GAO Will Consider Losers' Protests In Some Streamlined Job Competitions The General Accounting Office said it will consider protests over streamlined job competitions under OMB Circular A-76 in some cases, though the circular itself says no appeals are permitted. The streamlined competitions are used when 65 or fewer federal jobs are being considered for outsourcing. They are supposed to be completed within 90 to 135 days. “While it is true that the revised Circular states that no party may contest any aspect of a streamlined competition, this language does not preclude a protest to our Office because CICA [the Competition in Contracting Act], not the revised Circular, provides the basis for our bid protest authority,” GAO’s general counsel, Anthony Gamboa, wrote. ”Thus, an interested party, as defined by CICA and our Bid Protest Regulations, may protest a streamlined competition to our Office where the agency elects to use the procurement system and conducts a competition by issuing a solicitation to determine whether a private-sector entity can perform the work more cost effectively.” Gamboa asserted GAO’s authority, ironically, in dismissing a union protest over a streamlined competition for security guards at the Department of Agriculture’s Beltsville (MD) Agricultural Research Center. GAO rejected that protest because USDA never issued a solicitation; instead, the agency hired a security firm off a GSA schedule. Gamboa said GAO’s “jurisdiction is limited to considering protests involving solicitations and awards made or proposed to be made under those solicitations.” In a streamlined competition, the agency can conduct market research to compare its in-house cost with contractor costs, as USDA did in this case. Solicitations are issued to compare costs in larger competitions. The ruling does not settle the question of whether federal employees or their unions qualify as an “interested party” having standing to protest job competitions. In the past, GAO has said no, but it said last June it is reconsidering the issue. In the USDA case, Gamboa said, the issue was not relevant since the case was dismissed on other grounds.