Three fight for chance at $140M DHS IT contract
By
Nick Wakeman
The incumbent, General Dynamics, and two other large companies have been told they aren't in the competitive range for a $140 million DHS IT support contract.
Three companies including the incumbent are fighting for the chance to compete for the Homeland Security Department’s $140 million contract for IT support services.
The current contract is held by General Dynamics One Source LLC, but GD has been told by DHS that the company has been excluded from the competitive range.
Also excluded are Harris Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services.
All three have filed protests with the Government Accountability Office. GAO’s bid protest docket states that a ruling will be made by early September.
DHS can continue to evaluate and hold discussions with the remaining bidders during this time but cannot make an award until the protests are resolved.
The contract is being awarded under the GSA Alliant contract and goes by the acronym NATIONS for National Area and Transnational IT Operations and Next Generation Support (I think someone fell in love with the NATIONS acronym and created a contract title to fit it.).
The contract supports end-users at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services bureau of DHS with services such as IT design, development and deployment. USCIS oversees immigrant visa petitions, naturalization petitions and asylum and refugee applications.
GD has been supporting USCIS under an Eagle I task order since 2011, according to the Deltek database. The contract goes by the name TOMIS for Technology Operations and Maintenance Infrastructure Support contract.
It’s worth noting that DHS had to move the work from its own contract vehicle to a GSA vehicle because the Eagle II wasn’t ready for task orders in time.
Deltek estimates that about $140 million in business flowed to GD through the TOMIS contract.