The Small Business Administration said Friday that Swift & Staley, the Department of Energy’s December winner of the new $160-million Paducah Infrastructure Support Services Contract, does not meet the size requirement for the set-aside contract.
“The SBA performed a Size Determination on Swift & Staley, LLC, and it determined the firm to be “other than a SB [small business] for that procurement,” Tiffani Shea Clements, a spokesperson for the Small Business Administration (SBA) said by email Friday.
“Both the firm and contracting officer were notified of SBA’s decision,” the spokesperson said.
Sources told Weapons Complex Monitor during the past week the federal officials were looking into whether the Paducah-based incumbent contractor exceeds the size limit for this particular small-business set-aside.
One industry source said the award is expected to be recalled, an industry source said by phone Tuesday. Swift & Staley “were not small enough” and are “out,” the source said.
What happens next, and when, DOE would not say.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) “does not comment on active procurement matters,” a spokesperson for the office said in a Tuesday email, more than a month after EM announced it had awarded the follow-on deal to the incumbent.
When asked about the current situation with the Paducah contract on Friday morning, and whether it might be recompeted, a spokesperson for EM declined to comment.
The new landlord services contract extends five years with a 60-day transition period, a 34-month base period and 24-month option period, DOE said in the press release announcing the deal on Dec. 10.
Swift & Staley is the incumbent services provider at the former gaseous diffusion plant site in Kentucky, under a $224-million contract that began in December 2015 and is set to run through March 31.
The contract includes a slew of tasks ranging from maintenance of grounds, roadways and parking lots to pest control, records management and security.
Should the award be recalled by DOE, it would mark the second time in less than three years that a mid-size contract at the Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office has been pulled back. In August 2020, DOE re-awarded a technical services contract at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to a Pro2Serve subsidiary. The same company initially won the contract in June 2018.
