CSRA wins $208M Education contract for second time

The Education Department has taken a second try at an award of a large IT services contract that was the subject of a complicated protest in the summer of 2017.

But the end result is the same: CSRA is the winner of the potential seven-year, $208 million contract for technical management and integration services.

And this time the award looks to be final, pending any protests. The contract was signed Feb. 24 and is slated to take effect March 1, according to Federal Procurement Spending Data. CSRA declined to comment for the story.

This second attempt at an award to CSRA comes nearly seven months after the Government Accountability Office ruled in favor of NTT Data’s protest against the Education Department’s first try at an award of the contract known as “Portfolio of Integrated Value-Oriented Technologies -- Integration” or “PIVOT-I.”

The main thrust of NTT Data’s protest centered on how copies of its proposal found their way into the possession of a subcontractor of CSRA. GAO ruled the department should examine whether the issue would have an adverse impact on NTT Data’s probability of retaining the work and whether CSRA had a conflict of interest in its relationship with that subcontractor.

PIVOT-I is one of six contracts that are recompetes from its predecessor EDUCATE contract, a 10-year vehicle held by the former Dell Services business that was acquired by NTT Data two years ago.

Separately, the Education Department issued a potential four-and-a-half year, $57.1 million award to IBM for the PIVOT-H contract that covers a hosting environment for data and systems. That contract was also signed Feb. 24 and is slated to take effect March 1, FPDS data says.