NITAAC CIO-SP4 Protests Amass, Extending CIO-SP3 to 2025

NITAAC CIO-SP4 Protests Amass, Extending CIO-SP3 to 2025

7/19/2024

Unfortunately for Chief Information Officer-Solutions and Partners 4 (CIO-SP4) and the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) IT acquisition division, a common trend with large federal vehicles is excessive protests dragging out awards.

NIH Bethesda, Maryland Campus – Grandbrothers – stock.adobe.com

As there doesn’t seem to be any definitive resolution in sight for the current CIO-SP4 Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) protest situation, NIH has extended the current contract phase. NIH’s IT Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) had previously prolonged the CIO-SP3 vehicle in April by six months, setting the new deadline to October 29, 2024. Now, three months later, NITAAC has granted another six-month extension, moving the completion date to April 29, 2025.

Seventeen companies have lodged protests at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims concerning the CIO-SP4 contract. Common complaints focus on NITAAC’s self-evaluation method for bid submission scoring. Initially federal contractor Futron filed its complaint in February 2024, after which 16 other similar complaints were placed. NITAAC is currently compiling its administrative record for the $50 billion CIO-SP4 vehicle after amassing the required evidence or the court.

However, in a filing on the same day, NITAAC’s federal attorneys reported that Justice Department employees experienced file transfer errors while placing a ~100 gigabyte admin file from their local hard drive to a production hard drive. Additionally, they encountered challenges producing the error log, which is essential for troubleshooting these issues. Consequently, they may need to reprocess parts or the entirety of the record unless a faster resolution is found.

NITAAC’s personnel are also delayed in delivering other required filings, which include data for contracts with tight deadlines. Both NITAAC’s and the protesters’ attorneys are scheduled to discuss the next steps on July 19th and have agreed to postpone the filing of any joint status filing to the court until ten days after the administrative file is accepted.

As it may be a while before CIO-SP4 is released, you’re welcome to sign up for a 5-day trial of EZGovOpps to see new award data for CIO-SP3 task orders and which contractors are coming out on top.