THIS OPINION WAS INITIALLY ISSUED UNDER PROTECTIVE ORDER AND IS BEING RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC IN REDACTED FORM ON JANUARY 14, 1993 _____________________________________________ DENIED: December 23, 1992 _____________________________________________ GSBCA 12053-P PRC INC., Protester, v. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Respondent, and MAXIMA CORPORATION, Intervenor. John S. Pachter, Arthur I. Leaderman, Jonathan D. Shaffer, and Eun K. (Julie) Chung of Smith, Pachter, McWhorter & D'Ambrosio, Vienna, VA, counsel for Protester. Michael J. Coster, Deborah Keith Meyers, and Douglas S. Wood, Office of the General Counsel, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, counsel for Respondent. Edward J. Tolchin, Brian Taylor Goldstein, and Patricia V. Fettmann of Fettmann & Tolchin, Fairfax, VA, counsel for Intervenor. Before Board Judges DANIELS, PARKER, and VERGILIO. PARKER, Board Judge. In this protest, filed on September 25 and amended on October 26, 1992, PRC Inc. alleges that the award of a contract for automatic data processing services by the Department of Justice's Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) violated statute and regulation. Maxima Corporation, the contract awardee, has intervened on the side of INS. After sorting through PRC's numerous complaints about the conduct of the procurement, we hold that the award to Maxima should stand. The procurement, although not perfect, was fairly conducted and resulted in a well-supported award to Maxima. Finding no violation of statue or regulation, we deny the protest. Findings of Fact Procurement Integrity On August 16, 1991, months before the instant procurement began, Maxima filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for PRC's billing invoices for a facilities management contract that PRC holds with NASA. NASA informed Maxima that it would provide the invoices but would withhold certain information regarding direct labor, fringe benefits, overhead and general and administrative expenses (G&A) as "confidential commercial or financial information," the disclosure of which could cause competitive harm to PRC. Protester's Exhibit 12. NASA's redactions of the PRC invoices were wholly inadequate. From the invoices, one can easily calculate PRC's G&A rate during February 1991, Protester's Exhibit 2, and its fringe benefit and overhead rates as of May 1990, Protester's Exhibit 3; Transcript at 399-401, 703-04. Although a company's current fringe benefit, overhead, and G&A rates are among its most sensitive financial information, the parties have argued vigorously about the significance of the more than one year old information provided by the NASA invoices. In June 1992, before Maxima submitted its best and final offer (BAFO) for the INS procurement, Maxima's Chief Operating Officer compared the rates offered by Maxima for the INS procurement to PRC's rates as calculated from the NASA invoices. Protest File Supplement, Exhibit 107; Transcript at 860. Transcript at 837-38. Although we offer no opinion as to whether Maxima used PRC's rates as a "final check" before submitting its BAFO for the INS procurement, the record shows that Maxima did not change those rates from its initial proposal. Commitment to Provide the Required Number of Hours The solicitation at issue here sought offers to provide facility operations support services. Protest File, Exhibit 2. To obtain services under the contract, INS will issue task orders for a particular number of hours, specifying the personnel categories required to perform the task. Offerors were required to propose prices for a total of 1,664,000 hours of labor. This figure results from multiplying 2,080 hours times the number of positions required to be filled over a five year period. The 2,080 hour figure is the product of the number of weeks in a year (52) and the number of work hours in a week (40). The solicitation required that the labor hour prices be "fully loaded," id. at B-1, and that payments to the contractor "shall be computed by multiplying the appropriate hourly rates described in [the] schedule by the number of direct labor hours performed," id. at I-1 (incorporating Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) clause 52.232-7 by reference). The solicitation did not state, however, that all the hours proposed must be "productive" hours, and in this connection, PRC and Maxima interpreted the solicitation differently. PRC proposed 1,664,000 productive labor hours, all of which could theoretically be ordered by the Government. Costs for vacations, holidays and other types of paid leave were accounted for in PRC's overhead or "wrap" rate, which was added to the basic hourly wage for each employee. In other words, PRC offered 1,664,000 hours of productive labor, with the price for each labor hour including an add-on for the cost of non-productive time. Protest File, Exhibit 21. If the Government ordered the full number of hours, however, some of the work would have to be performed by unidentified substitute personnel while the people offered to perform the contract are on leave. Maxima, on the other hand, interpreted the 2,080 hours for each of the positions as constituting one "man-year" for each person. Stated differently, Maxima read the solicitation as requesting a fixed number of people to work on a yearly basis, including vacations, holidays, and other types of paid leave. Accordingly, Maxima's offer provided that such "non-productive" time would be billed to the Government as direct labor hours. Thus, the 1,664,000 hours bid by Maxima included both productive and non-productive time for the offered employees. Protest File, Exhibit 21. Maxima's overhead rate did not include costs for this non-productive time. If INS does ultimately ask Maxima to provide 1,664,000 productive hours, Maxima is willing to provide them at its "normalized" rates (see below). Transcript at 832. Price Normalization INS never considered the issue of whether Maxima had offered to provide 1,664,000 hours of productive labor. See Transcript at 260. INS expected that offerors would propose only productive hours, but believes that Maxima's interpretation is not prohibited by the solicitation. In order to make an "apples to apples" comparison of prices, however, INS needed to make some calculations. Essentially, what INS did was to "normalize" Maxima's price by adding 160 extra hours per employee (80 hours for vacation and 80 hours for holidays) at the offered hourly rate to account for the unproductive time that would be billed to the Government. In other words, INS determined that in order to obtain the price of 2,080 productive hours from a Maxima employee, the Government would have to order 2,240 total hours of that employee's time. This normalization process added $2,465,534 to Maxima's total evaluated price. The normalization of prices performed by INS was almost, but not quite, correct. PRC's expert opines that the correct number of hours to be added per employee is 220, which is made up of the original 160 hours for vacations and holidays plus 40 hours for sick leave and 20 hours for training. This would add $3,839,880 to Maxima's price. Transcript at 687-89. Maxima's expert believes the correct number to be 173. Id. at 883-900. No matter which of the figures is used, however, Maxima's total price is still less than PRC's total price. Maxima's total evaluated price (before any normalization) was $32,644,812; Protest File, Exhibit 21. Grade Creep The hourly wage rates for the offered employees were obtained in part by a process called crosswalking. In this process, which was required by the solicitation, each offeror attempts to match each of the position descriptions contained in section J of the solicitation with a job description contained in the Service Contract Act Directory of Occupations. In this way, a minimum wage rate is established for each position. If a proper crosswalk is not performed, the offeror may not be able to hire qualified personnel at its offered rates. Theoretically, the Government's costs could go up if it permitted the winning contractor to substitute higher-priced personnel to perform a particular task. The Board heard evidence from both protester's and intervenor's expert witnesses concerning whether a proper crosswalk had been accomplished by Maxima. On this point, the Board finds the testimony of Dr. Ira Weinberg, Maxima's expert in employee compensation, to be particularly persuasive. Dr. Weinberg explained the proper method for performing a crosswalk and then performed crosswalks for the positions that PRC claims were improperly performed. According to Dr. Weinberg, Maxima performed a proper crosswalk for each position and will have no trouble hiring personnel to perform the work at its offered prices. Transcript at 627-40. We do not repeat his testimony in detail here; suffice it to say that we found his testimony to be well supported, highly credible, and most persuasive. Wage Rate Escalation Maxima treated eleven of the thirteen positions as subject to the SCA. The duties to be performed by those who fill these positions, however, are the same for both offerors; the employees must meet the specific requirements set forth in section J of the solicitation. The SCA and its implementing regulations require that contractors pay covered employees a minimum prevailing wage rate as determined by the Department of Labor. See Protest File, Exhibit 3. If, during the life of the contract, the prevailing wage rate increases, the contractor is required to pay the increased amount to the employee but the Government absorbs the cost of this escalation. Id. Consistent with the solicitation, neither offeror included costs for potential wage rate increases. PRC claims that the Government's determination of the costs that it will incur for this contract must take into account these potential wage increases, which PRC's expert estimates at 3.6 percent per year. Thus, it argues that INS should have added $676,168 to Maxima's evaluated price to cover estimated wage increases for the eleven covered employees, Transcript at 693-94. Even if the amounts suggested by PRC were added to both offerors' evaluated prices, however, Maxima's proposed price is still less. The result is the same if the amount proposed by PRC to cover the non-productive hours is also added. See Protester's Exhibit 11. Resum Certifications The solicitation required each offeror to supply resum s for the personnel proposed to work on the contract. Section J of the solicitation required that both the offeror and the individual certify (by signing the resum ) that the information in the resum is true and complete and that the individual will be available to work on task orders issued under the contract. Protest File, Exhibit 2. In addition, section L.9.3 required the offeror to furnish letters of commitment for proposed key personnel and to provide resum s in the format described in section J. Id., Exhibits 2, 11. By written clarification, INS notified the offerors that "resum certification as described in Section J . . . is sufficient for current, full-time employees of the offeror. Additionally, letters of commitment must be submitted for all proposed key personnel who are not current, full-time employees of the offeror." Protest File, Exhibit 4, Amendment 2. Maxima misread the solicitation provisions relating to resum certification. Maxima supplied resum s for its own current, full-time employees that included neither the offeror's nor the individual's certification of availability to work on the contract. Maxima's BAFO; Transcript at 981-82. INS never noticed Maxima's oversight; if it had, INS would have discussed the deficiency during negotiations with Maxima. Transcript at 175, 208-10. Now, however, INS regards the matter as "at most a technical violation of the RFP requirements which did not in any way either decrease the value of Respondent's contract with [Maxima] or prejudice the evaluation of the merits of [PRC's] proposal." Respondent's Post-hearing Brief at 11. PRC does not allege, nor is there any evidence, that Maxima did not intend to, or cannot, supply the offered personnel. Evaluation Criteria Section M of the solicitation states how proposals were to be evaluated: M.1 GENERAL a. Award shall be made to the responsible offeror whose proposal, conforming to this solicitation, is determined to be most advantageous to the Government in accordance with the evaluation of both mandatory requirements and subjective technical factors listed in this section, as well as price considerations. . . . . . . . d. Any award resulting from this solicitation will be made to that responsive responsible Offeror whose proposal conforms to this RFP and is evaluated as being the most advantageous to the INS. For the purpose of selecting a successful offeror for the award of the contemplated contract, technical merit shall be considered more important than price. However, as Technical scores become more equal then the importance of price becomes more significant. Furthermore, prices will be evaluated for realism. . . . . M.2 EVALUATION OF MANDATORY REQUIREMENTS Proposals shall be prepared according to and in compliance with the instructions given in section L. All offerors must clearly demonstrate their ability to meet all requirements specified in the RFP. . . . M.3 SUBJECTIVE TECHNICAL EVALUATION The Government will develop a technical score and narrative evaluation of the Offerors' proposals based on these factors. Offerors are reminded when preparing proposals that the information in Volume II, Technical Proposal and Volume III, Management Proposal will be the basis for the technical evaluation and, therefore, should give careful consideration to the Section L proposal preparation instructions and the evaluation factors in paragraph M.5. Protest File, Exhibit 2. Section M.5 provided a list of factors and subfactors with corresponding point values. The factors and subfactors precisely match the twelve specific requirements categories in section C of the solicitation. One thousand points were available. Id. INS first evaluated the proposals to determine whether they met the mandatory requirements; both PRC's and Maxima's proposals passed this test. INS then performed the subjective technical evaluation described in section M.3. Maxima scored 357.49 total points, while PRC scored 352.805 points. Protest File, Exhibit 21. During PRC's debriefing, INS explained that offerors received points only for "added value" and "innovation," but not for meeting the mandatory requirements. Transcript at 441-43, 450-53. This unfortunate choice of words caused PRC to believe that offers had been evaluated only on how much the offers exceeded the requirements rather than on how well offerors met the requirements. PRC thus believed that its offer had been evaluated based on factors not set forth in the solicitation. Id. at 396, 408-12, 440-53. In fact, the proposals were scored based upon the factors set forth in section M.5. As the chairman of the Technical Evaluation Panel testified: Q It's been alleged in Protestor's documents that in this technical and subjective evaluation you awarded points only for innovation. Is this a correct statement? A That's incorrect. The Technical Evaluation Panel considered added value to be many things. Innovation was to a part of that. We looked at improved methods for performing the work, the total methodology, new approaches for doing the work. Innovation could be considered. The efficiency, the effectiveness, their approaches . . . . Q I just want to make it absolutely clear that it was not limited to innovation only. A No, it was not limited to innovation only. Transcript at 187-88. The chairman further testified: JUDGE PARKER: . . . But I'm hearing all this stuff now about, well, if they just met the requirements, you basically got a zero, and then it was only for these "innovative" items or -- what's the word? THE WITNESS: Added value. JUDGE PARKER: Added value. So I guess what I'm asking you is did you do the normal type of technical evaluation, but just give it a different name, or did you really do something different? THE WITNESS: We did the normal evaluation. JUDGE PARKER: In other words, . . . are you saying that the score that they got under the subjective evaluation, did it go to how well they would meet the requirements -- THE WITNESS: Yes. JUDGE PARKER: -- in addition to extras that it would offer? THE WITNESS: Yes. It was a [sic] added value, and the how well turns into the added value. JUDGE PARKER: . . . I noticed that in Section M, you have a list of the subjective technical factors and, of course, they're just the same as the headings for the Section C requirements, right? . . . . Is that what you're telling me? It's how well the offeror stated that it could meet the requirements and -- THE WITNESS: How well they were going to perform the requirements. Id. at 221-22. Alleged Arbitrary Technical Scoring PRC claims that the Technical Evaluation Panel (TEP) arbitrarily and irrationally scored the proposals in three areas: Help Desk Operational Support, Systems Maintenance and Management, and Corporate Personnel Qualification and Experience. Protester's Brief at 23. The TEP, made up of mid-level employees with extensive hands-on experience with the types of tasks to be performed under this contract, scored the proposals after extensive discussion, and submitted a final report to the contracting officer. Protest File, Exhibit 20. Then, after briefing the Source Selection Advisory Council on its work, the TEP prepared a supplement to its report which explained in detail the basis for the scores awarded. Protest File Supplement, Exhibit 103. After reviewing in detail the proposals themselves, TEP report and supplement, and the testimony concerning this issue, we find no support for PRC's allegation that the scores awarded were unreasonable or inconsistent. Discussion PRC's numerous objections to the conduct of this procurement cannot overcome one central fact: Maxima's proposal was the highest rated technically and offered the lowest price. To be sure, both INS and Maxima made mistakes. As discussed below, however, none of the mistakes affected either the fairness or the outcome of the competition. Procurement Integrity Maxima obtained more than one year old PRC rate information as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request to NASA for billing invoices under a contract that PRC holds with that agency. NASA failed properly to redact the requested PRC invoices such that Maxima was able to calculate PRC's fringe benefit rate, overhead rate, and G&A rate. PRC maintains that Maxima's alleged use of the PRC rate information as a "final check" before submitting its BAFO should disqualify Maxima from this competition. We think PRC makes too much of this matter. First, there is no evidence that Maxima actually used the information in connection with the contract at issue here; More importantly, even if Maxima did use the PRC rates as a "final check" before submitting its BAFO for the contract at issue here, there is no evidence that the information affected the competition. Maxima did not change its offered rates from its initial proposal. PRC cites a number of cases in support of its argument that Maxima should be excluded from the competition, but we find none of them applicable here. In each of the cited cases, an offeror either gained a competitive advantage as a result of improper conduct, or the contracting officer determined a behavior to be so egregious that continued participation by the offending offeror would impact the integrity of the competitive process. See, e.g., NFK Engineering, Inc. v. United States, 805 F.2d 372 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (contracting officer properly excluded offeror which hired an agency official actively involved in the procurement process); Compliance Corp. v. United States, 22 Cl. Ct. 193 (1990), aff'd, 960 F.2d 157 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (contracting officer properly excluded offeror based upon its attempt to obtain a copy of another offeror's proposal from an employee of the competitor); University Systems, Inc. v. Department of Health and Human Services, GSBCA 12039-P, 1992 BPD 380 (Nov. 19, 1992) (contracting officer properly removed offeror from competition for submitting a false certification). Here, Maxima did not set out to obtain PRC's proprietary information; it filed a Freedom of Information Act request with another agency and received information that NASA did not intend to release. The somewhat dated information was of debatable significance. There is no evidence that the information disclosed by NASA affected the procurement at issue here. Under these circumstances, we agree with INS that the integrity of the procurement process has not been compromised and we find reasonable INS's decision not to disqualify Maxima from the competition. Commitment to Provide the Required Number of Hours PRC maintains that Maxima's offer should have been rejected because it fails to commit to the required number of "productive" hours. Maxima read the solicitation as asking offerors to fill a fixed number of positions at 2,080 hours per "man-year," including vacations, holidays and other types of paid leave. Accordingly, Maxima proposed to bill such "non-productive" time as direct labor hours. INS expected that offerors would propose only "productive" hours, but believes that Maxima's interpretation of the solicitation is reasonable. As discussed below, we agree with INS and further find that Maxima's interpretation did not affect the competition in a material way. It is true that Maxima did not propose to provide 2,080 hours of productive labor per person per year; depending upon which expert one chooses to believe, Maxima's offer commits to provide somewhere between 1,860 and 1,907 hours of productive labor per position per year. The difference is the amount of paid leave to be taken. Several factors convince us that this difference is not material. First, Maxima's reading of the solicitation was reasonable. The solicitation did not specify that the 2,080 hours per position per year must be productive hours; in fact, it implied otherwise. Specific personnel with specific qualifications were required to be proposed, and were evaluated, for each position. If INS decided to order 2,080 hours for a particular position, it would have to accept the services of an unidentified substitute while the offered employee was on leave. Second, the number of "non-productive" hours included in Maxima's offer is small in relation to the total number of hours required. There is no evidence that PRC went to any extra trouble or expense to offer all productive hours; its argument is merely that Maxima's offer does not meet the requirements of the solicitation.[foot #] 1 The difference between the two approaches is further minimized by the fact that the services called for in the contract will be ordered by individual task orders. In other words, there is no guarantee that INS will require the full 2,080 hours per person. Finally, Maxima has agreed, albeit after the fact, to provide 1,664,000 productive hours if requested to by INS. We are faced here with an unusual situation. After a reasonable price normalization to account for the difference in pricing methodologies (see below), Maxima's offer is not only technically superior, but less expensive for any number of hours. In these circumstances, the prejudice to PRC in permitting Maxima to commit to the maximum number of hours after the fact is greatly outweighed by the prejudice that would accrue to Maxima if the Board sent the procurement back for another round of BAFOs. If Maxima merely changed the format (as opposed to the amount) of its pricing, Maxima would be a sitting duck for PRC, which knows the winning price. A cut-throat price auction would be the likely result. In making decisions on the merits of protests, this Board is charged by statute to "accord due weight to the policies of this section [of the Competition in Contracting Act] and the goals of economic and efficient procurement . . . ." 40 U.S.C. 759(f)(5)(A) (1988). We do not set aside contract awards unless we find "significantly sufficient" violations of law or regulation. Anderson Consulting, GSBCA 10833-P, 91-1 BCA 23,474, 1990 BPD 396, aff'd, 959 F.2d 929 (Fed. Cir. 1992). We find no such violation here. Maxima's interpretation of the solicitation and its resulting pricing methodology did not materially affect the competition. Price Normalization As discussed in our findings of fact, because of the difference in pricing methodologies, INS had to "normalize" the prices in order to make a meaningful comparison of them. INS determined that it would have to add 160 hours at the offered rate for each Maxima employee to account for the unproductive time that would be billed to the Government. In this way, INS could determine the price of 2,080 productive hours per employee for purposes of comparison with PRC's offer. PRC believes that ----------- FOOTNOTE BEGINS --------- [foot #] 1 In this connection, PRC also argues that Maxima's offer fails to conform to the requirements of the solicitation because Maxima's hourly rates were not "fully loaded." We disagree. Maxima's prices contain the same elements as PRC's prices, albeit in different form. PRC accounted for paid leave as part of overhead; Maxima proposed to bill these hours as direct charges. We view this complaint as yet another example of PRC's emphasis of form over substance. ----------- FOOTNOTE ENDS ----------- INS should have added the price of 220 hours for each employee to account for sick leave and training, in addition to the vacation and holiday time covered by INS's normalization. Even if PRC is correct, however, Maxima's offer is still cheaper by more than $2,000,000. Thus, regardless of the merits of PRC's complaint, it could not have been prejudiced by the alleged violation. Grade Creep For the reasons discussed in our findings of fact, we find no merit to PRC's allegations that Maxima performed inadequate "crosswalks." Because INS reasonably determined that Maxima will be able to hire qualified personnel at its offered rates, there is no reasonable risk that Maxima will not be able to perform at its offered prices. Wage Rate Escalation Maxima treated eleven of the thirteen positions as subject to the SCA. Because the Government pays increases in prevailing wages for these employees, PRC argues that INS should have adjusted the prices to account for the additional wage increases (estimated at 3.6 percent per year) that it would have to pay if Maxima were awarded the contract. Again the count fails for lack of prejudice. Even if we accept PRC's argument that employees who would perform the same jobs should be treated differently for purposes of the Service Contract Act, Maxima's offer is still less expensive than PRC's offer. Resum Certifications PRC maintains that Maxima should be ineligible for award of the contract because it failed to provide certifications of availability for some offered personnel. We agree with INS that, in this case, Maxima's oversight is not material. First, there is no evidence, or even an allegation, that Maxima will not provide the offered employees. Maxima is bound by the terms of its offer to provide the offered employees and intends to do so. The question thus becomes whether lack of certification, in and of itself, should disqualify Maxima from receiving the award. This Board has considered many times the issue of "bait and switch" in connection with service contracts. The issue has always been whether the offeror actually intended to supply the offered personnel, or merely proposed highly qualified personnel for purposes of evaluation with the intention of switching personnel after award of the contract. In these cases, we have held that an offeror must, in good faith, propose personnel that it intends to provide to work on the contract and that failure to do so supports elimination from the competition. Electronic Data Systems Federal Corp., GSBCA 9869-P, 89-2 BCA 21,665, 1989 BPD 69, aff'd sub nom. Planning Research Corp. v. United States, 971 F.2d 736 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Sterling Federal Systems, Inc., GSBCA 10381-P, 90-2 BCA 22,802, 1990 BPD 70; PSI International, Inc. v. Department of Energy, GSBCA 11521-P, 92-2 BCA 24,775, 1992 BPD 35; CBIS Federal, Inc. v. Department of the Interior, GSBCA 12092-P, 1992 BPD 340, at 7 (Nov. 6, 1992). As discussed above, that situation does not exist here. We view Maxima's failure to provide the required certifications as a technical violation that neither invalidated the competitive nature of the procurement nor prejudiced PRC. Under these circumstances, INS's decision to ignore Maxima's oversight was reasonable. Evaluation Criteria PRC argues that INS failed to evaluate the offers in accordance with the solicitation because it failed to award points for meeting the minimum requirements of the solicitation. We find that INS followed the evaluation procedure set forth in the solicitation. Section M.2 of the solicitation provided for an initial evaluation of proposals to determine whether they complied with the stated requirements. INS performed this evaluation, which was not scored, and both PRC and Maxima passed the test. Section M.3 then provided for a "Subjective Technical Evaluation," which would be scored using the evaluation factors set forth in section M.5. The section M.5 evaluation factors matched the requirements categories in section C, the statement of work. Because PRC was told in its debriefing, in an unfortunate choice of words, that INS awarded points in this second evaluation only for "added value," PRC believed that the evaluation was conducted contrary to the terms of the solicitation in that no points were awarded for how well an offeror proposed to meet the section M.5 (and section C) requirements. In fact, offerors were scored on how well they proposed to meet the requirements. The "added value" which the evaluators looked for in scoring the proposals really was nothing more than a determination of how well the offerors proposed to meet the requirements. Naturally, proposals which offered innovative or efficient methods for accomplishing the required tasks received higher scores than those that did not; such an analysis is the very essence of a subjective technical evaluation. Alleged Arbitrary Technical Scoring In a final effort to reverse its fortunes, PRC maintains that the Technical Evaluation Panel assigned arbitrary and irrational scores to the proposals in several areas. This is a difficult ground on which to prevail because the law vests considerable discretion in the judgment of technical evaluators. Computer Sciences Corp., GSBCA 11497-P, 92-1 BCA 24,703, 1992 BPD 6. For a protester to prevail in a such a challenge, it must prove that the evaluation was clearly erroneous -- an abuse of discretion demonstrating a "gross disparity or unfairness." Corporate Jets, Inc., GSBCA 11049-P, 91-2 BCA 23,998, 1991 BPD 111; Health Systems Technology Corp., GSBCA 10920-P, 91-2 BCA 23,692, 1991 BPD 20. Although the scores assigned by the technical evaluators may not have been the exact same scores we would have assigned, as explained in our findings of fact, PRC has not shown that the scores were unreasonable. Decision Like most procurements, this one was not perfect. In the final analysis, however, Maxima was awarded the contract because it offered the highest rated technical proposal at the lowest price. Nothing PRC has shown during this protest changes that fact. The protest is DENIED. The suspension of respondent's delegation of procurement authority lapses by its terms. _________________________ ROBERT W. PARKER Board Judge We concur: _______________________ STEPHEN M. DANIELS Board Judge ________________________ JOSEPH A. VERGILIO Board Judge