United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, DC 20548

Comptroller General

of the United States

 

Decision

Matter of: Spectrum Security Services, Inc. 

File: B-406474

Date: June 13, 2012

Timothy H. Power, Esq., Power Law Office, for the protester.

Song U. Kim, Esq., Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement, for the agency.

Eric M. Ransom, Esq., and Edward Goldstein, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, 

GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision.

DIGEST

Protest that agency improperly rejected quotation in Federal Supply Schedule (FSS)

acquisition conducted under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) part 8.4 is denied 

where protester’s FSS contract did not include all items and rates required by the 

solicitation. 

DECISION

Spectrum Security Services, Inc., protests the exclusion of its quotation from 

consideration under request for quotations (RFQ) No. HSCEDM-12-Q-00001, 

issued by the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs 

Enforcement, for detention officer services in the southwest United States. 

We deny the protest. 

The agency issued the RFQ via the General Services Administration (GSA) eBuy 

system on January 6, 2012, under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 

8.4, to vendors holding GSA Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) 84, Special Item 

Number (SIN) 246-54 (protective service occupations) contracts. The RFQ 

contemplated the establishment of a single blanket purchase agreement for a base 

year and four option years, for detention officer services in the cities of Ventura, Los 

Angeles, San Bernardino, Mira Loma, Santa Ana, Lompoc, San Francisco, San 

Jose, Bakersfield, Stockton, Fresno, and Bakersfield, in California, and Phoenix and 

Tuscan, in Arizona. The RFQ included the following instructions: 
Page 2 B-406474 

All services performed under this request for quote must be 

provided by a vendor or vendors who possess a current GSA 

contract. Any quotation received that proposes services be 

provided in an "open market" arena will be deemed unresponsive; 

thus, ineligible for award. All quotes shall include the contractors 

and subcontractors Name(s), GSA Schedule Number, TIN, 

DUNS, CAGE code and a brief description of the services to be 

performed [and] . . . 

The price quotation for each Sub-CLIN shall be in accordance 

with the labor categories and rates contained in the GSA 

Schedule 84--SIN 246-54. The Government fully expects the 

Contractor to quote discounted rates. 

RFQ, Attachment B, at 1, 3. The RFQ also contained a late quotations clause 

stating that “[q]uotes received after the due date and time will not be considered.”1

RFQ, Attachment B, at 3.

The agency received five timely quotations in response to the RFQ, including a 

quotation submitted by Spectrum. On February 23, the agency contracting 

specialist contacted Spectrum and requested that Spectrum “provide proof of 

Detention Officers pricelist on GSA contract for the following areas, by COB today: 

Lompoc, CA, Bakersfield, CA, Fresno, CA, Stockton, CA.” Protest at 2. Spectrum 

responded that Lompoc, CA, was on its GSA pricelist. The next day, the agency 

notified Spectrum that its quotation had been excluded from consideration because 

Spectrum’s GSA FSS contract did not include pricing for several of the 14 locations 

required under the RFQ. It is undisputed that Spectrum’s GSA FSS contract did not 

include published pricelist rates for detention officer services in the cities of 

Bakersfield, Fresno, and Stockton, by the closing time of the RFQ. 

In its protest, Spectrum argues that the RFQ did not clearly require detention officer 

services in all service locations set forth in the RFQ to be on a vendor’s FSS

pricelist prior to the closing time of the RFQ, and that Spectrum should have been 

allowed to add the service locations and pricing at any time prior to award, or 

 1 Generally, late quotations may be considered up to the time of issuance of the 

order, because an RFQ, unlike a request for proposals (or an invitation for bids), 

does not seek offers that can be accepted by the government to form a contract. 

Rather, the government's purchase order represents an offer that the vendor may 

accept through performance or by a formal acceptance document. M. Braun, Inc., 

B-298935.2, May 21, 2007, 2007 CPD ¶ 96 at 3. However, an RFQ may contain a 

late quotations clause to expressly limit the agency’s consideration of late 

quotations. Id.
Page 3 B-406474 

contract performance. Spectrum also argues that based on the pricing formula in its 

FSS contract, the agency could have discerned Spectrum’s pricing for Bakersfield, 

Fresno, and Stockton.2

 We disagree. 

As a general matter, FSS procedures provide agencies a simplified process for 

obtaining commonly used commercial supplies and services, FAR § 8.401(a), and, 

although streamlined, satisfy the requirement for full and open competition. 

41 U.S.C. § 259(b)(3) (2006); FAR § 6.102(d)(3). However, non-FSS products and 

services may not be purchased using FSS procedures; their purchase requires 

compliance with otherwise applicable procurement laws and regulations, including 

those requiring the use of full competitive procedures. Symplicity Corp., B-291902, 

Apr. 29, 2003, 2003 CPD ¶ 89 at 4. Where an agency announces its intention to 

order from an existing FSS, all items quoted and ordered are required to be on the 

vendor’s schedule contract as a precondition to its receiving the order. Science 

Applications Int’l Corp., B-401773, Nov. 10, 2009, 2009 CPD ¶ 229 at 2 n.1 Tarheel 

Specialties, Inc., B-298197, B-298197.2, July 17, 2006, 2006 CPD ¶ 140 at 4; 

CourtSmart Digital Systems, Inc., B-292995.2, B-292995.3, Feb. 13, 2004, 2004 

CPD ¶ 79 at 5; see ATA Def. Indus. v. United States, 38 Fed. Cl. 489 (1997).3

Here, as noted above, the RFQ required that the vendor’s price quotation for each 

city (sub-CLIN) be in accordance with the labor categories and rates contained in 

GSA Schedule 84, SIN 246-54. The RFQ also cautioned that “[a]ll services 

performed under this request for quote must be provided by a vendor or vendors 

who possess a current GSA contract, and the RFQ contained a late quotations 

clause, expressly requiring that quotations be submitted, and final, by the closing 

time of the RFQ. Additionally, we note that GSA Schedule 84, SIN 246-54, provides 

the following information for adding locations, and incorporating new pricing data

under a vendor’s FSS contract: 

 2 Spectrum also protested that the agency’s actions violated FAR § 8.405-1(c) and 

(d) because the agency eliminated all but one vendor from consideration. However, 

FAR § 8.405-3, not FAR § 8.405-1, sets forth the procedures for the establishment 

of blanket purchase agreements. Further, we have reviewed the relevant provisions 

of FAR § 8.405-3 and see nothing in the regulation that prohibits the agency from 

making an award in this context.

3 The sole exception to this requirement is for items that do not exceed the 

micro-purchase threshold of $3,000. See CourtSmart Digital Systems, Inc., supra, 

at 5. The items in issue here exceed the threshold amount.
Page 4 B-406474 

Information on Receiving Task Orders for new locations 

under SIN 246-54 

The labor rates established in any contract for SIN 246-54 

resulting from any offer against this Solicitation [are] subject to the 

limitations of scope for the applicable locations and Department of 

Labor wage determinations awarded under the contract. For any 

Vendor to properly quote and receive Task Orders that are within 

scope of their contract, the GSA Schedule contract must 

incorporate appropriate Wage Determinations and/or Collective 

Bargaining Agreements in effect at the facilities covered by the 

Task Ordering Agency's Request for Quotations by the closing 

date of the RFQ.

Agency Report (AR), Tab 6, at 5. 

Notwithstanding the above provisions, Spectrum quoted rates for service locations 

that were not on its FSS contract at the time it submitted its quotation. Spectrum, 

therefore, did not quote rates “in accordance with” its FSS contract. Further, as 

noted above, information provided in connection with Spectrum’s Schedule 84, SIN 

246-54, FSS contract specifically advised that it “must incorporate appropriate 

Wage Determinations and/or Collective Bargaining Agreements in effect at the 

facilities covered by the Task Ordering Agency's Request for Quotations by the 

closing date of the RFQ” -- and Spectrum’s FSS contract did not. AR, Tab 6, at 5 

(emphasis added). In our view, the agency reasonably excluded Spectrum’s 

quotation from further consideration upon recognizing that Spectrum had quoted

items and rates not found on its FSS schedule.

 

Spectrum cites Perot Sys. Gov’t Servs., Inc., B-402138, Jan. 21, 2010, 2010 CPD 

¶ 64, and Alluviam LLC, B-297280, Dec. 15, 2005, 2005 CPD ¶ 223, in support of 

its argument that the required services and pricing should not have been required 

until the time of the award. However, we conclude that as applied to the facts of 

this protest, the Perot and Alluviam decisions support the agency’s decision to 

exclude Spectrum’s quotation. 

In Perot, the agency excluded the protester’s quotation from consideration when it 

discovered that the protester had not quoted rates from its current FSS contract, but 

had instead quoted rates from a proposed future FSS contract under negotiation 

with the GSA.4

 4 We note that GSA was also the procuring agency in Perot. 

 Based on those facts, our Office concluded that the agency’s 

actions were reasonable because the protester’s quoted rates had not been

published or determined to be fair and reasonable by GSA under FAR §§ 8.402(b) 

and 8.404(d), and the quotation was therefore inconsistent with the terms of the 
Page 5 B-406474 

RFQ and the FSS. As in Perot, in this case, Spectrum’s quotation included rates 

that were not set forth in its FSS contract--and had not been or determined to be fair 

and reasonable by GSA--at the time the agency excluded its quotation from 

consideration. 

In Alluviam, the agency excluded the protester’s quotation from consideration upon 

discovering that the protester did not have a current FSS contract including all items 

set forth in the quotation, but was only in the process of negotiating an initial FSS 

contract that included the quoted items at the closing time of the RFQ. In that 

protest our Office determined that the exclusion of the quotation was reasonable, 

where, as here, the RFQ conveyed the agency’s intent that vendors have an FSS 

contract, with all required items on the vendor’s FSS contract, prior to submission of 

a quotation. 

In sum, where the protester submitted a quotation including items and rates that 

were not on the protester’s FSS schedule at that time, the agency reasonably 

excluded the protester’s quotation from further consideration upon its recognition of 

that fact. 

We deny the protest.

Lynn H. Gibson

General Counsel