GSA releases draft of amended Polaris request for proposal
The General Services Administration drafted changes to the Polaris Small Business Pool request for proposals, in light of a pre-award bid protest over how prior experience was being treated, and released them Friday.
GSA invited the small business IT community to weigh in on the new draft, before both the Polaris governmentwide acquisition contract’s (GWAC) requests for proposals (RFPs) are amended and unpaused.
The Government Accountability Office dismissed contractor BD Squared’s protest on April 25, after GSA agreed to amend RFP language concerning how it would assess the experience of offerers engaged in joint ventures.
According to amended RFP, Small Business Administration Mentor-Protégé arrangements submitting offers must ensure at least one primary relevant experience project or emerging technology relevant experience project is from the protégé, and no more than three of the former may be provided by the mentor.
Also joint venture offerers must submit a separate, written narrative detailing prior work and qualifications of each partner and the joint venture, itself, as well as if there is none.
The RFP for the Women-Owned Small Business Pool will be amended as well.
GSA further released a Polaris Q&A detailing RFPs for the Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) and Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business pools are expected in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, and the Symphony Polaris Submission Portal for proposal submissions remains on hold pending RFP amendment.
The deadline for feedback to polaris@gsa.gov is May 23, 2022, and proposals will now be due on June 30, 2022 — though that deadline will be changed to reflect the number of days the solicitations were paused.
