United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548 

Comptroller General

of the United States

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: AllServ Inc. 

File: B-402330 

Date: March 9, 2010 

Michael Gordon, Esq., and Fran Baskin, Esq., Michael A. Gordon PLLC, for the 

protester. 

Tracy J. Downing, Esq., Department of Veterans Affairs, for the agency. 

Scott H. Riback, Esq., and John M. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, GAO, 

participated in the preparation of the decision. 

DIGEST 

Protest that agency misevaluated proposals is denied where record shows that 

agency’s evaluation was reasonable and consistent with terms of solicitation and 

applicable statutes and regulations. 

DECISION 

AllServ, Inc., of Chapin, South Carolina, protests the award of a contract to Walco, 

Inc., of Rogersville, Missouri, under request for proposals (RFP) No. VA-789-09-RP0016, issued by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for headstone raising and 

realignment and turf maintenance services at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery 

in San Antonio, Texas. AllServ maintains that the agency misevaluated proposals in 

connection with its award decision. 

We deny the protest. 

The RFP, as amended, sought fixed-price proposals for a period of performance from 

November 9, 2009 (or the date of award, whichever was later) to September 30, 2010. 

RFP amend. 2. Award was to be made on a “best value” basis considering price, 

technical, and past performance.1

 The technical factor was more important than 

 

1

 For the non-price factors, the agency assigned color/adjectival ratings of 

blue/excellent, green/good, yellow/acceptable, orange/marginal, or red/fails. Agency 

Report (AR), exh. 10, at 14. 
past performance and the non-price factors were significantly more important than 

price. RFP at 100. 

The agency received 14 proposals, including the protester’s and the awardee’s. The 

agency assigned AllServ’s proposal an orange/marginal rating for the technical factor 

and a blue/excellent rating for past performance, and its price was $3,750,898. AR, 

exh. 15, at 1. Walco’s proposal was rated green/good for the technical factor and 

blue/excellent for past performance, and its price was $4,194,439.2 Id. The agency 

determined that Walco’s proposal represented the best value and thus made award 

to that firm. Following a debriefing, AllServ filed this protest challenging the 

evaluation. 

Where a protester challenges an agency’s evaluation of proposals, our Office will not 

independently reevaluate the proposals but, rather, will examine the record to 

determine whether the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the RFP and 

applicable statutes and regulations. Building Restoration Corp., B-402000, Dec. 29, 

2009, 2010 CPD ¶ 15 at 4. 

AllServ maintains that the agency unreasonably rated its proposal orange/marginal 

under the technical factor. The record shows that this rating was based on the 

evaluators’ finding that a table in AllServ’s proposal showed a performance schedule 

different from the schedule in the RFP. AR, exh. 11, at 3. Specifically, the proposal 

included a table entitled “Monthly Hours” that provided hours by labor category 

spread across a 12-month period that commenced in February and concluded in 

January, and included a column totaling the hours by labor category. AR, exh. 2, 

Technical Proposal, at 10. The evaluators downgraded the proposal because this 

12-month period was at variance with the RFP’s specified schedule of November 9, 

2009 to September 30, 2010, a period of, at most, 10 months and 21 days. 

AllServ asserts that the table was included in its proposal, not to show the period of 

performance for the contract, but, rather, to show its monthly staffing profile. The 

protester maintains that, because the table does not have a year specified, the agency 

should have understood that the table was not for purposes of proposing an 

alternate schedule. The protester also asserts that, since it acknowledged 

amendment No. 2 to the RFP (which included the period of performance), it was 

legally obligated to perform in accordance with the RFP schedule. 

We find that the agency reasonably downgraded AllServ’s proposal. AllServ’s 

assertions notwithstanding, its proposal was downgraded for one simple reason--the 

“Monthly Hours” table indicated a 12-month schedule, with no explanation that it 

 

2

 Walco’s proposed price was $4,236,807, but in making its award decision the agency 

considered Walco’s offered 1% discount for payment made within 10 days. AR, exh. 

3, at 1; exh. 15, at 2. 

Page 2 B-402330 
was not intended to establish a 12-month schedule. This being the case, while 

AllServ also acknowledged the amendment establishing the required period of 

performance, the agency determined that there was a question whether AllServ was 

unequivocally agreeing to perform in accordance with the required schedule. We 

find nothing unreasonable with this conclusion. AllServ’s explanation that the 

“Monthly Hours” table was intended only to show its monthly staffing profile in a 

general manner is unpersuasive. This is because the firm’s technical proposal 

already includes a section titled “Staffing Plan,” with a table listing the various types 

of personnel to be used in performing the contract—[deleted] managers, 

[deleted] tractor operators, [deleted] pest controller, and [deleted] laborers--and 

showing these personnel were to be divided among [deleted] management team, 

[deleted] headstone crews, [deleted] turf renovation crew, and [deleted] 

miscellaneous crew. AR, exh. 2, Technical Proposal, at 9. Since the “Staffing Plan” 

table already presented the information AllServ maintains was the purpose of the 

“Monthly Hours” table--a staffing profile--we think the agency reasonably could find 

that the “Monthly Hours” table may have been intended to establish a 12-month 

schedule in place of the shorter schedule in the RFP. 

AllServ maintains that the agency unreasonably assigned Walco the same 

blue/outstanding past performance rating AllServ received since, according to 

AllServ, Walco has not performed headstone realignment work. 

This argument is without merit. The requirement here is not only for headstone 

raising and realignment, but also for renovation and reestablishment of some 

2.8 million square feet of turf. In evaluating Walco’s past performance, the agency 

considered two prior contracts for which past performance surveys had been 

provided--one for turf renovation at Houston National Cemetery, and one for turnkey 

full landscaping services at an 11,000 acre project in La Paz, Mexico. AR, exh. 14. 

Walco received consistently outstanding ratings for both contracts. Id. (Walco’s 

proposal listed numerous other extensive turf renovation projects, AR, exh. 3, 

at 18-19, as well as a cemetery realignment and turf renovation project at Kerrvile 

National Cemetery. Id.) AllServ’s past performance rating likewise was based on 

outstanding ratings on two contracts for which past performance surveys had been 

provided--one for grounds maintenance at Pope Air Force Base (which did not 

involve headstone raising and realignment), and one for headstone raising and 

realignment at Mountain Home National Cemetery. AR, exh. 13. The remainder of 

the references in AllServ’s proposal involved contracts for grounds maintenance 

services or irrigation system installation. AR, exh. 2, at attach. 7. 

While the protester’s Mountain Home contract, unlike Walco’s two reference 

contracts, included headstone work, it involved only 4,000 headstones, versus the 

54,000 headstones to be raised and realigned and the 63,000 headstones to be 

cleaned under the current contract. The agency ultimately determined that, while 

AllServ perhaps showed more past performance of headstone-related contracts than 

Walco, that past performance nevertheless was limited relative to the current 

requirement, and did not by itself warrant assigning AllServ a higher past 

Page 3 B-402330 
Page 4 B-402330 

 

performance rating than Walco. Since the RFP did not specifically require that an 

offeror show a certain amount of headstone-related past performance in order to 

receive a blue/outstanding rating, there was nothing unreasonable in the agency’s 

assigning the two offerors the same rating. 3 

The protest is denied. 

Lynn H. Gibson 

Acting General Counsel 

3

 AllServ asserts that Walco may improperly have been afforded an opportunity to 

revise its proposal after the deadline for submitting offers. This is not the case. 

While the record shows that Walco sent the agency a letter dated December 11 that 

included a proposal change page, this occurred after the November 30 award. 

Moreover, the change page added only an immaterial sentence relating to the type of 

clamp Walco would use to lift the headstones during the raising and realignment 

procedure. This argument thus does not provide a basis for questioning the award.