The General Services Administration (GSA) directs and manages the Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program, which allows federal agencies to obtain commercial products and services through a simplified acquisition procedure under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) part 8. When procuring services through the GSA FSS, government agencies use established procedures to place orders to pre-approved vendors, satisfying the Competition in Contracting Act’s (CICA) full and open competition requirements. In obtaining the FSS contract, service vendors provide functional descriptions for labor categories (LCATs) for the services they intend to offer via the GSA FSS. When procuring services through the GSA FSS, federal government agencies must ensure that the services are within the scope of an awardee’s applicable FSS contract LCATs. If the services being procured on the FSS task order are outside the scope of the awardee’s proposed LCAT functional descriptions, the award may be protested for being outside the scope of the vendor’s underlying FSS contract.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has strict timeliness rules for submission of bid protests. Under these timeliness rules, post-award protests must typically be filed no later than 10 days after the basis of the protest is known or should have been known, except when the debriefing exception applies. The debriefing exception, which does not apply to federal supply schedule (FSS) procurements, requires unsuccessful offerors to file their protests within 10 days of a required and requested debriefing. In General Services Administration (GSA) FSS procurements conducted under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) subpart 8.4, unsuccessful offerors are only entitled to a “brief explanation.” Due to the terms being somewhat similar, contractors may confuse the “brief explanation” contemplated under FAR subpart 8.4 with the required and requested “debriefing” of competitive proposals. Such confusion may prove problematic as it can cause an unsuccessful offeror to miss the 10-day deadline to file their post-award protest at the GAO.

In B-422881, a decision issued on September 12, 2024, the GAO dismissed such a protest as untimely, reminding the protestor of the distinction between a required and requested “debrief” and a “brief explanation” under FAR subpart 8.4. The Navy’s Military Sealift Command issued the relevant FSS Request for Quotation (RFQ) for lodging negotiation and management services, requiring vendors to provide multiple extended-stay studio rooms in Mobile, Alabama. The RFQ contemplated a lowest-priced technically acceptable (LPTA) award and required offerors to submit their quotations on or before August 8, 2024. The protestor was notified that its quotation was unsuccessful on August 13 via the GSA eBuy system. On August 16, the government provided the protestor with a “brief explanation,” as required under FAR subpart 8.4. In the brief explanation, the Navy advised the protestor that its quotation was evaluated as technically unacceptable and was therefore ineligible for award. The brief explanation also specifically noted that it was not a debrief.

The General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program requires pre-approved schedule contractors to publish an authorized FSS pricelist containing all the supplies and services they offer. The pricelists include the terms and conditions for each Special Item Number (SIN) on the contractors’ schedules. Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 8.401 defines a SIN as a group of generically similar (but not identical) supplies or services intended to serve the same general purpose or function. When issuing requests for quotes (RFQs) under FAR subpart 8.4, procuring agencies may include a provision identifying a SIN and expressly limit the procurement to that SIN. In such procurements, only contractors with the identified SIN on their schedule contracts may compete to fulfill the requirement. Additionally, in service procurements, contractors may only propose labor categories (LCATs) that fall under the applicable SIN. However, procuring agencies do not always identify an applicable SIN or limit the contractors’ ability to only propose LCATs from a particular SIN. In the absence of such SIN limitations, contractors may compete for the RFQ if the quoted goods and services are available on their underlying FSS contracts without regard to a particular SIN.

The General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) program allows federal agencies to acquire services from pre-approved vendors via simplified acquisition procedures of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 8. When utilizing the FSS program, procuring agencies may not purchase “open market items,” which are any services not already listed on a vendor’s GSA schedule. At the same time, the services on a vendor’s schedule may not always directly correlate to the requirements of the solicitation. In such situations, the relevant inquiry is whether the required services are within the scope of the vendor’s schedule contract, as reasonably interpreted. In deciding whether their GSA schedule covers services being sought in the solicitation, contractors should determine whether the required function in the solicitation is the same as the function covered under their schedule contract. In this regard, services are not considered open market items if they are within the scope of particular line items on the FSS contract. Additionally, while the broader, general scope of a schedule contract and the description of its Special Item Numbers (SINs) are relevant in determining the scope of line items, such descriptions are not dispositive to resolve whether the services are covered by the schedule contract.