Does this Sealed Bid Procurement for Garbage Disposal Warrant 72 Pages?

[bob7947]

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Superior alleges that this procurement must be trashed and started over because the Army’s contracting officer botched a required unbalanced-pricing analysis.

I'm running late and I haven't had a chance to read this protest.  If you have time, give it a try.  Superior Waste Management v U. S., No. 23-1319C, January 8, 2024.

[Jamaal Valentine]

Did it really take around six months to re-evaluate IFBs (Jan 27 -Jul 28)? I guess FAR 6.401(a)(1) assumes sealed bidding takes longer.

[formerfed]

The Court seems to want to justify its jurisdiction and explain protestors standing in as many words as possible.

 

[Jamaal Valentine]

3 hours ago, formerfed said:

The Court seems to want to justify its jurisdiction and explain protestors standing in as many words as possible.

 

I actually liked the explanations and think this could be useful for training and education.

[bob7947]

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(a) Sealed bids. (See part  14 for procedures.) Contracting officers shall solicit sealed bids if-

(1) Time permits the solicitation, submission, and evaluation of sealed bids;

(2) The award will be made on the basis of price and other price-related factors;

(3) It is not necessary to conduct discussions with the responding offerors about their bids; and

(4) There is a reasonable expectation of receiving more than one sealed bid.

Jamaal:

I remember trying to find the first instance of that line being used in the FAR, FPR or ASPR.  If I remember correctly, it was a cut and paste job from the predecessors of the FAR to the FAR.  

[joel hoffman]

17 hours ago, bob7947 said:

Jamaal:

I remember trying to find the first instance of that line being used in the FAR, FPR or ASPR.  If I remember correctly, it was a cut and paste job from the predecessors of the FAR to the FAR.  

If you are referring to “if time permits the solicitation, submission and evaluation of sealed bids” language, I believe that the time primarily referred to the time for publicizing the action, preparation and submission of sealed bids. A minimum of 30 days allowance for preparation and submission of bids (especially for construction contracts) was generally prescribed:

“14.202-1 Bidding time.

(a) Policy…A bidding time (i.e., the time between issuance of the solicitation and opening of bids) of at least 30 calendar days shall be provided when synopsis is required by subpart 5.2.”

Bob is correct that it was a cut and paste job from the predecessors to FAR. Back in 1983-1984 time frame, Competitive bidding with public bid openings for most domestic construction and many other types of acquisitions was the normal or predominant method used in Federal (and also in State and local) government purchasing.

The bid evaluation time wasn’t normally a long process…unless bids greatly exceeded the government estimate and/or available funding to the extent that they prevented award.

Bidders would/will sometimes challenge the accuracy of the government estimate, which then invokes processes to review, justify or change the estimate.

If the government agreed, then it might find the additional funds and/or justification to make an award.

If it didn’t agree, then it may have resulted in a bid cancellation and/or bid protest and the government would have to justify its estimate.

It might have required revising the design or requirements of the solicitation, then resoliciting.

I was tasked several times to convert construction IFBs with busted bids to competitive RFPs to allow discussions/negotiaton techniques. That, of course, brought its own complications and frustrated the bidders - especially the lowest bidders, since the original bids had been publicly opened and shared…