Comptroller General

of the United States

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548 

DOCUMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

The decision issued on the date below was subject to a

GAO Protective Order. This redacted version has been

approved for public release.

Decision 

Matter of: Smart Data Solutions, LLC 

File: B-400454.3 

Date: November 21, 2008 

Terrence M. O’Connor, Esq., and Stephanie D. Wilson, Esq., Albo & Oblon, LLP, for 

the protester. 

Maj. John G. Terra, Department of the Air Force, for the agency. 

Linda C. Glass, Esq., and Ralph O. White, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO,

participated in the preparation of the decision. 

DIGEST 

Protest that the awardee’s staffing plan provides for too few personnel is denied

where agency reasonably determined that the awardee’s proposed approach will 

meet the performance requirements and the protester’s assertion is based solely on a 

comparison of the total number of personnel it proposed with the total number of

personnel proposed by the awardee. 

DECISION 

Smart Data Solutions, LLC (SDS) of Baltimore, Maryland protests the award of a 

contract to Black Box Technologies (BBT) of Pensacola, Florida under request for 

proposals (RFP) No. FA4890-08-R-0004, issued by the Department of the Air Force 

for weather forecasting and weather and radar equipment maintenance services. 

SDS contends that the BBT proposal did not conform to the staffing requirements of

the RFP. 

We deny the protest.

The RFP was issued on March 19, 2008 and contemplated the award of a single fixedprice contract for weather services and maintenance--with cost reimbursable 

contract line item numbers (CLINs) for travel, material and overtime pay--for a base 

period followed by four 1-year option periods. With respect to the cost reimbursable 

CLINs, the RFP provided a lump sum, not-to-exceed amount for each CLIN. The 

RFP provided that award would be made to the offeror whose proposal was

determined to represent the best value using a technically acceptable/performance/ 

price tradeoff procedure. RFP at 39. That is, the proposals would first be evaluated 
for technical acceptability, and then a tradeoff between past performance and price 

would be conducted. 

The RFP identified under the technical evaluation factor the following subfactors: 

program management and transition plan. Of relevance here, under the program 

management subfactor the RFP required offerors to provide, among other things, “a 

manpower matrix with proposed skill sets and the minimum qualifications required 

for these skill sets for each place of performance.” RFP at 40. 

With respect to the price factor, the RFP stated that proposed prices would be 

evaluated for price reasonableness and affordability of the proposed total evaluated 

price; the RFP also stated that unrealistically low or high prices would be grounds

for eliminating a proposal. RFP at 40. The RFP anticipated an evaluation of prices 

to determine if prices were compatible with the scope of the effort, and were not 

unbalanced, excessive, or insufficient for the effort to be accomplished. Id.

With regard to the past performance evaluation factor, the RFP stated that the 

agency would use adjectival ratings of substantial confidence, satisfactory 

confidence, limited confidence, no confidence and unknown confidence. RFP at 41. 

The RFP further advised that if the lowest-priced technically acceptable offer 

received a past performance rating of substantial confidence, then that offer would 

be viewed as representing the best value to the government and that offer would 

receive the award. RFP at 42. The government reserved the right to make a tradeoff 

decision if the lowest priced/technically acceptable offer received a past 

performance assessment of satisfactory confidence or lower. Id.

[DELETED] proposals were received in response to the RFP, including proposals 

from BBT and SDS. After evaluation, discussions and receipt of revised proposals, 

BBT’s and SDS’s proposals [DELETED], were found to be technically acceptable. 

BBT received a rating of satisfactory confidence for past performance and proposed 

the lowest price of $19 million. SDS received a rating of substantial confidence for 

past performance, but proposed the second-highest price of $22 million. 

The source selection authority (SSA) reviewed the evaluation results and concluded 

that BBT’s lower-priced proposal represented the best value to the government. 

Specifically, the SSA agreed with the assessment of the evaluation team that BBT’s 

technical approach was acceptable, and based on BBT’s record of past performance, 

the agency had satisfactory confidence that BBT could perform. The SSA recognized 

that SDS had a substantial confidence past performance rating but determined that

the difference in the past performance rating did not justify the $3 million price 

premium. Source Selection Document at 3. Consequently, award was made to BBT. 

After receiving a debriefing, SDS filed an initial protest with our Office arguing that 

the Air Force failed to conduct a reasonable cost realism analysis of certain fixedPage 2 B-400454.3 
price CLINs. We dismissed that protest on September 10, 2008 because the 

procurement was essentially for the award of a fixed-price contract and a cost

realism analysis of the fixed price items was not required. See Systems, Studies, and 

Simulation, Inc., B-295579, Mar. 28, 2005, 2005 ¶ 78 at 6. 

SDS, in its current protest, focuses on the differing staffing levels proposed by it and 

BBT at several locations. In this regard, BBT’s staffing plan proposed a 12 percent 

reduction in total hours from the current contractor staffing. BBT’s Letter of 

August 18, 2008 at 3. SDS contends that the agency failed to comply with the RFP 

requirement to award to an offer “conforming to the solicitation.” While SDS argues

that the staff reductions proposed by BBT at several locations results in inadequate 

staffing, SDS specifically discusses only the staffing reductions proposed by BBT at

Fort Belvoir. For Fort Belvoir, SDS proposed a staff of four while BBT proposed a 

staff of three. 

In reviewing protests against allegedly improper evaluations, it is not our role to 

reevaluate proposals. Rather, our Office examines the record to determine whether 

the agency’s judgment was reasonable and in accord with the evaluation factors set 

forth in the RFP. Abt Assocs., Inc., B-237060.2, Feb. 26, 1990, 90-1 CPD ¶ 223 at 4. 

The protester’s disagreement with the agency’s judgment does not establish that an 

evaluation was unreasonable. UNICCO Gov’t Servs., Inc., B-277658, Nov. 7, 1997, 97-

2 CPD ¶ 134 at 7. 

With respect to Fort Belvoir, the RFP stated that the contractor was to perform two 

required services--observing and forecasting--from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily, 

Monday through Friday, except for Federal Holidays. The RFP also required the 

forecast section to be open for “across-the-counter” business no later than 6 a.m. 

each weekday, and to remain open until the close of normal hours of operation. 

The record shows that BBT proposed to staff Fort Belvoir with three personnel. One 

would work from 5:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., one would work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and 

one would work from 1:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Agency’s Motion to Dismiss, Attach. 4, at 

1-2. The agency found this staffing to be adequate in that it ensured that there was 

always a qualified weather technician on duty, and also provided for double 

coverage from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. every duty day. 

On the record here, the protester’s assertion that it was unreasonable for the agency 

to evaluate BBT lower proposed staffing levels as acceptable suggests that SDS 

misunderstands the RFP. As explained above, the RFP did not establish any 

particular staffing levels that were required or expected. Rather, the RFP provided 

the performance requirements and offerors were to provide the staffing levels they 

believed necessary to accomplish the requirements. 

SDS essentially maintains that its own understanding of the required staffing is

superior to that of BBT. Accordingly, SDS reasons that BBT’s proposal to perform

the contract requirements using a total staffing level lower than that proposed by 

Page 3 B-400454.3 
SDS should have been evaluated as unacceptable. Given BBT’s explanation of how it 

would perform at Fort Belvoir, with three personnel, we cannot conclude that the 

agency was unreasonable in its assessment that BBT could perform with three 

personnel at Fort Belvoir. Moreover, SDS merely asserts in conclusory terms that

BBT’s proposal to perform the contract requirements with staffing levels lower than 

those proposed by SDS is inadequate and therefore should have been rejected as

unacceptable. 

Our review of the record leads us to conclude that the agency reasonably decided 

that BBT submitted an acceptable staffing plan, and that SDS’s protest challenging 

the agency’s evaluation constitutes, at best, mere disagreement with the agency’s 

judgment. 

The protest is denied. 

Gary L. Kepplinger 

General Counsel 

Page 4 B-400454.3