Award of Contract for Dedicated Automatic Data Processing Services

The three protesters objected to the award of a contract for dedicated automatic data processing services. The validity of the award, made through a facilities management contract, was not affected by the Brooks Act since the agency was entitled to rely on authorizations to proceed with the procurement given by the Office of Management and Budget and by General Services Administration after reviews of the solicitation and of the agency's cost and other justifications. There was reasonable basis for the elimination of the incumbent contractor's technically deficient proposal from the competitive range. Although the use of a predetermined cut-off score to establish the competitive range was not good procurement practice, it was not prejudicial to the protester which had an exceedingly low comparative technical score. Although the solicitation was deficient in not apprising offerors of the relative value of cost in proposal evaluation, there was no prejudice where the successful offeror's proposal received the highest technical score and offered the lowest evaluated estimated costs. Although the successful offeror's proposal did not comply with the solicitation's "internal" security requirement, countervailing factors mandated against disturbing the award on that basis.