RFP issued by FEMA for medical and behavioral health services. The protester objects to the evaluation of proposals and resulting

RFP issued by FEMA for medical and behavioral health services. The protester objects to the evaluation of proposals and resulting

best-value tradeoff. Protest challenging agency’s evaluation of proposals and resulting source selection decision is sustained because record shows the agency evaluated in a manner not consistent with the terms of the solicitation.

The solicitation contemplated the award of a single indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract under which the agency would issue time-and-materials task orders with fixed labor rates.

The contract would have a 1-year base period of performance, four 1-year option periods, and included an option to extend contract services for up to six months.

The awarded IDIQ contract would have a minimum guarantee of $5,000, and a maximum ceiling of $23.2 million. The source selection authority (SSA) concluded that Docs Health’s proposal was higher technically rated than Spectrum’s proposal, as Docs Health received a higher rating under the most important factor--technical capability.

Docs Health also submitted a lower-priced proposal than Spectrum. Noting that a tradeoff is not required between a higher-rated, lower-priced proposal and a lower- rated, higher-priced proposal, the SSA nonetheless chose to conduct “a tradeoff analysis to ensure that the Government [was] receiving the best value.” After comparing proposals, the SSA found that Docs Health’s lower-priced proposal was stronger than Spectrum’s proposal under the technical capability and past performance factors, and that “the strengths that Spectrum provides in [staffing and management approach] do not warrant or justify” Spectrum’s associated price premium.

Accordingly, the SSA concluded that Docs Health’s proposal offered the best value, and selected the firm for award. Spectrum argues that “FEMA unlawfully comingled the scope of [the technical capability factor] and [the staffing and management approach factor] when evaluating Spectrum’s [technical capability] proposal during the Phase I evaluation process.” Spectrum maintains that “[i]nstead of limiting the assessment to experiential technical capability, FEMA repeatedly criticized Spectrum under [the technical capability factor] for not explaining its proposed staffing approach in the midst of outlining its experience staffing similar efforts (including the incumbent contract).” Id.

At the crux of the parties’ arguments is a disagreement over the scope of the solicitation’s technical capability evaluation factor. When a protester and agency disagree over the meaning of solicitation language, we will resolve the matter by reading the solicitation as a whole and in a manner that gives effect to all of its provisions.

To be reasonable, and therefore valid, an interpretation must be consistent with the solicitation when read as a whole and in a reasonable manner. Here, the interpretation of the solicitation advanced by FEMA is unreasonable because it fails to read the solicitation as a whole.

Read together, the instructions and evaluation criteria indicate that offerors were limited to describing their technical capability through the lens of verifiable past experience.

Thus, the agency’s argument that offerors “without experience in certain areas were not excepted from showing their capability” is inconsistent with the terms of the solicitation.

Our Office will not sustain a protest unless the protester demonstrates a reasonable possibility that it was prejudiced by the agency’s actions; that is, unless the protester demonstrates that, but for the agency’s actions, it would have had a substantial chance of receiving the award.

In such circumstances, we resolve doubts regarding prejudice in favor of a protester as a reasonable possibility of prejudice is a sufficient basis for sustaining a protest.

In light of our determination that the evaluation of Spectrum’s proposal under the technical capability factor was inconsistent with the solicitation’s evaluation criteria, we find the source selection based on that unreasonable evaluation to be itself unreasonable.

To the extent that Spectrum’s representation of the erroneous price differential is an attempt to argue that the agency should have utilized the contract ceiling for price evaluation purposes, this allegation is untimely.

The solicitation was clear, on its face, that the agency would use offerors’ total evaluated prices for purposes of evaluation. Any claim that a different price evaluation method would have been more appropriate is, essentially, a challenge to the terms of the solicitation.

As such, the protester was required to raise this allegation prior to the closing time for receipt of initial proposals-- which Spectrum did not. We recommend that the agency reevaluate Spectrum’s proposal under the technical capability factor consistent with the discussion above.

Following the reevaluation, the agency should make a new source selection decision in accordance with the solicitation. Further, we recommend that the protester be reimbursed the cost of filing and pursuing this protest, including reasonable attorneys’ fees.