Protest of Agency Refusal To Extend Proposal Due Date

A firm, protesting the award of a contract by the Department of the Army for its aircraft maintenance requirement, contended: (1) that the solicitation did not allow sufficient time to permit offerors to prepare their proposals, thus favoring the incumbent and restricting competition, and (2) that the evaluation criteria were defective. A presolicitation letter was mailed to 42 companies on February 28, 1979; the request for proposals (RFP) was distributed to 24 interested companies on March 22; and the proposal due date was set for May 1. A preproposal conference was held on April 9, resulting in an amendment notifying firms that the deadline for submission of additional questions was April 16. On April 18, the protester requested a 30-day time extension for submission of offers, but this request was denied on April 23. The protester replied on April 25, asserting that the evaluation factors were not sufficiently detailed and requesting a response to a series of 19 questions. GAO believed that issues concerning sufficient time to prepare a proposal and the adequacy of evaluation factors involve allegations of improprieties in the solicitation apparent prior to the date for receipt of initial proposals; since the protest was filed with GAO on April 27 and initial proposals were due on May 1, the protest was timely. GAO held that the contracting officer properly denied the time extension request, since a number of proposals were in fact submitted in response to the RFP and were in the competitive range. GAO further believed that the evaluation information provided in the RFP satisfied disclosure requirements by listing 5 technical factors, 34 technical subfactors, and 4 cost factors. The Army conveyed to offerors the Army's intention that technical acceptability and cost realism were to be afforded equal consideration in proposal evaluation. The listing in the RFP of the evaluation factors in descending order of importance or priority was appropriate. The relative weights of subfactors need not be disclosed, since offerors may assume subfactors are to be evaluated equally if the solicitation is silent on that point. The protest was denied.