CENTER TWP — A rejected bid protest claims the government was biased in awarding the contract for the proposed VA Butler Healthcare center due to “bad acts” made by the project’s previous developer.

Oxford Development Company of Pittsburgh in a protest filed Jan. 26 claimed the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs unfairly lowered its technical score of the Deshon Woods site it was hoping to build on in Butler Township.

Oxford alleged the VA penalized its proposal due to issues the government had with Westar Development, the developer previously awarded the contract to build on the same property in May 2012.

The VA canceled that agreement in August the following year after a Westar employee was accused of fraud during an unrelated federal project.

“Oxford strongly believes that the VA did not objectively score the technical aspects of its offer, but instead, purposefully gave Oxford lower scores because of unfounded fears and concerns stemming from the previous bad acts of a Westar employee,” the company said in its protest to the Government Accountability Office.

The GAO rejected the protest in May, ruling the VA took necessary corrective action by agreeing to repay Oxford’s costs for preparation of its bid and fees associated with filing the protest.

The Butler Eagle was provided a copy of Oxford’s protest last week following an open records request to the GAO made in May.

Following its canceled deal with Westar, the VA reopened bids for the project in October 2013 to four prospective developers, including Oxford, which reached a deal with Westar to buy the Deshon Woods property on Route 68 if awarded the lease.

However, the VA on Dec. 31 awarded the 20-year contract to Cambridge Healthcare Solutions, which proposed to build the outpatient facility along North Duffy Road in Center Township, about 1.5 miles away from the existing center on New Castle Road.

Oxford also argued that the VA never provided the technical scores of the recent round of bids, as mandated by law. VA told Oxford that its site and the Cambridge site received “essentially” equal technical scores and that it chose Cambridge because of its lower cost.

When Westar was awarded the bid at the site in 2012, it received a technical score of 39 out of 50. The Quality of Building, Site and Design score was a 16.78 for the Deshon Woods site, while the operation and Maintenance Plan was a 5.88.

Those scores were higher than Cambridge’s scores for the Center Township site, which were 13.12 and 4.68, respectively.

Oxford, which had a proposal at a different location in 2012, also outperformed Cambridge in the Qualifications and Past Performance ranking, receiving a score of 13.1 compared to Cambridge’s 9.72.

Oxford also challenged the 3 points Cambridge received for being a small business, as the entity is an affiliate of Cambridge Holdings and Halle Enterprises, both “large, sophisticated enterprises.”

Oxford said had the Deshon Woods site plan received what it did in 2012 and had Cambridge not been granted small business status, then Oxford’s score would have been 25 percent higher than Cambridge’s score.

The price was another point of contention by Oxford, which said the VA took a year to award the lease after soliciting bids.

The company said it would have been able to lower its price due to changes in the financial market during that time.

The GAO said in its ruling that it has a judicially-expressed view that “an awarded contract should not be treated as void, even if improperly awarded, unless the illegality of the award is plain and palpable.”

The GAO said nothing in Cambridge’s offer met that standard.

Matthew Jameson, the attorney representing Oxford, did not return messages for comment.

Cambridge is continuing land development preparations for the facility.

The new center will expand VA Butler Healthcare’s outpatient services to meet increasing demand and will include primary care, specialty care, dental, lab, pathology, radiology, mental health, and ancillary and diagnostic services.

The VA will pay Cambridge $8.4 million per year to lease the facility after an initial two-year abatement period.

Congressman Mike Kelly, who has been outspoken against the VA’s process in awarding the bid, said he hopes to organize a town-hall meeting in August to allow people involved in the process to answer questions.

“We need to get a clear picture of what’s going on,” Kelly said.

Kelly said there are a lot of questions remaining on how the Cambridge site was selected.

“We don’t really know how they got to where they are,” he said of the VA.