Office of Personnel Management--Reconsideration B-291902.2 May 19, 2003

Matter of: Office of Personnel Management--Reconsideration
File: B-291902.2
Date: May 19, 2003

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) asks that we reconsider a portion of the recommendation in our decision in Symplicity Corp., B-291902, Apr. 29, 2003, 2003 CPD ___, in which we sustained Symplicity's protests of the award of a task order to TMP Worldwide, Inc. (d/b/a Monster Government Solutions) under TMP's Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract, pursuant to OPM request for quotations (RFQ) No. SOLO30000003, for online federal employment information services.

We dismiss the request for reconsideration.

We sustained Symplicity's protest, in part, because TMP's quotation included two labor categories that were not on its Schedule 738I Marketing, Media and Public Information Services contract (under which TMP submitted its quotation), and that OPM recognized but failed to realize the importance of this during the evaluation. We found this symptomatic of OPM's approach to this procurement, namely that it "never performed an analysis of whether the quoted services, labor categories, or ODCs [other direct costs] included in TMP's quotation were within the scope of TMP's Schedule 738I contract." We specifically noted that OPM represented it "could not come to any specific conclusion one way or the other" as to whether TMP proposed services as ODCs in a manner that was consistent with its Schedule 738I contract. We also sustained Symplicity's protest of OPM's evaluation of quotations with respect to "systems integration costs." (*1) Symplicity Corp., supra, at 5-7.

We recommended that:

OPM evaluate vendors' quotations to determine whether the proposed services (including labor categories and ODCs) are within the scope of their respective schedule contracts. We further recommend that OPM reopen discussions with all vendors whose quotations were in the competitive range, and request and reevaluate revised quotations (*2). OPM may also want to amend its RFQ to further clarify its systems integration needs.

Id. at 9.

Our Office will reconsider a decision where the protester demonstrates that the decision was based on an error of fact or law. 4 C.F.R. § 21.14(a) (2003); Louisiana Clearwater, Inc.-Recon. and Costs, B-283081.4, B-283081.5, Apr. 14, 2000, 2000 CPD 209 at 4-5. Here, OPM does not claim that our Office made any error of fact or law when rendering its decision. Nor does OPM dispute any part of our decision in its request for reconsideration. It merely contends that the post-decision modification to TMP's Schedule 738I renders part of our recommendation moot. We disagree.

As stated in our decision, the agency's failure to consider whether the two labor categories were on TMP's schedule contract was a symptom of a larger evaluation flaw, namely that the agency failed to perform any analysis of whether TMP's proposed "services, labor categories, and ODCs" were within the scope of TMP's contract. Although the modification of TMP's Schedule 738I contract appears to have addressed the matter of the two labor categories, it does not address the fundamental problem that OPM did not evaluate whether the vendors' services were included in their FSS contracts. In this regard, OPM does not assert that it has performed this analysis (*3). We continue to recommend that the agency perform that analysis, reopen discussions with vendors whose quotations were in the competitive range, and request and evaluate revised quotations. The fact that one vendor, TMP, has been permitted to make a change affecting the acceptability of its quotation only underscores the need to treat competing vendors comparably.

Thus, OPM has provided no basis to modify our recommendation. The request for reconsideration is dismissed.

Anthony H. Gamboa General Counsel

1. We denied Symplicity's protest that OPM had applied unstated evaluation criteria in its evaluation of each vendor's technical approach and past performance and in its consideration of the vendors' approaches to marketing or promoting the federal government as an employer through the contemplated website. Symplicity Corp., supra, at 7-8.
2. In view of this recommendation, we saw no need to address Symplicity's protest that the agency's evaluation of quotations and conduct of discussions under the management capability and past performance factors, and its best value analysis, were unreasonable and improper. Symplicity Corp., supra, at 9 n.12.
3. OPM's request to our Office also does not address the systems integration costs issue.