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The U.S. Government Accountability Office has upheld a protest by a woman-owned small business over a $75.5 million U.S. Navy IT services task order, finding that the agency improperly penalized the company for leaving some non-key positions unidentified in its proposal.

In a decision released publicly on Tuesday, the GAO ruled that the Navy’s evaluation of Solvere Technical Group LLC’s proposal conflicted with the solicitation’s stated criteria. The watchdog said the agency unfairly assessed a significant weakness against Solvere for listing too many personnel as “to be determined,” even though the solicitation explicitly allowed offerors to do so for non-key roles.

The dispute stems from a July 2024 solicitation issued by the Naval Surface Warfare Center under the Navy’s SeaPort Next Generation multiple-award contract. The competition was restricted to woman-owned small businesses and sought IT services through a single cost-plus-fixed-fee task order, including a one-year base period and four option years.

According to the GAO, the Navy received six proposals, including Solvere’s bid valued at about $60 million and a higher-priced $75.5 million proposal from EHS. The Navy ultimately selected EHS, concluding that its technical advantages justified paying a premium to improve mission effectiveness.

Solvere challenged the award, arguing that the Navy improperly downgraded its proposal under the personnel approach factor. The agency’s evaluation board cited concerns that Solvere listed numerous non-key positions without named candidates or cyber workforce certifications and suggested the company should have reduced the number of unidentified staff.

The GAO rejected that reasoning, finding no requirement in the solicitation that non-key personnel be identified by name. It noted that the solicitation explicitly permitted offerors to use “TBD” for such roles, making it unreasonable to penalize Solvere for following those instructions.

In reaching its conclusion, the GAO pointed to a prior 2024 decision involving a Navy task order protested by CACI Inc., where the agency successfully argued that it was not required to assess the qualifications of unidentified non-key personnel. Although the roles were reversed in the current case, the GAO said the same principle applied.

“As in CACI, we find such an interpretation fails to give meaning to the solicitation provision expressly permitting offerors to propose TBD non-key personnel, whose qualifications are, by definition, unknown,” the GAO wrote.

The GAO also dismissed the Navy’s argument that Solvere should have minimized the number of unidentified personnel, noting that the solicitation contained no such directive. It further agreed with Solvere that the Navy went beyond the stated cost evaluation criteria by asserting that a high percentage of unidentified staff created cost risk.

That conclusion was undermined, the GAO said, by the Navy’s own cost evaluators, who found Solvere’s proposed labor rates to be realistic and consistent with industry standards.

The watchdog concluded that absent the improperly assessed weaknesses, Solvere’s proposal — which was roughly 15% lower in cost — could reasonably have been selected for award. The GAO recommended that the Navy reevaluate Solvere’s personnel approach and cost proposal and then make a new source selection decision.

The decision was issued on December 18 and made public this week. Representatives for the Navy, Solvere, and EHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment.