Army extends MAPS deadline on same day proposals were due

The Army has extended the proposal deadline for its troubled, but massive professional services contract at the last minute.

Proposals were due May 8. But that same day, the Army pushed out the due date until May 20 for the $50 billion Marketplace for the Acquisition of Professional Services vehicle.

The 10-year MAPS vehicle has been hit with a growing number of bid protests that share common complaints about perceived lack of transparency, inadequate responses to industry questions and concerns around how documentation around past performance would be handled.

The Army has also amended parts of the solicitation. Most appear to be clarifications to instructions and definitions, but there are some changes regarding when signatures are needed and when bidders can receive an exception.

The Army also has written out answers to all of the 2,560 questions submitted by industry, which has been a sticking point for bidders. But one source has questioned the value of many of the answers.

In announcing the extension, the Army said companies are not required to resubmit their bids if they already turned one in.

But industry sources indicate that many companies will need to resubmit and there is frustration that the proposal deadline was extended on such short notice.

“A lot of companies were up all night getting proposals ready, just to find out with the changes, and the extension, we’ll have to do it again,” one said.

At the very least, companies will need to map their amendments to their proposals to confirm that they are in compliance.

Meanwhile, more companies have filed protests at the Government Accountability Office. Seven new companies have filed protests, and the first two protesters have submitted supplemental filings supporting their protests.

While the protests do not trigger a delay in proposals, the Army cannot make award decisions while the protests are pending.

Nine companies have filed protests so far against the MAPS solicitation:

• GovCIO
• Inserso Corp.
• Intelligence Consulting Enterprise Solutions
• ICF
• The Jaaw Group
• MetroStar Systems
• ProVista Consulting
• QinetiQ US
• TechSur-Guidehouse joint venture

MetroStar and Intelligence Consulting Enterprise Solutions were the first companies to file protests.

The Government Accountability Office has the option of bundling all the protests together into a single decision. But even as separate cases, the agency is due to rule on all of them by mid-August.