Strategic Resources, Inc. (B-423597.2, B-423597.3)

You should not care.

Category: Best value, price evaluation, responsibility

Date: 14 January 2026

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423597.2,b-423597.3

Strategic Resources protested the Army’s task-order award to 360 Patriot for military funeral honors and survivor outreach services, attacking the technical and price evaluations, the responsibility determination, and the best value tradeoff.

GAO denied the protest. The record showed the agency reasonably evaluated both offerors under the nonprice and price factors and adequately documented why Patriot’s lower-priced proposal still represented the better value. GAO also rejected SRI’s challenge to the contracting officer’s affirmative responsibility determination, finding no showing that the agency ignored relevant responsibility information.

The protest largely boiled down to disagreement with a reasonably documented evaluation and tradeoff.

Digest

1. Protest challenging various aspects of the agency's evaluation under the non-price and price factors, and the agency's best-value tradeoff decision, is denied where the evaluation and decision were reasonable and consistent with the stated evaluation criteria.
2. Protest challenging the agency's affirmative responsibility determination is denied where the record does not show that the contracting officer ignored relevant information in making the determination.