Last CIO-SP4 protest resolved

It appears that nothing is standing in the way of new awards for the CIO-SP4 contract vehicle now that the last remaining protest has been resolved.

That protest was filed by Inserso in July at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. Inserso went to the court after the Government Accountability Office denied the company's protest.

Inserso complained that the National Institutes of Health’s IT Acquisition and Assessment Center reduced the points on the company's self-scoring evaluation after it used a requirements contract as an experience example.

GAO rejected that argument, so Inserso turned to the courts and filed its lawsuit July 24. In essence, Inserso was making the same argument at the court as they did unsuccessfully at GAO.

But this time, NITAAC appears to have changed its mind. NITAAC has backed away from its objection to using a requirements contract and told the court in a Sept. 15 filing that it is taking a corrective action, according to a motion seen by Washington Technology.

NITAAC is taking the same corrective action with all offerors. This will change the point totals for many companies.

The self-scoring threshold was one of the sticking points for the protesters, who argued that NITAAC set an arbitrary threshold to move from phase one to phase two. Hundreds of protests were filed.

Once NITAAC said it would take this action, Inserso filed a motion to dismiss its challenge.

After NITAAC re-evaluates proposals, it will make a new determination on which companies will move into the competition's second phase.

The re-evaluations are underway and we’ve reached out to NITAAC to get a sense of timing on the new award decisions. NITAAC says it expects to make the awards before the current CIO-SP3 vehicle ends on April 29, 2024.

In its filing, Inserso said it reserves the right to post a new protest if it feels NITAAC didn’t properly conduct the reevaluation.