The Federal Government at Work (not a tri-related post)

Many of you know about the craziness I was dealing with at LISI regarding the contract we held with the National Institute of Corrections (NIC) (an agency of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) which is under the Justice Department).  The "quick" summary is as follows:

LISI, the company I'd been running for the past 10 years, had held a small contract to run an Information Center for NIC.  In one form or another, LISI had been continuously operating this project for 30 years, had a top-notch staff, and had received only the highest reviews from the government.  The contract is currently on a 5 year cycle.  In the summer of 2008, the contract came up for bid and we wrote a very competitive proposal.  We were rated as the top bidder in terms of technical merit and all other non-cost factors but were underbid by a technically inferior-rated company.  The government awarded the contract to the other company against the established rules (this was a "best value" procurement, not a "low bid") and gave us one week to clear out.

With the help of an incredibly competent attorney who specializes in this sort of thing, we protested the decision to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).  The GAO ruled in our favor in March of last year and BOP reopened the procurement negotiations.  BOP then changed some of the evaluation criteria to favor the other company. (Wouldn't you think corrections experience would be important for the operation of a corrections library?) We resubmitted our proposal with a few changes.  In September of last year, BOP again awarded to the other company. 

We protested again but knew it was a long-shot--it seemed likely that BOP had "papered over" the process to make their decision.  As the legal dance unfolded, our attorney became more and more convinced that we actually had a winning case once again but in the end, the GAO denied our protest.

The protest decisions have finally been made public (links below).  For my friends and family who have been following along with me, they might be interesting reading.  The 3/25/09 decision is more "fun" to read than the 1/4/10 decision.

Ultimately, the government was able to begin the process with the end in mind.  The GAO has ruled and there's no further recourse.  I have moved on to a great opportunity with another company (more on that another time), but I'm very sad about the final decision and the way it went down.  Less so as an employee of LISI and more so as a citizen and a taxpayer--incredible resources (hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars) were wasted to settle what seems to be a personal grudge. 

We never asked for any entitlement--merely a level playing field upon which to win or lose. I remain convinced that we never got it.

The 15 months that the owner of LISI, our employees, and I went through were very difficult--and unnecessarily so.  Over the past 12 years so I'd become used to the "quirks" that come along with working with the government but this whole experience has exceeded anything I could have imagined. 

It is all tremendously disappointing.


Sustained protest: B-400646.2; B-400646.3, LIS, Inc., March 25, 2009. http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/4006462.htm

Denied protest: B-400646.4, LIS, Inc., January 4, 2010. http://www.gao.gov/decisions/bidpro/4006464.htm