit costs based on its underestimate of those costs in its proposal.

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2017 NDAA Requires Report On Bid Protest Impact At DoD

We’ve been covering many of the important changes to federal contracting promised as a result of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. But among the most consequential might be a provision that requires DoD to compile a report that analyzes the impacts of the current bid protest system on DoD acquistions. This report could ultimately form the basis for potential significant changes to the protest system in future years.

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GAO: Agency Could Disclose Incumbent’s Staffing Numbers

In a solicitation seeking the award of a follow-on services contract, a procuring agency could validly disclose the number of incumbent personnel performing a particular function.

In a recent bid protest decision, the GAO held that this information was not proprietary or confidential to the incumbent, and that the incumbent was not competitively harmed by the release of the information.

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