§103D-303 - Competitive sealed proposals.
§103D-303 Competitive sealed proposals. (a) Competitive sealed proposals may be utilized to procure goods, services, or construction designated in rules adopted by the procurement policy board as goods, services, or construction which are either not practicable or not advantageous to the State to procure by competitive sealed bidding. Competitive sealed proposals may also be utilized when the head of a purchasing agency determines in writing that the use of competitive sealed bidding is either not practicable or not advantageous to the State.
(b) Proposals shall be solicited through a request for proposals.
(c) Notice of the request for proposals shall be given in the same manner as provided in section 103D-302(c).
(d) Proposals shall be opened so as to avoid disclosure of contents to competing offerors during the process of negotiation. A register of proposals shall be prepared in accordance with rules adopted by the policy board and shall be open for public inspection after contract award.
(e) The request for proposals shall state the relative importance of price and other evaluation factors.
(f) Discussions may be conducted with responsible offerors who submit proposals determined to be reasonably susceptible of being selected for award for the purpose of clarification to assure full understanding of, and responsiveness to, the solicitation requirements. Offerors shall be accorded fair and equal treatment with respect to any opportunity for discussion and revision of proposals, and revisions may be permitted after submissions and prior to award for the purpose of obtaining best and final offers. In conducting discussions, there shall be no disclosure of any information derived from proposals submitted by competing offerors.
(g) Award shall be made to the responsible offeror whose proposal is determined in writing to be the most advantageous taking into consideration price and the evaluation factors set forth in the request for proposals. No other factors or criteria shall be used in the evaluation. The contract file shall contain the basis on which the award is made.
(h) In cases of awards made under this section, nonselected offerors may submit a written request for debriefing to the chief procurement officer or designee within three working days after the posting of the award of the contract. Thereafter, the head of the purchasing agency shall provide the requester a prompt debriefing in accordance with rules adopted by the policy board. Any protest by the requester pursuant to section 103D-701 following debriefing shall be filed in writing with the chief procurement officer or designee within five working days after the date that the debriefing is completed. [L Sp 1993, c 8, pt of §2; am L 1995, c 178, §§8, 9; am L 1997, c 352, §23; am L 2003, c 52, §4]