Responding to a County or City RFP: Procurement Rules, Blackout Periods, and What the Panel Scores

The short answer. Counties and cities typically fund community services through a formal solicitation, most often a request for proposals. The solicitation is governed by the jurisdiction’s procurement rules, which usually include a fixed question period, written addenda, a prohibition on contact with officials during evaluation, pass-fail minimum qualifications, and a scored review by a panel. Proposals that fail a technical requirement are commonly rejected without being scored. Read the solicitation twice, calendar every date in it, and treat every instruction as mandatory.

Where local money comes from

Local funding for community services draws on several sources: the jurisdiction’s general fund, voter-approved tax measures dedicated to specific purposes, state funds allocated to counties, and federal funds passed through the county or city, such as Community Development Block Grant funds.

A newer and significant source is opioid settlement funding. National settlements with opioid manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies now total more than $50 billion, paid over periods of up to eighteen years. Under the national distributor and Johnson & Johnson agreements, the default allocation within each state directs 15 percent to the state, 15 percent to participating counties and cities, and 70 percent to an abatement fund, and at least 70 percent of the total must be used for opioid remediation. Many counties and cities are now issuing solicitations for prevention, treatment, recovery, and harm reduction services funded from these accounts.

The source of funds matters to the applicant. If a local contract is funded with federal dollars, the federal cost principles and audit requirements generally follow the money, and the contract will say so.

RFP, RFQ, NOFA

The names vary. A request for proposals asks for a program design, qualifications, and a budget, and is scored on all three. A request for qualifications asks only for qualifications and is often used to create a pool of eligible providers who later compete for specific work. A notice of funding availability, common for housing and community development funds, may operate more like a grant application. Whatever the name, the document itself controls: its evaluation criteria, its format requirements, and its deadlines.

The rules that disqualify

Deadlines are absolute. A proposal received one minute late is late. Portals fail and couriers are delayed; submit a day early.

Minimum qualifications are pass-fail. A solicitation may require a number of years of experience in the service area, a license or certification, a minimum annual budget, audited financial statements, or specific insurance coverage. A proposal that does not demonstrate each minimum qualification, in the form requested, is usually not scored.

Format requirements are enforced. Page limits, font sizes, required forms, signature requirements, and the order of sections are not suggestions. A reviewer who has to search for a required element may not find it.

Addenda must be acknowledged. Answers to questions and changes to the solicitation are issued as written addenda. Many solicitations require the proposer to acknowledge each addendum on a form. Check the posting site regularly until the deadline.

The blackout period

Most jurisdictions prohibit proposers from contacting elected officials, evaluation panelists, and staff other than the designated procurement contact from the release of the solicitation until the award is made. These rules are sometimes called a cone of silence or a quiet period. A conversation that would be ordinary at any other time, such as a call to a supervisor’s office or a comment to a program manager at a community meeting, can disqualify the proposal during this window.

All questions should go in writing to the designated contact by the question deadline. Questions asked and answered after that date will not be.

What the panel scores

Evaluation panels typically score the program approach, the organization’s experience and capacity, the qualifications of key staff, the budget and its cost reasonableness, and sometimes community presence, cultural and linguistic responsiveness, or partnerships. The weights are usually stated in the solicitation.

Write to the criteria in the order they appear, using the solicitation’s language as headings. Panelists often score with the criteria open beside the proposal, and a response organized the same way is easier to score fully. Where a criterion asks about experience, give specific examples with numbers, dates, and outcomes. Where it asks about the budget, show how each cost connects to the service described.

After the award

A notice of intent to award is usually followed by a protest period, then contract negotiation, then approval by the board of supervisors or city council. Services generally may not begin, and costs generally will not be reimbursed, until the contract is fully executed. Expect the process to take several weeks.

Once under contract, the relationship with county or city program staff determines a great deal: how invoices are reviewed, how performance problems are handled, and whether the contract is renewed or rebid. Monthly reports that are complete, accurate, and on time are the foundation of that relationship.

References: settlement terms from the National Opioids Settlement agreements with McKesson, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, and Johnson & Johnson; for local contracts funded with federal awards, 2 CFR 200.317 through 200.327 (procurement standards) and 2 CFR 200.501 (audit requirements). Local procurement is governed by the ordinances and policies of the issuing jurisdiction.

This article is general information about local government procurement. It is not legal advice, and procurement rules vary by jurisdiction.