Step 3 Selecting Service Providers

Construct an Evaluation

When an applicant examines and evaluates the bids received for eligible services, it must select the most cost-effective bid. The price of the eligible products and services must be the primary factor in the evaluation, but does not have to be the sole factor.

Other relevant evaluation factors may include: prior experience including past performance; personnel qualifications including technical excellence; management capability including schedule compliance; and environmental objectives. Note that the most heavily weighted price factor cannot include ineligible costs, although those can be included in an evaluation as long as they are in a separate price factor that is weighted less heavily (see the second example below).

Example 1:

The following example meets program guidelines, as the price of the eligible products and services is weighted higher than any other single factor and does not include any ineligible cost factors:

Example 2:

This second example includes an evaluation factor that addresses ineligible costs that an applicant might incur as a result of selecting a particular bid. Note that the price of the eligible products and services is still the primary factor, and the ineligible costs are included in a factor that is weighted less heavily.

You should use the factors you choose for your evaluation to construct a bid evaluation matrix. Your matrix will assist you in your evaluation and also provide documentation of your process. You can view a sample bid evaluation matrix on this website.

No Bids Received?

If you do not receive any bids in response to a FCC Form 470/RFP, we suggest that you memorialize this fact with an email to yourself or a memo to the file. Various review processes - including audits - may occur after your competitive bidding process has ended, and this email or memo may be the only documentation of what happened.

If you do not receive any bids after your 28-day waiting period, you can contact service providers to solicit bids and can then review and evaluate any bids received as a result. However, remember that if you post a new FCC Form 470, issue a new Request for Proposal (RFP), or amend your existing RFP, you start a new 28-day waiting period.

Keep in mind that your state and local procurement rules may also require you to take certain actions when this situation occurs. As always, you must be in compliance with all of your state and local rules and regulations as well as Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules.

One Bid Received?

If you receive only one bid, we suggest that you memorialize this fact with an email to yourself or a memo to the file. This will help to document that you did not just keep only the winning bid.

Furthermore, remember that if you only get one bid, that does not automatically make the bid cost effective. You should review the pricing in the bid response to determine whether the costs for the products and services are significantly higher than the costs generally available in the marketplace for the same or similar products or services. If they are significantly higher, then the bid may not be cost effective.

Disqualification Factors

Vendor Selection

You can set out specific requirements and disqualify bids that do not meet those requirements as long as you clearly identify the disqualification reasons on your FCC Form 470 and/or your RFP. Disqualification reasons should be determined prior to any substantive bid evaluation. Disqualification reasons cannot be scored on a range, but rather are binary - i.e., the service provider either meets the standard or does not meet the standard.

The following items are examples of common bid disqualification reasons:

• Service provider must register with the state procurement office.
• Service provider must have a Service Provider Identification Number (SPIN).
• Service provider must have an FCC registration number.
• Service provider must be bonded.

Bids from service providers that do not meet all four requirements are disqualified and not evaluated further. The remaining bids must then be evaluated with the price of the eligible products and services as the factor that is weighted most heavily in the bid evaluation.

Mandatory Walkthroughs and Bidders Conference

You can require that bidders participate in a walkthrough of your facility or attend a bidders conference in order to submit a bid. As long as you have clearly stated in your FCC Form 470 and/or RFP that not attending these events is a reason for disqualification, you can disqualify bids from service providers that were not present at these events.

However, you must be sure that all bidders had access to this information and have timely notice so that they have a reasonable opportunity to attend.

Note that if you use the walkthrough or bidders conference as the only opportunity to distribute the RFP, you must then wait at least 28 days from the date you last distributed the RFP before you can select your service provider.

Vendor Evaluations

If you use a multi-tiered or multi-round evaluation process, the price of the eligible products and services must be the primary evaluation factor overall.

The following is an example of such a process:

• In the first round, the applicant uses the following evaluation criteria:
• Price of the eligible products and services (50 points)
• Reference check (25 points)
• Prior experience with the district (25 points)

Bidders that do not receive at least 70 points in the first round are eliminated and not considered any further.

• In the second round, the applicant uses the following evaluation criteria:
• Price of the eligible products and services (40 points)
• Technical solution (35 points)
• Price of any ineligible products and services needed in order to make the solution work (25 points)

Although the applicant did not consider bids that did not meet the 70-point threshold, the first round is not a disqualification because bidders were scored subjectively on references and prior experience with the district. Note that in the example, overall the primary factor was the price of the eligible products and services (90 points).