Section 550.341  Competitive Negotiation – Public Notice, Evaluation, Negotiation and Award

a)         The Agency shall give public notice for competitively negotiated procurements as required by Subpart B.

1)         The notice of a request for proposals must state how to obtain associated documents, including a copy of Section 550.313, Standard Contract Clauses under 550.360, and Subpart D, and the basis for award.

2)         Requests for proposals must be written, contain enough information to enable a prospective offeror to prepare a proposal, contain all evaluation criteria and the relative importance attached to each, and clearly state the deadline and place to submit proposals.

b)         The Agency shall uniformly and objectively evaluate all proposals submitted in response to the request for proposals.  The Agency shall base its determination of qualified offerors and acceptable proposals solely on the evaluation criteria stated in the request for proposals.

c)         Unless the request for proposals states that award may be based on initial offers alone, the Agency shall conduct meaningful negotiations with the best qualified offerors with acceptable proposals within the competitive range, and permit revisions to obtain best and final offers. The best qualified offerors shall have equal opportunities to negotiate or revise their proposals.  During negotiations, the Agency shall not disclose the identity of competing offerors or of any information derived from proposals submitted by competing offerors.

d)         The Agency shall award the contract to the responsible offeror whose proposal is determined in writing to be the most advantageous to the Agency, taking into consideration price and other evaluation criteria set forth in the request for proposal.

e)         The Agency shall promptly notify unsuccessful offerors that their proposals were rejected.

f)          The Agency shall document its procurement file to indicate how proposals were evaluated, what factors were used to determine the best qualified offerors within the competitive range, and what factors were used to determine the contract award.