Sign Rhode Island RFP Now

Document type sign rfp rhode island now

you you hi I'm Richard Pennington I was formerly general counsel to Nashville value point tired and I'm still a member of nigp the short video that you're gonna see now assumes that you're either in an nigp course with an instructor or have completed legal aspects in public procurement where you've covered invitations for bids I FBS sometimes also called ITV's invitations to bid or in Canada invitations to tender I've B's are used widely but we're going to discuss today the other major type of solicitation I'll use the term request for proposals RFPs although they're known by other terms also requests for responses invitations to negotiate I TNS for example our fees are becoming more widely used as requirements grow in complexity and they have their own set of legal issues I'm going to turn off the talking head video here for a minute so we can dive down into some graphical presentations of some of the differences and there are differences are things in common but you need to understand at least from a legal perspective where the difference is life example I have bees there's a public man opening that provides an opportunity for competing bidders to inspect the prices and the bids the issues of responsiveness often are discovered at bid opening an account for many protests in our fees loss and practices vary with respect to disclosing the identity of off floors some jurisdictions for example have a public opening and announced names of offers but almost universally proposal prices and contents are not publicly disclosed until after award rfp's the policies of responsiveness may be slightly different because the process often permits later proposal revisions the responsive or not article in American city and county describes two different approaches some agencies apply traditional sealed bidding law rejecting proposals with any material informational deficiency in Pennsylvania on the other hand the typical responsiveness rule has not been applied nor FPS in a case called language line services the protestor language line who lost the award alleged among other things that the awardee was non-responsive it failed to identify its customer service personnel and their required experience as the RFP had instructed the court however upheld the award and stated there were only two mandatory responsiveness requirements in the RFP at issue timeliness of proceed and proper signature states following this more liberal approach may use the term technical acceptability as the standard that is whether the proposal as submitted can be meaningfully evaluate evaluated at is as is or would require a major proposal rewrite there are other key differences as an I of these RF pieces have terms and conditions that are incorporated as part of the contract with one edition in an RFP proposal usually becomes part of the contract also so the order of precedence clause that you've talked about becomes especially important to resolve occasional conflicts of in language between the proposal and the rest of the contract that's the most significant efforts though is the opportunity for communication between the public entity and off rowers about weaknesses and proposes in IFB is the only communications with bidders normally involve clarifications of minor and formalities and perhaps communications prior to award about a potential awardees responsibility in our fees the agency can make a competitive range exclusion or a short list keeping only those proposals reasonably susceptible of being selected for award for purpose of discussions and possibly proposal revisions before award in my experience is a bit protests attorney I looked carefully at the procurement file to make sure that my client was treated fairly had the same general scope of communications opportunity as that used with the other competing offer ORS I also looked to see if my client had an equal opportunity for proposal revisions if they were permitted at all times those are called pathos best and final offers another significant difference is the basis for reward to know in I FBS their award is based solely on price and price related factors a much narrower basis for than RFPs their evaluation committees consider not just cost but also technical aspects of the proposal in the past experience of the offer or in what is known as a best value evaluation up to your legal counsel about these topics why because laws vary for example some RFP processes are more like professional services their architect engineer selections where price or cost is not even considered until during the negotiations with the one offer or that is considered most qualified evaluation is a special area of interest for suppliers when I was retained to help a client and look at a procurement file I wanted to make sure that the file told his story of rational evaluation these scores here were evaluation scores seen by me and my client reviewing the procurement file together in the agency's conference room after the client had been notified it wasn't successful you can guess from the scores what the concerns were the experience requirements were rather specific yet there were no notes explain the apparent inconsistency one evaluator rated a five outstanding and another rated as if references weren't even submitted the client called the references found out none had been contacted the client protested the agency denied the protest the appellant authority a senior procurement executive sustained the appeal an ordered re-evaluation and not uncommon remedy what happened we lost again the lesson here those of you whose courts exercised jurisdiction over protests and not all courts do this slide illustrates the reluctance of judges to overturn procurement official decisions in short judges don't want to be purchasing agents but you need to make their life easy document key decisions in ways that people can read and understand be on the lookout for evaluation comments that are intemperate or for other documents that just don't seem to make sense well there it is the key in my experience legal issues in rfp's rfp's are especially valuable when communications necessary for the agency to understand a proposal but may be equally important to make sure that the supplier or the off Rohr understands the requirements further opportunities for proposal revisions sometimes lead to lower prices I'm firmly convinced that even though Reese resources are hit when RFPs are used they are more resource intensive the communication exchange that can happen really in my judgment far outweighs any risk from bid protests