GSA to slow down process for Polaris IT vehicle

The General Services Administration is taking a timeout on the governmentwide Polaris IT services and solutions contract in order to review whether further changes are needed.

Which means the due date for proposals will be extended and companies working on their bids should take a pause themselves until GSA completes that assessment, the agency said in a Sam.gov notice Wednesday. The original submission due date was May 13 prior to that announcement.

In particular, GSA is looking at how it will evaluate submissions from joint ventures given the feedback received by the agency since the request for proposals was released March 18.

No requirement is in the RFP for a small business involved in either a joint venture or mentor-protégé JV to include relevant experience or past performance in their proposal.

BD Squared then filed a protest on March 29 to challenge that provision, which implies that a mentor-protégé JV would rely solely on the experience of the large business mentor in that relationship.

The company is arguing that aspect of Polaris violates Small Business Administration regulations over mentor-protégé JVs.

Polaris has two tracks, one for general small business and the other for woman-owned small businesses. It is the replacement contract for what was supposed to be Alliant 2 Small Business before GSA cancelled the latter nearly two years ago.