§ 102-380. Evaluation committee.

(a)

Authority. This section, to the extent not in conflict with applicable state law, shall govern the size and composition of all evaluation committees established for the evaluation of competitive sealed proposals obtained for goods and services of all kinds, including, without being limited to, design, construction, and operation services and contracts and federal assisted qualification based proposals for architectural and engineering services.

(b)

Evaluation committee guidelines. The evaluation committee (EC) has the authority to review and evaluate proposers' technical responses in response to a specific request for proposals (RFP).

(c)

General guidelines.

(1)

Identifying evaluation committee members. Members of the EC should have professional interest and expertise to evaluate proposals and make recommendations that could lead to the selection of one or more suppliers. The EC shall be comprised of three staff assigned by purchasing, from the user department(s); if necessary, two additional technical staff from multiple departments or use of outside experts; one nonvoting member from the finance department who shall assist purchasing with the determination of financial responsibility and analyzing of cost proposals; the purchasing staff member of the solicitation shall serve on the EC as an ex-officio member and will facilitate all evaluation and negotiation meetings. He/she may not score proposers' responses.

(2)

EC member participation form. Prior to beginning the evaluation process, the purchasing staff member will send a confidentiality agreement to the individual EC members and each member shall return an executed copy.

(3)

Initial review of suppliers' responses. After the official closing of the solicitation, the purchasing staff member will review received responses for compliance with the submittal criteria and content requirements and make a recommendation to the purchasing agent as to the responsiveness of the response.

(4)

Submitting responses to the EC. The EC members who have executed the confidentiality agreement will be provided with all proposers' responses that passed the administrative review as well as the appropriate evaluation forms to capture scoring. The EC must comply with the scoring guidelines identified below.

(5)

Independent and individual review. Each EC member will individually and independently review each proposer's response. The EC member must assign a written assessment to each question. In addition, the EC member must include a written comment justifying any assessment other than "adequate." During the initial review, the EC member should note any clarification questions the EC member suggests asking the proposer. After completing the initial evaluation, the EC member will submit the evaluation documentation and any identified clarification questions to the purchasing staff member.

(6)

Scoring rating system. Each question's score will be multiplied by its assigned weight to obtain the applicable score for that proposer's response to the question. The following rating system applies:

Assessment	Scoring Guidelines	Evaluator Score
No Response (Only applies to mandatory scored)	• The narrative response provided constitutes a material deviation from the requirement. • No narrative response provided. • When the response does not meet a mandatory.	Fail or Disqualified
Poor	• Fails to address the component or the supplier does not describe any experience related to the component. • Proposal is inadequate in most basic requirements, specifications, or provisions for the specific criteria.	0.00
Marginal	• Proposal minimally addresses the requirements, but one or more major considerations of the component are not addressed, or so limited that it results in a low degree of confidence in the bidder's response or proposed solution. • Proposal meets many of the basic requirements specifications, or provision of the specific items, but is lacking in some essential aspects for the specific criteria.	0.25
Adequate	• Proposal adequately meets the minimum requirements, specification, or provision of the specific item, and is generally capable of meeting the state's needs for specific criteria.	0.50
Good	• Proposal more than adequately meets the minimum requirements, specification or provision of the specific criteria, and exceeds those requirements in some aspects for the specific criteria.	0.75
Excellent	• Fully meets all requirements and exceeds several requirements. • Proposal exceeds minimum requirements, specification and provision in most aspects for the specific criteria.	100

 

(7)

Convening EC committee meetings. After the purchasing staff member has consolidated each individual EC member's scores into the master evaluation spreadsheet, he/she will schedule a meeting for all EC members to meet and discuss initial scores. The EC members will discuss the individual scores and, as a result of the discussion, each member may adjust the member's individual scoring up or down as appropriate. There is no requirement that all EC members reach agreement on the score for a particular question/requirement. In the event the EC members do not reach agreement on a score for a particular question/requirement, the purchasing staff member will average the individual scores to determine the proposer's score for that particular question/requirement.

(8)

Analyzing cost proposals. For RFPs, the purchasing staff and Finance staff members will analyze the cost proposals independently, but may perform the analysis concurrently with the EC's evaluation of the proposers' technical responses. These staff will not disclose the cost proposals or the cost analysis to the EC until after the technical proposals have been scored. The EC may elect to conduct oral interviews/presentations or request additional material prior to receiving the cost proposals and cost analysis.

(9)

Overall scores preceding negotiations. Each proposer meeting all mandatory requirements will receive a total combined score by adding the proposer's technical score to the proposer's cost score.

(10)

Convening a negotiation team. If the EC elects to initiate negotiations, then a negotiation team (NT) will convene. The Purchasing staff member must follow the guidelines found in the RFP.

(11)

Capturing negotiation results and award recommendation. If the county elects to negotiate with identified proposers, the proposer will each be asked to submit a proposal revision following each round of negotiations, which proposal revision will then augment the original RFP submission. Each proposal revision will be evaluated and rescored by the EC utilizing the same evaluation criteria.

(12)

Maintaining agency records. All evaluation/negotiation documents/forms completed by each evaluator and by the EC and NT will be collected by the purchasing staff member and become part of the official records and subject to the Georgia Open Records Act.

(Res. No. 13-0052, 1-23-13)

Note— Formerly Code, Pt. II, § 102-360.