GovCIO loses GAO IT services recompete to SAIC
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By
Nick Wakeman
The agency's protest adjudication arm found Science Applications International Corp.'s lower-priced bid was technically acceptable.
GovCIO has lost an incumbent contract after failing to convince the Government Accountability Office's bid protest adjudication team that its proposal was improperly evaluated.
Through its subsidiary Salient CRGT, GovCIO pursued the recompete of the Technology Information Services task order with GAO.
GAO uses TIS to acquire IT support services such as help desk, cloud infrastructure and web services, and publishing.
Science Applications International Corp. won the $95 million contract in January 2025, then GovCIO filed a protest that led to a corrective action. GAO's source selection authority for the contract again picked SAIC, which was followed by another GovCIO protest in September.
GovCIO claimed its proposal was not evaluated properly and should have received higher technical scores for its approach, as well as its past performance.
As part of its bid, GovCIO submitted a past performance reference detailing a Drug Enforcement Agency contract. Evaluators scored it as “relevant,” but not “very relevant” as GovCIO expected.
That contract is significantly larger at $875 million and covered more complex work, according to a Dec. 5 GAO decision that was unsealed Jan. 5.
But in looking at the protest, GAO found a problem with the reference because the DEA project did not cover all nine task areas required in solicitation. The reference did not include work related to publishing, information and web support services that are part of task area eight.
GAO's bid protest arm said that even if the work with the DEA was high quality, GovCIO could not receive the higher score because the reference did not cover all the task areas.
GovCIO also raised concerns about SAIC’s pricing and whether it was realistic. GovCIO bid a price of $134.3 million compared to SAIC’s at $95.4 million. The new contract has a one-year base and four one-year options.
GovCIO argued that difference in pricing makes SAIC’s bid riskier because it could not cover the staffing and resources needed.
But GAO found that a price realism evaluation was not required in the solicitation. The agency found that SAIC’s staffing plan and workforce plan would meet the contract's requirements.
Price realism only comes into play when the prices are so low that they reflect a lack of understanding of the requirements or create a performance risk.
But the solicitation in this case only requires that proposals be rejected for high pricing, given GAO's funding limits.
Given that SAIC’s technical proposal met the requirements in the solicitation, GAO had no basis to reject that proposal or score it lower than GovCIO’s.
GAO found the agency evaluators were under no obligation to scrutinize the difference in pricing.
TIS was competed under an unnamed NITAAC contract vehicle. The decision clears the way for SAIC to begin supporting GAO.