DHS financial management support buy runs into a protest snag
By
Nick Wakeman
The Homeland Security Department wants to modernize the systems supporting its chief financial officer but the $1 billion pact it awarded to seven companies has run into a protest by a disappointed bidder.
The Homeland Security Department is trying to use a $1 billion multiple award blanket purchase agreement to support its chief financial officer but the effort has run into a protest from a disappointed bidder.
DHS tapped Accenture, CACI International, CGI Federal, Deloitte, General Dynamics IT, IBM and Savantage for a variety of services to modernize IT systems and business processes for the department’s CFO under a BPA know as DHS Enterprise Financial Systems Integrator.
But not on the list of winners was Creoal Consulting, a 14-year-old consulting firm that specializes in life-cycle IT and enterprise resource planning system support services.
Creoal is arguing that the evaluations were not done properly and that if they were, then Creoal would have been picked as one of the winners.
The BPA was competed through GSA’s Schedule 70. The BPA has a $1 billion ceiling over 10 years. With at least seven primes sharing that ceiling, it is highly unlikely than any single company will get $1 billion in task orders.
Ceiling value aside, this is the kind of contract vehicle that gives you access. DHS' CFO will lean on this vehicle to modernize a large number of systems and processes.
DHS was created in 2003 from more than 20 agencies and it still relies on many legacy systems for financial management and procurement functions. The agency has a vision of creating enterprise wide financial management systems.
Creoal doesn’t want to be shut out of that kind of opportunity.
The company filed its protest Dec. 7 and expects a Government Accountability Office decision by March 17.