Lowest-Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) Does Not Always Equate to "Best Value"

Rep. Mark Meadows (NC) introduced a bill last month that would extend certain prohibitions that now apply to DoD contracts, to all executive agencies. In short, the bill establishes a new policy to avoid using lowest price technically acceptable (LPTA) source selection criteria in circumstances that would deny the Government the benefits of cost and technical trade-offs in the source selection process.

The theory goes something like this. LPTA contracts have not always delivered the outcomes that were initially expected. Cheapest does not always equate to the best value in procuring professional services.

Under this bill, federal agencies will have flexibility to seek and obtain innovative solutions, better outcomes and ultimately the best value on behalf of taxpayers.

When it comes to applying LPTA in contract bids, federal agencies must:

1. Comprehensively and clearly describe the minimum requirements in terms of performance objectives, measures and standards that will be used to determine the acceptability of offers.
2. Establish that there is no value in a contract bid that might exceed the technical and performance requirements.
3. Require that technical approaches require no subjective judgment by the source selection authority for one proposal over another
4. That the source selection authority reviewing technical proposals have high confidence that bids other than the lowest would not result in identifying factors that could provide value or benefit to the executive agency
5. That the contract officer provide justification for the use of LPTA evaluation methodology in the contract file.
6. The agency determines that the LPTA reflects full life-cycle costs, including operations and support.

This bill also limits LPTA use on the following:

• information technology services,
• cybersecurity services
• systems engineering and technical assistance services,
• advanced electronic testing
• audit or audit readiness services
• other knowledge-based training or logistics services for overseas contingency operations.

Sounds to us like this bill will result in a lot more work for contracting officers - primarily with a need to prepare more justification and documentation.