PROCUREMENT GUIDELINES

C. Add itiona l Con ten t Cons ide ra tions

Prequalification Criteria An agency may establish minimally acceptable qualifications that an offerer must meet in order to be deemed responsive. These may include but are not limited to: adequacy of resources, experience, and past performance. If the agency elects to apply a prequalification screening, it must disclose in the RFP both the prequalification criteria and that offerers not meeting these criteria will be eliminated without further evaluation. Typically, prequalification criteria are scored on a pass/fail basis. Risk Management / Required Assurances An agency may opt to mitigate risk by requiring some form of financial assurance such as a letter of credit, performance bond or insurance coverage. Cost Adjustments If the agency chooses to allow for cost adjustments (whether up or down), the basis must be specified in the RFP. Cost adjustments may be based on standard measures such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI). References If the agency requires a bidder to submit references as part of the response, the agency must, at a minimum, verify the references provided as part of its evaluation process. If the agency opts to score reference checks, the scoring methodology must be disclosed in the RFP. Advertisement of the Solicitation The requirement to advertise solicitations in the New York State Contract Reporter is discussed in Chapter III. Distribution of the RFP Once the RFP is finalized, it should be distributed to all known potential bidders and any bidder that requests a copy as a result of the advertisement. Potential bidders may be identified through lists maintained by the agency, web searches, previous procurements, and/or the Department of Economic Development’s list of M/WBEs. The RFP (or notice of the RFP) can be distributed via postal mail, e-mail, and/or posting to the agency website, among other means. D. RFP Dis tribu tion and Re c e ip t o f P ropos a ls

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