An RFP was issued for noncommercial services at several government facilities. The contemplated contract term is one base year plus four one-year options.

The following are the evaluation factors set out in the RFP:

Award was to be made to the offeror whose proposal provided the best value to the government, considering a tradeoff between technical factors and price. The technical evaluation factors were:

• technical management/organization;
• staffing;
• past performance/experience; business management; and
• technical and management transition.

Price was significantly less important than the combined technical evaluation factors. Among the technical factors, technical management/ organization and staffing were weighted equally and, in combination, were more important than the total weight accorded to the remaining three factors. The remaining three factors were weighed equally with each other.

The RFP contained the standard solicitation provision of FAR 52.215-1.

Thirteen proposals were submitted. Of relevance to this exercise are the following two:

• Sonic Maintenance Services $21.6 million
• Harry A. Byrite Associates $19.1 million

The following were the source selection evaluation board's recommendations to the source selection authority:

• Sonic Maintenance had a technically superior proposal and should be awarded the contract without discussions.
• The board evaluated all other proposals as so deficient as to be unacceptable and excluded them from the competition.
• The source selection authority was extremely impressed with Sonic's proposal in relation to management and staffing, which was superior to any other submission.
• Based on the significant superiority of Sonic's proposal and that its price was considered to be fair and reasonable, she decided that it was not to the government's advantage to conduct discussions.

Byrite protested the following items:

• Byrite should have received the award based on its initial proposal because it was acceptable and lower in price.
• The agency should have conducted discussions with offerors and if discussions were held, Byrite would have been awarded the contract as presenting the best value.

Question:Should the agency have conducted discussions prior to contract award? Why or why not?