Like many, I enjoy a good meal out on the town. I tend to order strictly from the menu without any additions or substitutions. Perhaps, it is from all my years of waitressing prior to attending law school. In a recent GAO decision, however, the Navy attempted to order items not on the vendor’s menu only to have GAO determine that the order was beyond the scope of that menu.
In Bluewater Management Group, LLC, B-414785 (Sept. 18, 2017), Bluewater protested the Navy’s award of lodging and transportation services to DMC Management Services, LLC, alleging the award was improper because DMC’s GSA Schedule contract did not include transportation services.
By way of background, the Department of Navy, Military Sealift Command, issued an RFQ to small business holders of GSA Schedule 48 for lodging and transportation services. The RFQ was issued pursuant to FAR Subpart 8.4, Federal Supply Schedules, whereby GSA directs and manages the FSS program and federal agencies can utilize a simplified process for obtaining commercial supplies and services at bulk prices.
Key to the RFQ’s scope of work, offerors were to not only provide an average of 120 extended-stay hotel rooms within 25 miles of the naval base, but daily round trip transportation to the naval base. The RFQ identified the lodging and transportation services as separate CLINs and instructed vendors that all products and services were to be included in their current GSA Schedule contract.
While DMC was a holder of a Schedule 48 contract, its contract only listed pricing for lodging and housekeeping services. It did not disclose transportation or corresponding pricing for transportation as an additional service. Nevertheless, the Navy awarded DMC the task order for an evaluated price of $38,009,781.
Bluewater protested, arguing that the award was improper because the Navy was procuring transportation services from DMC that were outside the scope of its Schedule 48 contract. The Navy counter-argued that the transportation services were ancillary to complete the task order lodging requirement.
In rejecting the Navy’s argument, GAO wrote, “[t]he Navy provides no legal authority for this assertion, nor does it provide any evidence that DMC’s schedule contract listed these services or otherwise explain why the transportation services are not required to be listed and priced on the FSS contractor’s schedule.” Similarly, GAO found unavailing the Navy’s argument that the transportation services were “other direct costs,” because DMC did not offer a description or established price for transportation services.
GAO explained that “[n]on-FSS products and services may not be purchased using FSS procedures; instead, their purchase requires compliance with the applicable procurement laws and regulations, including those requiring the use of competitive procedures. GAO sustained the protest, affirming that “[w]here an agency orders from an existing FSS, all items quoted and ordered are required to be on the vendor’s schedule contract as a precondition to receiving an order.”
Bluewater is a good reminder that for Schedule contracts, the government is not permitted to order items not listed or priced on the vendor’s menu. Doing so could result in not obtaining any of the items on the menu.