State Department continues to fumble consulate IT contract

The State Department seems to have quite a procurement mess on its hands.

Over the past two years, the department has tried to award the next iteration of a $164.7 million contract for IT support services to consulates around the world. One failed attempt at an award followed by another has been the story here.

A first try at an award went to Vistronix in 2018. That award was quickly protested by the incumbent Peraton, who claimed that Vistronix has a conflict of interest.

Eventually, State agreed and kicked Vistronix out of the competition. Vistronix protested and lost that fight to get back in.

After that, the State Department made an award to ManTech International. Peraton again filed a bid protest, objecting to the ManTech award.

Last week, the State Department told the Government Accountability Office that it found problems with the award to ManTech and decided to pull back the source selection to take a corrective action. One would think that move would make Peraton happy, but instead the company has filed another protest. Peraton arguing that the corrective action is too narrow.

Peraton wants the State Department to make some sort of bigger corrective action. Meanwhile, the company continues to support the department under the Service Delivery Outreach and Operations contract.

Because this is an ongoing protest, insights into the repeated problems the State Department has run into are limited. But when this is finally resolved, many of the records should become available and we’ll be able to dive more deeply into what may have gone wrong.