Challenge of contract to upgrade federal jobs site rejected

The Government Accountability Office on Tuesday rejected a protest challenging the Office of Personnel Management's choice of a contractor to upgrade the government's job listing and recruitment Web site.

OPM's late July selection of Monster Government Solutions for a contract to enhance USAJOBS.gov was "reasonable," even though the company's proposal cost nearly double that of a competitor, GAO General Counsel Anthony Gamboa stated in a Nov. 8 decision. The personnel agency adequately defended its assertion that the technical aspects of Monster's proposal were superior and that the substantial price difference was justified, Gamboa said.

The decision is "very welcome" and shows that OPM "awarded the contract . . . in a very responsible manner," said Ronald Flom, the agency's senior procurement executive. "This to me ends a period . . . where OPM has had a cloud over its head on how we conducted business," he said.

The USAJOBS site, which contains job vacancy announcements, information on the federal hiring process and other recruitment tools, was originally was maintained by OPM employees. But in January 2003, the personnel agency selected Monster for a 10-year, $62 million contract to redesign and upgrade the site.

Symplicity, an Arlington, Va.-based firm, protested the original award at GAO and won, on the basis that OPM had used a flawed evaluation approach. But the personnel agency in turn rejected GAO's recommendation to rebid the contract.

OPM decided last year, however, to once again solicit bids for the USAJOBS site work, this time for a five-year contract with one base year and four option years. That process resulted in another award to Monster, for a contract worth more than $27 million.

Symplicity, the other contractor considered by OPM, filed a bid protest at GAO challenging the decision, arguing that the personnel agency had failed to provide adequate information on weaknesses in the losing proposal and did not give the company an opportunity to discuss the perceived problems. Symplicity also argued that OPM used a flawed process in making a tradeoff between price and value.

OPM incorrectly concluded that Symplicity's offer to do the work for $13.7 million - barely more than half the price quoted by Monster -- was risky, the company told GAO. But GAO said agency officials presented adequate evidence to back their conclusion that Symplicity's offer was "unrealistically low in the sense that adequate resources have not been allotted to assure that implementation of this large and complex project will fully meet [OPM's] requirements," Gamboa stated.

"Given the importance of USAJOBS as a federal hiring vehicle, we find that OPM's selection of the lower risk, technically superior offeror at a price premium was reasonable," Gamboa wrote.

A spokesman for Symplicity, who asked not to be named, said that the company has not yet decided whether to appeal the GAO decision.

"We're disappointed that the government is spending two times the amount [we offered] and we don't believe it's justified," the spokesman said. "We're concerned that OPM just went through the motions to reconfirm Monster's award."

But Flom said he believes that GAO's decision has vindicated OPM's procurement shop, which had been under scrutiny from the media and lawmakers since the 2003 decision against the agency's initial USAJOBS contract award. The agency took care to make sure the process for the latest award was "foolproof," he said.

The recent competition was full and open, and it was always clear that OPM would select a winner based on best value, Flom said. "We just worked a lot harder this time to ensure that everything we did was aboveboard and would withstand the scrutiny of a protest," he said.