Does anyone know how I could get my hands on the actual winning bid submitted in response to a federal request for proposal or request for quote?
What I want to do is get my hands on the actual bid submitted by a firm for a 2001 contract. I believe winning bids should be publically available but I don’t know for sure.
Anyone out there got any leads? I’ve got a call in to the Freedom of Information Act officer for the federal department in question already but wondered if anyone could shed further light on the issue for me.
Not all parts of a winning proposal are public. In particular, the costing information, to the extent it reveals the loading rates of the proposing form, is competition-sensitive and you won’t get it.
The proposed technical solution and final costing (that is, the final loaded labor rates) is, in general, public info. (Unless the job itself was classified, obviously).
A FOIA request to the contracting agency should be sufficient. However, note that in cases of blanket purchase contracts, the actual contracting agency may be different than the agency that’s getting the work. I may have a BPA with GSA, for example, in which I have indefinitite delivery-indefinite quantity (IDIQ) labor hours for a wide variety of labor categories. GSA then makes this blanket purchasing power available to other federal agencies. So, for example. USDA hires me for a task, but the underlying contract (the contracting “vehicle”) is actually through GSA. In that case, obviously, the FOIA request goes to the contracting officer at GSA.