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Sample Tasks Must Be Reasonable Proxy For Entire Contract

Client Alert | 1 min read | 06.08.06

Holding that a cost realism analysis must provide a reasonable basis for estimating the cost to the government of an offeror's performance, in Metro Machine Corp . (May 3, 2006, http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/ 2978792.pdf) GAO overturned the agency's cost realism evaluation because, while sample tasks can provide a reasonable basis to assess the relative costs of competing proposals, the sample tasks used by the agency in this case were not representative of the contract work.  The awardee had proposed a subcontractor with labor rates higher than the prime contractor's to perform a significant portion of the work, but, because that subcontractor had not been included in the proposed solution for any of the sample tasks, the subcontractor's high labor rates were nowhere reflected in the cost realism evaluation.

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Client Alert | 4 min read | 10.30.26

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right: GAO Sustains Protest Where Agency Tried to Fix PIA Violation with a Second PIA Violation

Recent sustain decisions by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Fluor Federal Solutions, LLC and Reliance Test & Technology send a clear message: when an agency tries to fix a Procurement Integrity Act (PIA) violation by committing a second one, the cure can be just as fatal as the disease. The cases involved the U.S. Air Force’s $1.8 billion procurement for O&M services at Elgin Air Force Base. During discussions, the Air Force inadvertently released a pricing overview slide with all offerors’ bottom-line evaluated costs to Reliance Test & Technology, which immediately notified the agency of the error. In response, the Air Force decided to level the playing field by providing the same information to all the other offerors in the procurement, stating, “[o]fferors may consider this disclosure in their [final proposal revision].”...