The Department of Energy has upheld a bid protest and
suspended a contract award to a private company for
facility and transportation maintenance and management,
motor vehicle maintenance and logistics operations in
Washington D.C. and suburban Maryland, functions currently
performed by DoE employees, the National Treasury Employees
Union has announced.
The union represented the employees in the bid protest
after DoE awarded a $26.8 million contract to Logistics
Applications, Inc., of Alexandria Va. in March, and said
DoE’s decision is the first of its kind under the 2003
revision of A-76 rules.
NTEU said Kelly, acting as a legal representative, joined
the agency tender official that developed the employees’
bid in protesting the award on the grounds that the
employee bid was lower by $2.6 million, and that the
decision was based on a previously undisclosed factor —
workers’ hourly wages.
A senior DoE procurement official sustained those claims,
agreeing that no additional benefit for the higher cost
was apparent and that it was unfair to base the award on
hourly rates because that had not been identified in the
bid solicitation as a relevant factor.
DoE employees–reportedly about 90 of them–will continue
to perform those functions while DoE reconsiders the
competition, but the union criticized the contract protest
process which is different for private sector bidders that
can seek review from the Government Accountability Office
or federal claims court, whereas federal employees may
only protest internally.
