Reply #75: A little more than a year ago, the GAO declined to hear a protest...

[Cooley Hurd]

...filed on behalf of the Walter Reed staff in regards to competitive sourcing:

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33462&ref=rellink

GAO declines to hear protest of Walter Reed competitive sourcing decision
By Jenny Mandel
[email protected]

The Government Accountability Office earlier this week dismissed a protest filed on behalf of employees at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center, ruling that the employee group had no standing to challenge the outcome of a public-private job competition initiated prior to January 2005.


GAO's decision, announced on Wednesday, concluded that Alan King, Walter Reed's deputy garrison commander, was not an "interested party" with standing to pursue the protest on behalf of the federal employee group bidding in the competition.


The dismissal means that GAO will not consider King's challenge of a contest for base operations support services at Walter Reed. The competition began in January 2000. The in-house employee team won in September 2004, but the award was the subject of numerous appeals and a round of revisions leading to an award to Cape Canaveral, Fla.-based IAP Worldwide Services last month.


King's protest, filed on behalf of the employee group that bid to perform the work as a "most efficient organization," claimed that he had standing to represent the group before GAO as the "functional and legal equivalent" of an agency tender official. The ATO is authorized to represent federal employees in internal agency appeals under 2003 revisions to Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 rules governing public-private competitions.
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