A Small Business Administration appeals panel recently agreed that incumbent Swift & Staley was too large to qualify for a $160-million infrastructure support contract it won last year at the Department of Energy’s Paducah site in Kentucky.
The Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Hearings and Appeals issued its decision April 20, effectively affirming a size determination the agency made in January, an SBA spokeswoman said by email Tuesday in response to a Weapons Complex Morning Briefing inquiry. DOE awarded the contract to Swift & Staley in December.
The appeals panel has prepared a public version of the decision, “which should be available shortly” online, the SBA spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The Paducah Infrastructure Support Services Contract in dispute is worth $160-million over five years. As the incumbent under a $224-million deal that began in December 2015, Swift & Staley was the odds-on favorite, among bidders for the follow-on, to retain the landlord services work at the former gaseous diffusion plant.
For now, Swift & Staley remains in place at Paducah. In February, DOE detailed its plan to keep the company on site for an extra year, from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.
