United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

Comptroller General

of the United States

Decision

Matter of: Johnson Controls Government Systems, LLC

File: B-404654

Date: March 17, 2011

David R. Johnson, Esq., and Jenny J. Yang, Esq., Vinson & Elkins LLP, for the 

protester.

Robert W. Schlattman, Esq., General Services Administration, for the agency.

Peter D. Verchinski, Esq., and Guy R. Pietrovito, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, 

GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Protest of the agency’s evaluation of the protester’s past performance is denied 

where record shows that the agency reasonably relied on a poor past performance 

reference.

DECISION

Johnson Controls Government Systems, LLC, (JCGS) of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 

protests the failure of the General Services Administration to award the firm a 

contract under request for proposals (RFP) No. GS08T10BPR0084, which provided 

for the award of multiple indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contracts for 

medical treatment facilities (MTF) maintenance services. JCGS complains that 

GSA’s evaluation of its past performance was unreasonable.

We deny the protest.

BACKGROUND

The RFP provided for the award of up to eight ID/IQ contracts for maintenance, 

repair, and minor construction of MTFs. Offerors were informed that contractors 

would have an opportunity to compete for task orders to provide MTF services at 

various Department of the Air Force sites worldwide, and that seven task orders 

would be issued concurrently with the award of the contracts.1

 1

The RFP provided that other Department of Defense agencies may order similar 

services under the contract.

 RFP at 5.

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.
Page 2 B-404654 

The RFP provided that awards would be made on a best value basis, considering 

price and the following technical evaluation factors (listed in descending order of 

importance): past performance, management approach, technical approach, and 

qualifying experience. The technical evaluation factors were stated to be more 

important than price. 

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

would be evaluated on how well the firm had performed similar contracts. 

Specifically, the RFP explained that the “standard for evaluation” would be met 

when all references for the offeror were satisfactory under 5 past performance 

subfactors: problem solving, risk management, timeliness, quality control 

performance, and corporate worldwide geographic coverage. Offerors were told to 

identify all past (within the last 5 years) and current experience similar to the 

services being procured here, and provide a brief description of the services 

provided under each of the 5 subfactors. RFP at 192, 195. The RFP stated that, in 

evaluating offerors, GSA would consider references provided by the protester (the 

RFP required 3 references), as well as other references. RFP at 193.

GSA received a number of proposals, including the protester’s, which were evaluated 

by the agency’s source selection evaluation board (SSEB). With respect to the 

evaluation of JCGS’s proposal, one member of the SSEB informed the other 

evaluators that JCGS had significant negative past performance at Nellis Air Force 

Base (AFB), Nevada. Specifically, this SSEB member stated that JCGS, which was 

the operations and maintenance firm responsible for the preventative 

maintenance/corrective maintenance program at Nellis AFB, had failed to properly 

maintain three of the boilers at the Nellis AFB medical facility, such that these 

boilers had prematurely failed and needed to be replaced. See Agency Report, (AR), 

Tab 3, Email to SSEB Members, Oct. 1, 2010. 

GSA informed JCGS of this reported adverse past performance information and 

requested an explanation. AR at 2. JCGS responded that the boilers’ location and 

the death of an individual (who was maintaining a critical manual operation of the 

boilers) may have contributed to the boiler failures, which occurred after the firm’s 

contract to perform this work had expired. See id., Tab 4, JCGS Letter to GSA, 

Oct. 20, 2010. GSA provided JCGS’s response to the Air Force, which disagreed with 

JCGS’s explanations that the location of boilers or the failure to perform a certain 

manual maintenance operation was the cause of the boilers’ failure. See id., Tab 5, 

Air Force Email, Oct. 26, 2010. 

The SSEB did not accept JCGS’s explanation for its performance at Nellis AFB and 

evaluated JCGS’s proposal as poor under the past performance factor. Specifically, 

the SSEB found that, although the firm’s past performance references evaluated

JCGS’s performance as ranging from satisfactory to good, the adverse past 

performance information that the board received with respect to the firm’s 
Page 3 B-404654 

performance at Nellis AFB warranted poor ratings under the risk management, 

timeliness, and quality control past performance subfactors. AR, Tab 9, SSEB Report 

at 33. The board noted that JCGS’s explanation of the failure of the boilers was 

reviewed by an engineer at Nellis AFB, who “fully disagreed” with the protester’s 

explanation and that the “engineer inspected the boilers and found that the problem 

was caused by several years of non[-]maintenance (the new vendor has only been 

working for approx 12 months).” Id.

GSA made award to seven other firms. The awardees’ technical proposals were 

found to be technically superior to JCGS’s proposal. AR at 4; Tab 9, SSEB Report, 

at 43. This protest followed.2

DISCUSSION

The protester objects to the agency’s evaluation of its past performance. 

Specifically, the protester contends that it was improper for the agency to base its 

source selection decision on one poor past performance reference because, in doing 

so, the agency relied on limited information and gave that information undue weight. 

Comments at 8, 14. In this regard, the protester asserts that GSA failed to review 

“basic documentation” about JCGS’s performance at Nellis (including a report of the 

investigation of the boiler failures, records of JCGS’s maintenance at Nellis, and 

records of the follow-on contractor’s performance), and that GSA failed to give 

proper weight to the good ratings the firm received by other references.3

Our Office examines an agency’s evaluation of past performance to ensure that it 

was reasonable and consistent with the stated evaluation criteria and applicable 

statutes and regulations. See JVSCC, B-311303.2, May 13, 2009, 2009 CPD ¶ 138 at 5. 

A protestor’s mere disagreement with the agency’s judgment is not sufficient to 

establish that the agency acted unreasonably. MFM Lamey Group, LLC

 2 Apart from its objection to the agency’s evaluation of its past performance, JCGS 

does not challenge GSA’s selection decision.

, B-402377, 

Mar. 25, 2010, 2010 CPD ¶ 81 at 10.

3

JCGS also challenges the contention that JCGS did not perform “any maintenance” 

on the boilers. In this regard, JCGS asserts that Air Force has failed to produce any 

past performance evaluation of the firm’s work supporting this contention. JCGS 

also argues that its performance at Nellis AFB was satisfactory, noting that that the 

Air Force exercised options under JCGS’s contract and provided a performance 

award to a JCGS “key employee” at Nellis AFB. Given that the Air Force learned of 

the boiler problems after the expiration of JCGS’s contract, we fail to see how these 

facts demonstrate that the agency’s conclusion that JCGS’s failed to perform its 

required maintenance duties was unreasonable. 
Page 4 B-404654 

Here, the record supports the agency’s judgment concerning the protester’s 

performance at Nellis AFB. That is, the record shows that, after GSA received 

adverse past performance information concerning JCGS’s performance at Nellis 

AFB, the agency obtained both the protester’s and the Air Force’s views concerning 

JCGS’s performance. Although JCGS continues to disagree that it was responsible 

for the boiler failures, we find that GSA was entitled to rely on the information it 

received from the Air Force. In this regard, GSA was not required, as JCGS 

apparently believes, to conduct its own investigation into the boiler failures. See

Firetech Automatic Sprinkler, B-296626, Sept. 22, 2005, 2005 CPD ¶ 174 at 3-4 (an 

agency is permitted to rely upon a reference where nothing on its face would 

reasonably lead the agency to look behind it).4

We also do not find that GSA gave “undue weight” to the protester’s past 

performance at Nellis AFB medical facility, the relevance of which is undisputed. 

The record shows that the agency in its past performance evaluation of JCGS’s 

proposal recognized the protester’s satisfactory and good performance of other 

contracts. See AR, Tab 9, SSEB Report at 33. Nevertheless, the agency remained 

concerned that JCGS’s negative performance at the Nellis AFB medical facility 

presented a performance risk. Although JCGS disagrees with this judgment, it has 

not shown that the agency’s concern was unreasonable.

The protest is denied.

Lynn H. Gibson

General Counsel

 4

With its comments, JCGS provided various documents supporting its contention 

that the firm is not responsible for the boiler failures. None of these documents 

were presented to GSA when it sought a response from JCGS regarding the boiler 

failures. In any event, these documents do not demonstrate that GSA unreasonably 

relied upon the Air Force’s views that JCGS was responsible for the boiler failures.