NORTH­WEST FLORI­DA BEACH­ES INTER­NA­TION­AL AIRPORT

PUR­CHAS­ING POLICY

JUNE 2023

Employ­ee Manual 

Sec­tion 3.8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. PUR­POSE ……………………………………………………. 3

2. DEF­I­N­I­TIONS …………………………………………………… 4

3. EXEMP­TIONS ………………………………………………… 6

4. CODE OF ETHICS AND CON­DUCT …………………………. 7

5. DUTIES AND RESPON­SI­BIL­I­TIES …………………………… 10

6. VEN­DOR POLI­CIES ……………………………………………. 11

7. PUR­CHAS­ING AUTHOR­I­TY …………………………………… 13

8. PUR­CHAS­ING THRESH­OLDS …………………………………. 13

9. METH­ODS OF PRO­CURE­MENT ………………………………. 14

10. PRO­FES­SION­AL ARCHI­TEC­TUR­AL, ENGI­NEER­ING, LANDSCAPE

ARCHI­TEC­TUR­AL AND LAND SUR­VEY­ING SER­VICES (CCNA) ………. 19

11. CHANGE ORDERS ………………………………………………… 21

12. BID PROTEST PRO­CE­DURES …………………………………… 22

13. LEAS­ES AND CON­TRACTS ……………………………………… 22

14. FED­ER­AL PRO­CURE­MENTS ……………………………………. 22


PUR­POSE

It is the intent of the Dis­trict to pro­vide all ven­dors with a fair and impar­tial oppor­tu­ni­ty in which to com­pete for the District’s business.

This doc­u­ment estab­lish­es the pol­i­cy of the Pana­ma City-Bay Coun­ty Air­port and Indus­tri­al Dis­trict (the ​“Dis­trict”) regard­ing pur­chas­es. The intent of this pol­i­cy is to guide the Dis­trict in the pur­chase of com­modi­ties and con­trac­tu­al ser­vices and to com­ply with fed­er­al and state law.

This pol­i­cy applies to all employ­ees of the Dis­trict, agents of the Dis­trict, and the Dis­trict Board of Direc­tors (the ​“Board”). All Dis­trict employ­ees will be famil­iar with and adhere to this pol­i­cy. These guide­lines apply to the purchase/​procurement of all mate­ri­als, sup­plies, ser­vices, con­struc­tion, and equip­ment except as specif­i­cal­ly exempt­ed herein.


DEF­I­N­I­TIONS

BOARD

shall mean the Dis­trict Board of Directors.

CHANGE ORDER

A writ­ten order chang­ing a con­tract to cor­rect errors, omis­sions, or dis­crep­an­cies in it, to cov­er accept­able cost over-runs, freight costs or deduc­tive changes, to incor­po­rate require­ments to expand or reduce the scope of goods or ser­vices ordered, or to direct oth­er changes in the con­tract exe­cu­tion to meet unfore­seen field, emer­gency, cli­mat­ic, reg­u­la­to­ry, or mar­ket conditions.

COM­PET­I­TIVE SOLICITATION

The process used to obtain sealed quotes, bids, or pro­pos­als for the pur­pose of enter­ing into a contract.

CON­SUL­TAN­T’S COM­PET­I­TIVE NEGO­TI­A­TION ACT (“CCNA”)

The offi­cial name for F.S. § 287.055, relat­ing to the pro­cure­ment of archi­tec­tur­al, engi­neer­ing, con­struc­tion man­age­ment, land­scape archi­tec­ture, map­ping, and reg­is­tered land sur­vey­ing ser­vices. These ser­vices shall be pro­cured by let­ters of inter­est and qual­i­fi­ca­tions, and com­pet­i­tive selec­tion and negotiation.

CON­TRACT

A writ­ten agree­ment between two or more com­pe­tent par­ties to per­form or not per­form a spe­cif­ic act or acts. Any type of agree­ment regard­less of what it is called for the pro­cure­ment of goods or ser­vices. The words ​“Con­tract” and ​“Agree­ment” may be used interchangeably.

CON­TRAC­TOR

means a per­son who con­tracts to sell com­modi­ties or con­trac­tu­al ser­vices to the District.

E‑VERIFY SYS­TEM

“E‑Verify sys­tem” means an Inter­net-based sys­tem oper­at­ed by the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty that allows par­tic­i­pat­ing employ­ers to elec­tron­i­cal­ly ver­i­fy the employ­ment eli­gi­bil­i­ty of new­ly hired employees.

INVI­TA­TION TO BID 

PRO­POS­AL

Invi­ta­tion to bid, also called a sealed bid, is a com­pet­i­tive solic­i­ta­tion that is used when an agency is capa­ble of specif­i­cal­ly defin­ing the scope of work and the con­tract is award­ed to the ven­dor who sub­mits the low­est respon­sive bid.

shall mean a writ­ten notice by a ven­dor set­ting forth the terms under which it will fur­nish goods or services.

PUR­CHASE ORDER

shall mean a for­mal notice to a ven­dor to fur­nish the sup­plies or ser­vices described in detail thereon.

PUR­CHAS­ING

shall mean the act of obtain­ing sup­plies, equip­ment, or ser­vices nec­es­sary to car­ry out a par­tic­u­lar function.

QUAL­I­FIED BIDDER

shall mean ven­dor that meets all qual­i­fi­ca­tions set forth in the solic­i­ta­tion documents.

RENEW­AL

shall mean con­tract­ing with the same con­trac­tor for an addi­tion­al con­tract peri­od after the ini­tial con­tract peri­od, only if pur­suant to con­tract terms specif­i­cal­ly pro­vid­ing for such renewal.

REQUEST FOR PRO­POS­AL (“RFP”)

A solic­i­ta­tion that invites pro­pos­als from ven­dors to pro­vide goods and/​or ser­vices. The con­tract is award­ed to the respon­sive ven­dor that the Dis­trict deter­mines to be most advan­ta­geous tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion price and oth­er cri­te­ria set forth in the solicitation.

REQUEST FOR

QUAL­I­FI­CA­TIONS

RESPON­DENT

A solic­i­ta­tion that invites ven­dors to sub­mit state­ments of qual­i­fi­ca­tion that detail the vendor’s back­ground, expe­ri­ence, and abil­i­ty to per­form ser­vices, under a cer­tain scope of work, for the District.

A per­son or enti­ty who sub­mits an offer in response to a solic­i­ta­tion. May also be referred to as pro­pos­er, offer­or, or bidder.

RESPONSE

Any response of a respon­dent to a solic­i­ta­tion, which may include, as con­text requires, bids, offers, pro­pos­als, quo­ta­tions, or oth­er responses.

RESPON­SIVE BID

A bid or pro­pos­al which con­forms in all mate­r­i­al respects to the com­pet­i­tive solicitation.

SIN­GLE SOURCE

Shall mean that a goods or ser­vice can be pur­chased from mul­ti­ple sources, but, in order to meet cer­tain func­tion­al or per­for­mance require­ments (e.g. parts match­ing exist­ing equip­ment or mate­ri­als) there is only one eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble source for the purchase.

SOLE SOURCE

Shall mean the goods or ser­vice can be legal­ly pur­chased from only one source. This is usu­al­ly due to the source own­ing patents and/​or copy­rights. A require­ment for a par­tic­u­lar pro­pri­etary item does not jus­ti­fy a sole source pur­chase, if there is more than one poten­tial sup­pli­er for that item. 

SPEC­I­FI­CA­TIONS

shall mean a writ­ten descrip­tion of need­ed sup­plies, equip­ment or ser­vices set­ting forth in a clear and con­cise man­ner the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the items and/​or ser­vices to be pur­chased and the cir­cum­stances under which the pur­chase will be made.

VEN­DOR

shall mean a sup­pli­er of goods or services.



EXEMP­TIONS

These exemp­tions are not manda­to­ry. The Dis­trict, in its sole dis­cre­tion, shall deter­mine whether a com­pet­i­tive solic­i­ta­tion would be in its best inter­est rather than the use of an allowed exemption.

1. The Dis­trict shall have the abil­i­ty, in lieu of employ­ing its own com­pet­i­tive pro­ce­dures, to pur­chase items which have been com­pet­i­tive­ly pro­cured through gov­ern­ment coop­er­a­tive pur­chas­ing groups (“Pur­chas­ing Co-ops”) and oth­er fed­er­al, state, and local gov­ern­ment units if the ven­dors agree to pro­vide the Dis­trict with the same goods or ser­vices. Any pur­chase made by adop­tion of anoth­er qual­i­fy­ing groups pre­vi­ous­ly com­pet­i­tive­ly pro­cured con­tract must be on the same terms and con­di­tions as the con­tract from which the Dis­trict seeks to procure.

2. A sole source provider may be used if it is the only sup­pli­er that can pro­vide a spe­cif­ic good or ser­vice. A sole source provider has either estab­lished a monop­oly or is the only provider legal­ly able to pro­vide the Dis­trict that par­tic­u­lar good or service.

3. A sin­gle source provider may be used when the Dis­trict deter­mines that com­pet­i­tive bid­ding is not advan­ta­geous due to spe­cif­ic needs. A sin­gle source provider may be cho­sen based on the following:

— Its qual­i­ty of goods being supe­ri­or to oth­ers; or

— Replace­ment or repair of goods that are already owned by the Dis­trict and are; or

— To pro­vide con­ti­nu­ity in goods (for exam­ple, if the Dis­trict owns ten items made by the same man­u­fac­tur­er, it would not be prac­ti­cal to 

pur­chase a dif­fer­ent brand requir­ing dif­fer­ent knowl­edge and parts). 

4. To the extent that pur­chas­es of prop­er­ty, casu­al­ty, health, and oth­er rel­e­vant insur­ance cov­er­ages for the Dis­trict do not exceed the total year­ly bud­get approved by the Board, autho­riza­tion to pur­chase insur­ance cov­er­age is grant­ed to the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. The Dis­trict may par­tic­i­pate in an inter­gov­ern­men­tal coop­er­a­tive agree­ment to pur­chase insur­ance when it is deter­mined that such par­tic­i­pa­tion is in the best inter­est of the District. 

5. A state or fed­er­al agency award­ing a grant for the pur­chase which pre­scribes with whom the Dis­trict must con­tract or if the rate of pay­ment is estab­lished by a state or fed­er­al law.

6. The con­trac­tu­al ser­vices and com­modi­ties relate to artis­tic ser­vices; audit­ing ser­vices; bank­ing and finan­cial ser­vices; appraisals and ser­vices for the sale, acqui­si­tion or lease of real prop­er­ty, legal ser­vices; gov­ern­ment con­sult­ing ser­vices; expert wit­ness­es; health ser­vices involv­ing exam­i­na­tion, diag­no­sis, treat­ment, pre­ven­tion, med­ical con­sul­ta­tion, or admin­is­tra­tion; pre­ven­tion ser­vices relat­ed to men­tal health, includ­ing drug abuse pre­ven­tion pro­grams; ser­vices or com­modi­ties pro­vid­ed by gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies; or con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion events.

7. Emer­gency sit­u­a­tions requir­ing imme­di­ate atten­tion as deter­mined by the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and where delay caused by com­pet­i­tive pro­cure­ment in com­pli­ance with this pol­i­cy would risk any of the fol­low­ing situations:

- An imme­di­ate dan­ger to the safe­ty, secu­ri­ty, health, or wel­fare of the pub­lic and/​or users of the airport;

- An imme­di­ate dan­ger of loss of pub­lic or pri­vate prop­er­ty; or

- An inter­rup­tion in the pro­vi­sion of essen­tial services. 

Emer­gency pur­chas­es shall be report­ed to the Board in writ­ing as soon as prac­ti­cal and the Board shall con­sid­er the rat­i­fi­ca­tion of each emer­gency pur­chase in excess of $50,000, either indi­vid­u­al­ly or cumu­la­tive­ly, at its next meet­ing fol­low­ing the purchase.

8. Soft­ware and soft­ware upgrades, mod­i­fi­ca­tions, and enhancements.

9. Train­ing and edu­ca­tion­al cours­es or pro­grams, along with accom­pa­ny­ing trav­el and accom­mo­da­tion costs, includ­ing guest speak­ers and trainers.

10. Water, sew­er, elec­tri­cal, cable tele­vi­sion, inter­net, tele­phone, or oth­er util­i­ty services.

11. Any sit­u­a­tion in which the Board deter­mines an excep­tion is nec­es­sary, so long as it would not be incon­sis­tent with applic­a­ble state and fed­er­al law.

12. Pur­chase of used equip­ment that meets the spec­i­fi­ca­tions required by the District.

13. Copy­right mate­ri­als, cor­po­rate spon­sor­ships, and memberships. 

CODE OF ETHICS AND CONDUCT

Pur­pose

The pur­pose of this pol­i­cy is to pro­vide writ­ten stan­dards of con­duct cov­er­ing con­flicts of inter­est and gov­ern­ing the actions of employ­ees, offi­cers and agents of the Dis­trict engaged in pur­chas­ing and the selec­tion, award, and admin­is­tra­tion of con­tracts. For pur­pos­es of con­tracts and pur­chas­es sup­port­ed by fed­er­al monies, this pol­i­cy is adopt­ed to con­form to the require­ments of Title 2 of the Code of Fed­er­al Reg­u­la­tions (CFR) 200.112, Con­flict of Inter­est and 200.318©(1), Gen­er­al Pro­cure­ment Standards.

Scope

Appli­ca­tion

This pol­i­cy applies to all employ­ees, offi­cers, and agents of the Dis­trict who par­tic­i­pate in any phase of the pur­chas­ing process.

Def­i­n­i­tions

“Agent” is an indi­vid­ual or enti­ty, who is not an employ­ee or offi­cer, who has the author­i­ty to legal­ly bind the District.

“Con­flict of Inter­est” means when the employ­ee, offi­cer, or agent, any mem­ber of his or her imme­di­ate fam­i­ly, his or her part­ner, or an orga­ni­za­tion which employs or is about to employ any of the par­ties indi­cat­ed here­in, has a finan­cial or oth­er inter­est in or a tan­gi­ble per­son­al ben­e­fit from a firm con­sid­ered for a contract. 

“Employ­ee”, for pur­pos­es of this pol­i­cy, means any employ­ee of the Dis­trict engaged in pur­chas­ing and the selec­tion, award, and admin­is­tra­tion of contracts.

“Imme­di­ate fam­i­ly” means any par­ent, spouse, child, sib­ling, or domes­tic part­ner of an employ­ee, offi­cer or agent of the Dis­trict involved in the pur­chas­ing process and the selec­tion, award, and admin­is­tra­tion of contracts.

“Offi­cer” means any per­son elect­ed or appoint­ed to hold office or serve on the Dis­trict Board of Directors. 

Stan­dards of Conduct

1. Each Dis­trict employ­ee and offi­cer involved in pur­chas­ing must adhere to the ethics stan­dards and gift rules con­tained in Chap­ter 112, Part III, Flori­da Statutes.

2. No Dis­trict employ­ee, offi­cer, or agent may par­tic­i­pate in the selec­tion, award, or admin­is­tra­tion of a con­tract if he or she has a real or appar­ent con­flict of interest. 

3. The offi­cers, employ­ees, and agents of the Dis­trict may nei­ther solic­it nor accept gra­tu­ities, favors, or any­thing of mon­e­tary val­ue from con­trac­tors or par­ties to sub­con­tracts. This does not pro­hib­it the Dis­trict from accept­ing an unso­licit­ed gift to the Dis­trict office that is avail­able to the orga­ni­za­tion as a whole and not direct­ed to any indi­vid­ual. In the event there is any ques­tion regard­ing the gift rule, the Dis­trict shall seek an opin­ion from the District’s attorney. 

4. Any employ­ee, offi­cer or agent of the Dis­trict who believes he or she may have a con­flict of inter­est must recuse them­selves from the selec­tion, award or admin­is­tra­tion of the pro­cure­ment and imme­di­ate­ly inform his/​her super­vi­sor or the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the cir­cum­stances involved. This infor­ma­tion is to be reviewed at an appro­pri­ate lev­el for deci­sion on whether a con­flict of inter­est is present and, if so, what course of action is to be taken.

Vio­la­tions

Any employ­ee, offi­cer or agent of the Dis­trict who has knowl­edge of a real or appar­ent con­flict of inter­est or oth­er pro­hib­it­ed con­duct under this pol­i­cy shall report the infor­ma­tion to his/​her imme­di­ate super­vi­sor or the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. In the event of a con­flict, real or appar­ent vio­la­tions may be report­ed to the Dis­trict Attor­ney. If the super­vi­sor, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, and/​or the Dis­trict Attor­ney deter­mines that a con­flict of inter­est or any pro­hib­it­ed con­duct has occurred, appro­pri­ate dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures for vio­la­tions of this pol­i­cy shall be tak­en. For pur­pos­es of fed­er­al awards, the Author­i­ty des­ig­nates the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor as the report­ing offi­cial for all instances of poten­tial or real con­flicts of inter­ests. The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall report the con­flict of inter­est as required by fed­er­al law.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 

EXEC­U­TIVE DIRECTOR 

1. The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall be respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing and admin­is­ter­ing pur­chas­ing in accor­dance with the Dis­trict bud­get and shall ensure that ade­quate records are kept as nec­es­sary to cre­ate an audit trail for pur­chas­ing transactions.

2. The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor is the sole author­i­ty respon­si­ble for issu­ing and set­ting spend­ing lim­its on Pur­chas­ing Cards (“P‑Card”) for Dis­trict employees.

3. The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall ensure that a data­base is kept of all Dis­trict con­tracts, and leases.

DIS­TRICT EMPLOYEES

1. Divi­sion and Depart­ment Heads may estab­lish pro­ce­dures to ful­ly imple­ment pur­chas­ing so long as such pro­ce­dures are con­sis­tent with this Pur­chas­ing Pol­i­cy and the District’s Finan­cial and P‑Card systems.

2. Employ­ees will use the P‑Card or Pur­chase Order forms sup­plied by the Dis­trict for procur­ing ser­vices, equip­ment, and supplies. 

3. Divi­sion and Depart­ment Heads are respon­si­ble for ensur­ing that suf­fi­cient bud­get funds are avail­able for all expenditures. 

4. Depart­ment Heads shall mon­i­tor and approve the P‑Card pur­chas­es of their employees.

5. Divi­sion or Depart­ment Heads shall for­mu­late spec­i­fi­ca­tions, or the scope of work and require­ments and com­pet­i­tive costs esti­mates, for com­pet­i­tive bids or requests for pro­pos­als or qual­i­fi­ca­tions, to include any terms and con­di­tions spec­i­fied in relat­ed fund­ing (i.e., Fed­er­al and State grant funding).

VEN­DOR POLICIES

1. Full and Open Competition 

It is the intent of the Dis­trict to pro­vide all ven­dors with a fair and impar­tial oppor­tu­ni­ty in which to com­pete for the Dis­tric­t’s business.

2. Pub­lic Enti­ty Crime: Denial and Revo­ca­tion of Rights 

In accor­dance with F.S. 287.133, any enti­ty list­ed on the State Depart­ment of Man­age­ment Ser­vices Con­vict­ed Ven­dor List shall be denied the right to con­duct busi­ness or ren­der any type of ser­vice to the Dis­trict to the extent required by the debar­ment, sus­pen­sion, or oth­er deter­mi­na­tion of inel­i­gi­bil­i­ty by the State.

3. E‑Verify

In accor­dance with F.S. 448.095, the Dis­trict and all Ven­dors must reg­is­ter with and use the E‑Verify sys­tem to elec­tron­i­cal­ly ver­i­fy the employ­ment eli­gi­bil­i­ty of all new­ly hired employ­ees. Any Ven­dor who does not use the E‑Verify sys­tem shall be denied the right to con­duct busi­ness or ren­der any type of ser­vice to the District. 

4. Sus­pen­sion and debar­ment

A) Sus­pen­sion. After con­sul­ta­tion with the District’s attor­ney, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor is autho­rized to sus­pend a ven­dor from con­sid­er­a­tion for award of con­tracts if there is prob­a­ble cause to believe that the ven­dor has engaged in any activ­i­ty which might lead to debar­ment pur­suant to sub­sec­tion © below. The sus­pen­sion shall be for a peri­od not to exceed three months, and the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall imme­di­ate­ly inform the Board at the next avail­able reg­u­lar ses­sion and pro­vide notice to the affect­ed vendor. 

B) Debar­ment. After rea­son­able notice and an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the sus­pend­ed ven­dor to be heard, the Board shall either debar such ven­dor or ter­mi­nate the sus­pen­sion. The debar­ment should be for a peri­od of not more than three years unless the grounds for debar­ment remain active. 

C) Grounds for debar­ment include: 

  • (1) Entry of a plea of guilty, or no con­test, or nolo con­tendere to or con­vic­tion of a crim­i­nal offense as an inci­dent to obtain­ing or attempt­ing to obtain pub­lic or pri­vate con­tract or sub­con­tract, or in the per­for­mance of such con­tract or sub­con­tract; or
  • (2) Entry of a plea of guilty, no con­test, or nolo con­tendere to or con­vic­tion under state or fed­er­al statutes of embez­zle­ment, theft, forgery, bribery, fal­si­fi­ca­tion, or destruc­tion of records, receiv­ing stolen prop­er­ty, or any oth­er offense indi­cat­ing a lack of busi­ness integri­ty or busi­ness hon­esty; or 
  • (3) Entry of a plea of guilty, no con­test, or nolo con­tendere to or con­vic­tion under state or fed­er­al antitrust statutes aris­ing out of the sub­mis­sion of bids or pro­pos­als; or
  • (4) Vio­la­tion of con­tract pro­vi­sions, as set forth below, the char­ac­ter which is regard­ed by the board to be so seri­ous as to jus­ti­fy debar­ment action:
    • a. Delib­er­ate fail­ure with­out good cause to per­form in accor­dance with the spec­i­fi­ca­tions or with­in the time lim­it pro­vid­ed in the con­tract; or
    • b. A past record of fail­ure to per­form or of unsat­is­fac­to­ry per­for­mance in accor­dance with the terms of one or more contracts;
  • (5) Hav­ing been adju­di­cat­ed guilty of any vio­la­tion of the State of Flori­da Con­struc­tion Indus­try Licens­ing Board with­in the past 12-month peri­od pri­or to the time of bid sub­mit­tal; or 
  • (6) Hav­ing been adju­di­cat­ed guilty by the Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion of any vio­la­tion of an envi­ron­men­tal ordi­nance with­in the past six-month peri­od at the time of bid sub­mit­tal; or
  • (7) Hav­ing been dis­qual­i­fied or found non­re­spon­sive, based on the vendor’s fraud; or
  • (8) Hav­ing been adju­di­cat­ed insol­vent, hav­ing pro­ceed­ings in bank­rupt­cy insti­tut­ed against it, or hav­ing a receiv­er or trustee appoint­ed over its prop­er­ty; or
  • (9) Being in a pro­ceed­ing (i.e., court pro­ceed­ing, arbi­tra­tion, or admin­is­tra­tive pro­ceed­ing) adverse to the Dis­trict, or hav­ing unre­solved finan­cial claims pend­ing by or against the Dis­trict for a peri­od of more than six­ty (60) days; or
  • (10) Hav­ing been sus­pend­ed or debarred by any oth­er gov­ern­ment enti­ty; or
  • (11) Any oth­er cause the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor deter­mines to be so seri­ous and com­pelling as to affect respon­si­bil­i­ty as a Dis­trict ven­dor, includ­ing debar­ment by anoth­er gov­ern­men­tal entity. 

D) Notice of deci­sion. The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall issue a writ­ten notice to the ven­dor of the deci­sion to debar or sus­pend. The final deci­sion shall state the rea­sons for the action tak­en and inform the debarred or sus­pend­ed ven­dor involved of his/​her rights con­cern­ing judi­cial review by cer­tio­rari appeal to the Four­teenth Judi­cial Cir­cuit Court. The writ­ten deci­sion shall be mailed or oth­er­wise fur­nished imme­di­ate­ly to the debarred or sus­pend­ed vendor. 

5. Lit­i­ga­tion and Arbitration 

As a gen­er­al pol­i­cy, the Dis­trict shall not pur­chase from or enter into con­tracts with any ven­dors cur­rent­ly involved in lit­i­ga­tion or arbi­tra­tion with Dis­trict until such time as a sat­is­fac­to­ry res­o­lu­tion is reached with such ven­dors; how­ev­er, the Dis­trict may, in its sole dis­cre­tion, award con­tracts to such ven­dors if it deems it in the best inter­est of the District. 


PUR­CHAS­ING AUTHORITY

Pur­chas­ing author­i­ty iden­ti­fies who must approve the pur­chase of goods and ser­vices up to a dol­lar thresh­old amount and when a pur­chase must be brought before the Board for approval and award. This pur­chas­ing author­i­ty includes the author­i­ty to sign any writ­ten con­tracts bind­ing the Dis­trict with­in the autho­rized amount.

Depart­ment Head: Not to Exceed $1,000

Dis­trict Fire Chief

Dis­trict Police Chief

Main­te­nance Manager

Man­ag­er of Finance & Administration

Divi­sion Head: Not to Exceed $5,000

Deputy Exec­u­tive Director

Direc­tor of Finance & Administration 

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Not to Exceed $50,000

Board Over $50,000

In addi­tion to the above sched­ule, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, or his/​her designee, is autho­rized to approve the fol­low­ing items:

  1. Pay requests for project expen­di­tures in accor­dance with con­tracts approved by the Board.
  2. Util­i­ty expen­di­tures in accor­dance with the approved Oper­at­ing and Cap­i­tal Budget.
  3. Per­son­nel expen­di­tures in accor­dance with the approved Oper­at­ing and Cap­i­tal Budget.
  4. Trans­fer of funds between Dis­trict accounts that do not result in a reduc­tion of total fund balances.
  5. Item­ized cap­i­tal equip­ment approved in the budget.
  6. Own­er Direct Pur­chas­es sourced by contracts.
  7. SIB Loan Annu­al Debt payment.

PUR­CHAS­ING THRESHOLDS 

The fol­low­ing cat­e­gories estab­lish require­ments for pur­chas­es by amount. Each order must be signed by the appro­pri­ate approval authority. 

Orders up to $3,500

Micro-Pur­chase. No quotes are required. Best prac­tices should be used to ensure a com­pet­i­tive price.

$3,501 — $25,000

Sim­pli­fied Acqui­si­tion: Three writ­ten or inter­net quotes from sep­a­rate vendors.

Orders over $25,001

Com­pet­i­tive Solic­i­ta­tion Pro­ce­dures required

METH­ODS OF PROCUREMENT

The Dis­trict is com­mit­ted to obtain, to the max­i­mum extent prac­ti­ca­ble, full, and open com­pe­ti­tion for con­tracts. Staff shall deter­mine which pro­cure­ment method is most advan­ta­geous to the Dis­trict. In mak­ing this deter­mi­na­tion, con­sid­er­a­tion shall be giv­en to the pro­cure­ment method that max­i­mizes com­pe­ti­tion, pric­ing, and efficiency. 

Divid­ing pur­chas­es between two or more P‑Card or Pur­chase Order trans­ac­tions to cir­cum­vent the bid­ding or approval process is pro­hib­it­ed. All pur­chas­es are restrict­ed to busi­ness items only. Using the District’s name, P‑Card or Pur­chase Order form or any part of the District’s pur­chas­ing process to obtain per­son­al goods or ser­vices or to take advan­tage of its tax-exempt sta­tus is pro­hib­it­ed. Employ­ees vio­lat­ing the pro­vi­sions set forth here­in will be sub­ject to dis­ci­pli­nary action. 

Micro-Pur­chas­es

The Dis­trict may uti­lize the micro-pur­chase meth­ods for pur­chas­es at or under $3,500 with­out solic­it­ing com­pet­i­tive quotes.

Sim­pli­fied Acquisitions

The pur­chase of goods from $3,501 to $25,000 shall require the request­ing Depart­ment to obtain com­pet­i­tive quotes from three or more ven­dors. The quotes must be on com­pa­ny let­ter­head, quote forms, or in an inter­net for­mat that includes the date and the e‑signature of an autho­rized rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the ven­dor. Any work that requires a licensed con­trac­tor shall be iden­ti­fied pri­or to obtain­ing quotes. All con­trac­tor licens­es shall be ver­i­fied pri­or to issuance of a Pur­chase Order form or contract. 

Single/​Sole Source Purchases 

When the Dis­trict believes that com­modi­ties or con­trac­tu­al ser­vices are avail­able only from a sole or sin­gle source, the Dis­trict shall elec­tron­i­cal­ly post about the intend­ed pro­cure­ment for at least 7 busi­ness days before pro­ceed­ing. The post must be in at least one of the fol­low­ing places: 1) the Dis­trict web­site; or 2) on a cen­tral­ized web­site des­ig­nat­ed by the State of Flori­da Depart­ment of Man­age­ment Ser­vices; or 3) on a Bay Coun­ty pub­licly acces­si­ble web­site as allowed by Fla. Stat. 50.0311. The post must include a descrip­tion of the com­modi­ties or con­trac­tu­al ser­vices sought and the rea­son that the Dis­trict believes that the pur­chase qual­i­fies as either a sin­gle-source or sole source pro­cure­ment. The descrip­tion must include a request that prospec­tive ven­dors pro­vide infor­ma­tion regard­ing their abil­i­ty to sup­ply the com­modi­ties or con­trac­tu­al ser­vices described. Any prospec­tive ven­dor chal­lenge to a single/​sole source deter­mi­na­tion shall be con­sid­ered by the Dis­trict in con­sul­ta­tion with the District’s attor­ney. If it is deter­mined in writ­ing by the Dis­trict, after review­ing any infor­ma­tion received from prospec­tive ven­dors that the com­modi­ties or con­trac­tu­al ser­vices are avail­able only from a sole or sin­gle source, before pro­ceed­ing with the pro­cure­ment the Dis­trict will pro­vide notice to the respond­ing prospec­tive ven­dors of its intend­ed deci­sion to enter a sin­gle-source or sole source pur­chase contract.

Pig­gy­back

Depart­ments may request to pig­gy­back on con­tracts for goods and ser­vices with oth­er gov­ern­men­tal enti­ties and coop­er­a­tive orga­ni­za­tions which are com­prised sole­ly of oth­er gov­ern­men­tal enti­ties. The fol­low­ing must be sub­mit­ted as a part of the request and spec­i­fi­ca­tions package:

  1. Ver­i­fi­ca­tion that the con­tract was com­pet­i­tive­ly procured.
  2. A copy of the oth­er agency’s active Pur­chase Order or con­tract includ­ing the scope of work and the expi­ra­tion date.
  3. A let­ter from the award­ed ven­dor, offer­ing to hon­or the same prices under the same terms and con­di­tions as indi­cat­ed in the oth­er agency’s solic­i­ta­tion and sub­se­quent contract.
  4. Ver­i­fi­ca­tion from the oth­er agency that the ven­dor is per­form­ing satisfactorily.

Own­er Direct Purchases 

The Dis­trict may elect to pur­chase mate­ri­als and equip­ment includ­ed in any contractor’s bid direct­ly from the sup­pli­er of such mate­ri­als or equip­ment in order to achieve sales tax sav­ings. Direct pur­chase lan­guage should be includ­ed in the solic­i­ta­tion doc­u­ment if applic­a­ble to the project.

The con­trac­tor shall sub­mit to the Dis­trict a list of mate­ri­als and equip­ment appro­pri­ate for con­sid­er­a­tion by own­er as direct pur­chase mate­ri­als. If the Dis­trict elects to pur­chase any mate­ri­als direct­ly, a deduc­tive change order will be issued to account for direct purchases. 

Com­pet­i­tive Solic­i­ta­tion Pro­ce­dures: Pur­chas­es over $25,001

1. The request­ing Depart­ment, in con­junc­tion with the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, will deter­mine which com­pet­i­tive pro­cure­ment method is most prac­ti­ca­ble and advan­ta­geous to the Dis­trict. Those meth­ods may be by:

A) Invi­ta­tion to Bid (ITB);

B) Request for qual­i­fi­ca­tions (RFQ) pur­suant to Consultant’s Com­pet­i­tive Nego­ti­a­tion Act (CCNA) or not gov­erned by the CCNA;

C) Request for pro­pos­als (RFP);

D) Invi­ta­tion to Nego­ti­ate (ITN).

2. The Dis­trict is an Equal Oppor­tu­ni­ty Employ­er. To the extent required by law, as a con­di­tion of con­duct­ing busi­ness with the Dis­trict, all indi­vid­u­als or orga­ni­za­tions desir­ing to do busi­ness with the Dis­trict should have an Equal Oppor­tu­ni­ty Employ­ment Pol­i­cy con­sis­tent with state and fed­er­al law.

3. All com­pet­i­tive solic­i­ta­tions should include the fol­low­ing provisions:

A) The Dis­trict reserves the right to accept or reject any and all bids, pro­pos­als, com­pet­i­tive or oth­er­wise, in whole or in part, to waive infor­mal­i­ties in the solic­i­ta­tion doc­u­ments, to obtain new bids, or to post­pone the bid open­ing pur­suant to the Dis­tric­t’s pur­chas­ing poli­cies as they may deem in the best inter­est of the District.

B) The peri­od of time that respons­es are valid after the date of the opening.

C) Pub­lic Enti­ty Crimes State­ment pur­suant to Sec­tion 287.133(3)(a), Flori­da Statutes.

D) The con­tract term and the num­ber, dura­tion and con­di­tion of any intend­ed renew­al periods.

E) Date, time, and loca­tion of bid opening.

F) If pre­dictable, an esti­mat­ed time for con­tract award.

G) The basis or eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria for rec­om­men­da­tion, rank­ing, and award where applicable.

H) Pro­ce­dures to award when tie bids are received.

I) Require­ments of the solic­i­ta­tion relat­ed to fund­ing sources. 

J) Insur­ance Require­ments, if applicable.

K) Own­er Direct Pur­chase lan­guage, if applicable. 

4. The request­ing Depart­ment will for­mu­late specifications. 

5. Except for emer­gency pur­chas­es, bids shall be adver­tised a min­i­mum 14 days before the bid open­ing in at least one of the fol­low­ing places: 1) once in a news­pa­per of gen­er­al cir­cu­la­tion in Bay Coun­ty; or 2) on a cen­tral­ized web­site des­ig­nat­ed by the State of Flori­da Depart­ment of Man­age­ment Ser­vices; or 3) on the Bay Coun­ty pub­licly acces­si­ble web­site as allowed by Fla. Stat. 50.0311. Projects may have spe­cif­ic adver­tise­ments as required by fed­er­al or state law.

6. Fed­er­al­ly fund­ed projects will fol­low Fed­er­al pro­cure­ment stan­dards in the ​“Uni­form Admin­is­tra­tive Require­ments, Cost Prin­ci­ples and Audit Require­ments for Fed­er­al Awards”, 2 C.F.R. Sec­tions 200.213 and 200.317−326.

7. Accep­tance and Eval­u­a­tion. Respons­es shall be accept­ed with­out alter­ation or cor­rec­tion, except as autho­rized in this Pol­i­cy. Respons­es shall be eval­u­at­ed based on the require­ments set forth in the solic­i­ta­tion doc­u­ment, which may include, but not be lim­it­ed to cri­te­ria to deter­mine accept­abil­i­ty such as: inspec­tion, test­ing, qual­i­ty and con­tent of mate­ri­als, work­man­ship, suit­abil­i­ty for a par­tic­u­lar pur­pose and/​or fac­tors to deter­mine a respondent’s lev­el of respon­si­bil­i­ty such as ref­er­ences, work his­to­ry, licen­sure, cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, etc. Those cri­te­ria that will affect the price and that are to be con­sid­ered in eval­u­a­tion for award shall be objec­tive­ly measured. 

8. After the open­ing, the Dis­trict will noti­fy any respon­dents of any infor­mal­i­ties in their response. They will have 24 hours from the time of the open­ing to fur­nish infor­ma­tion cor­rect­ing the infor­mal­i­ty. If the open­ing is on a Fri­day, they will have until Mon­day to reply. If no response is received with­in 24 hours of the open­ing, the pack­age will be deemed non-responsive.

9. The request­ing Depart­ment will attend the open­ing and will assist in the review of the sub­mit­ted respons­es to help ascer­tain the qual­i­fied and respon­sive respon­dent in accor­dance with the solic­i­ta­tion doc­u­ment that pro­vides the best val­ue to the Dis­trict. All respons­es will be opened in pub­lic and prices, if pro­vid­ed, will be read aloud. 

10. Unless oth­er­wise instruct­ed, the request­ing Depart­ment will rec­om­mend the con­tract award to the appro­pri­ate approval authority.

11. The Depart­ment will draft the item to be placed on the Board agen­da for approval if amounts exceed $50,000 or oth­er­wise as required by law, statute, or this Policy.

12. No lat­er than the busi­ness day fol­low­ing the day approval is grant­ed, a Dis­trict employ­ee will elec­tron­i­cal­ly noti­fy a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of each respon­dent of the award decision.

13. Depend­ing on the val­ue of the con­tract, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor or Depart­ment is respon­si­ble for issu­ing a Notice to Pro­ceed after the full exe­cu­tion of any con­tract or agree­ment for a project.

14. Solic­i­ta­tions may be can­celed or reject­ed in whole or in part when it is in the best inter­ests of the Dis­trict, as deter­mined by the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. A Dis­trict employ­ee shall elec­tron­i­cal­ly noti­fy all respon­dents of any deci­sion to can­cel the solic­i­ta­tion. In addi­tion, notice of can­cel­la­tion shall be post­ed on the Dis­trict web­site. The notice shall iden­ti­fy the solic­i­ta­tion, and, where appro­pri­ate, explain that an oppor­tu­ni­ty will be giv­en to com­pete on any re-solic­i­ta­tion or any future pro­cure­ment of sim­i­lar items.

15. In cas­es of tie bids (mon­e­tary as well as all award cri­te­ria iden­ti­fied) award will be made based on a lot drawn by the Exec­u­tive or his or her designee before at least three witnesses. 

PRO­FES­SION­AL ARCHI­TEC­TUR­AL, ENGI­NEER­ING, LAND­SCAPE ARCHI­TEC­TUR­AL, AND LAND SUR­VEY­ING SER­VICES (CCNA)

The pur­pose of this pro­ce­dure is to ensure com­pli­ance with pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices pro­cured pur­suant to Fla. Stat. 287.055 (Com­pet­i­tive Con­sul­tants’ Nego­ti­a­tion Act) includ­ing archi­tec­ture, pro­fes­sion­al engi­neer­ing, land­scape archi­tec­ture, con­struc­tion man­age­ment, reg­is­tered sur­vey­ing, and map­ping. The Dis­trict shall pub­licly announce all require­ments for these pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices which meet the pur­chas­ing amounts in this pol­i­cy or that exceed the thresh­old amounts pro­vid­ed for in statute. The con­sul­tant will be select­ed based on qual­i­fi­ca­tions. The Dis­trict will then nego­ti­ate a con­tract based on fair and rea­son­able prices.

1. Scope of Project Require­ments

Pri­or to solic­it­ing pro­pos­als for pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, or his designee, shall deter­mine project require­ments indi­cat­ing the nature and scope of the pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices need­ed by the Dis­trict, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to the following:

a. The gen­er­al pur­pose of the ser­vice or study.

b. The objec­tives of the ser­vice or study.

c. The esti­mat­ed peri­od of time need­ed for the ser­vice of the study.

d. The esti­mat­ed cost of the ser­vice or study.

e. Whether the pro­posed study or ser­vice would or would not dupli­cate any pri­or or exist­ing study or service.

f. List of cur­rent con­tracts or pri­or ser­vices or stud­ies which are relat­ed to the pro­posed study or service.

g. The desired qual­i­fi­ca­tions, list­ed in order of impor­tance, of the per­son or firm applic­a­ble to the scope and nature of the ser­vices requested.

2. Devel­op­ment of RFQ

The RFQ shall be devel­oped giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion of the project require­ments. The RFQ shall include a list of selec­tion cri­te­ria to be used to eval­u­ate poten­tial con­sul­tants. Selec­tion cri­te­ria will vary for each RFQ and must be appro­pri­ate for the pro­posed scope of ser­vices. Sug­gest­ed cri­te­ria include, but are not lim­it­ed to:

a. Expe­ri­ence in com­pa­ra­ble projects

b. Pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions, expe­ri­ence, and availability

c. Abil­i­ty to meet sched­ule requirements

d. Qual­i­ty of pre­vi­ous projects

e. Qual­i­fi­ca­tions of sub-consultants

f. Geo­graph­ic loca­tion of resources

g. Under­stand­ing of project require­ments and tech­ni­cal approach

The RFQ shall spec­i­fy eval­u­a­tion cri­te­ria and procedures. 

3. Dis­tri­b­u­tion of RFQ

The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, or his designee, shall dis­trib­ute the RFQ to all per­sons who have indi­cat­ed an inter­est in being con­sid­ered for the per­for­mance of such pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices and to known, poten­tial­ly qual­i­fied con­sul­tants. In addi­tion to meet­ing any legal notice require­ments, the RFQ shall be dis­trib­uted to most effec­tive­ly adver­tise the pro­cure­ment includ­ing to elec­tron­ic media, trade jour­nals, news­pa­pers, or pub­li­ca­tions of wide gen­er­al cir­cu­la­tion. Affir­ma­tive steps and good faith efforts shall be tak­en to assure that small and minor­i­ty firms are recruit­ed and used when­ev­er pos­si­ble. The RFQ shall pro­vide noti­fi­ca­tion of the date and time when pro­pos­als are due. 

4. Eval­u­a­tion

The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall deter­mine the Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee that will best serve the needs of the Dis­trict. A typ­i­cal Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee shall be com­posed of at least three per­sons with at least one being an archi­tect or engi­neer, air­port plan­ner or oth­er pro­fes­sion­al with knowl­edge of the ser­vices required. For projects with spe­cial design require­ments, the Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee should have addi­tion­al tech­ni­cal mem­bers with appro­pri­ate exper­tise in those required dis­ci­plines. The Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee shall eval­u­ate pro­pos­als, con­duct inter­views and inquiries as desired, and shall make rec­om­men­da­tions to the Board.

a. Meet­ings. Meet­ings of the Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee shall com­ply with Fla. Stat. 286.011. The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, or his designee, shall devel­op and imple­ment pro­ce­dures to ensure com­pli­ance with pub­lic meet­ing requirements. 

b. Con­tact with Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee. Mem­bers of the Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee are pro­hib­it­ed from dis­cussing the project with any pro­fes­sion­al or firm that may sub­mit a pro­pos­al dur­ing the pro­cure­ment process, except in for­mal eval­u­a­tion meet­ings sub­ject to open meet­ing requirements. 

c. Ini­tial Rank­ing. Only writ­ten respons­es of state­ments of qual­i­fi­ca­tions, per­for­mance date and oth­er data received by the pub­li­cized sub­mis­sion time and date shall be eval­u­at­ed. The ini­tial rank­ing shall be based upon the weight­ed cri­te­ria in the solicitation. 

d. Short List­ing. The best qual­i­fied respon­dents shall be based upon the Eval­u­a­tion Committee’s abil­i­ty to dif­fer­en­ti­ate qual­i­fi­ca­tions applic­a­ble to the scope and nature of the ser­vices to be per­formed as indi­cat­ed by the rat­ings on the scor­ing sheet. The deter­mi­na­tions shall be based only on the selec­tion cri­te­ria con­tained with­in the RFQ. Typ­i­cal­ly, the top three rat­ed individuals/​firms, if there are at least three respon­sive respon­dents, will be con­sid­ered as the short­list­ed can­di­dates. The Eval­u­a­tion Com­mit­tee may choose to con­duct for­mal inter­views pri­or to final ranking. 

5. Approval

The Dis­trict Board shall select the best qual­i­fied person/​firm pri­or to begin­ning con­tract nego­ti­a­tions. The Board shall rank the best qual­i­fied firms in order of preference. 

6. Con­tract Negotiations

Con­tract nego­ti­a­tions shall be con­duct­ed by the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor with assis­tance from the Dis­trict Attor­ney. The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall nego­ti­ate a con­tract with the firm con­sid­ered to be the most qual­i­fied to pro­vide the ser­vices at com­pen­sa­tion and upon terms which the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor deter­mines to be fair and rea­son­able to the Dis­trict. In mak­ing this deci­sion, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall con­sid­er the esti­mat­ed val­ue, the scope, the com­plex­i­ty, and the pro­fes­sion­al nature of the ser­vices to be ren­dered. The Dis­trict shall con­duct a cost analy­sis, includ­ing eval­u­a­tion of prof­it based on a cost break sub­mit­ted by the firm pri­or to issuance of a con­tract. If the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor is unable to nego­ti­ate a sat­is­fac­to­ry con­tract with the firm con­sid­ered to be the most qual­i­fied, nego­ti­a­tions with the firm shall be for­mal­ly ter­mi­nat­ed. The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall then under­take nego­ti­a­tions with the sec­ond most qual­i­fied firm. If this is unsuc­cess­ful, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall for­mal­ly ter­mi­nate nego­ti­a­tions, and shall then under­take nego­ti­a­tions with the third most qual­i­fied firm. If the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor is unable to nego­ti­ate a sat­is­fac­to­ry con­tract with any of the select­ed firms, the Dis­trict Board shall select addi­tion­al firms in order of their com­pe­tence and qual­i­fi­ca­tions. The Exec­u­tive Direc­tor shall con­tin­ue nego­ti­a­tions in accor­dance with this sec­tion until an agree­ment is reached or a deci­sion has been made not to con­tract for such services.

7. Con­tin­u­ing Contracts

Noth­ing in this sec­tion shall pro­hib­it the use of con­tin­u­ing con­tracts for pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices between any individual/​firm and the District. 

CHANGE ORDERS

If a change order is required to cor­rect errors, omis­sions, or dis­crep­an­cies, or to direct oth­er changes to meet unfore­seen field, emer­gency, cli­mat­ic, reg­u­la­to­ry, or mar­ket con­di­tions, the fol­low­ing shall apply:

  1. All change orders exceed­ing a cumu­la­tive total of ten per­cent of the orig­i­nal con­tract amount must be in writ­ing and include the addi­tion­al scope of work or quan­ti­ties, the amount of the change order, and any addi­tion­al days added to the term or deliv­ery date.
  2. Change orders exceed­ing a cumu­la­tive cost exceed­ing $50,000, or where there is a mate­ri­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant change in the scope of ser­vices, shall require Board approval. 
  3. If imme­di­ate approval of the change order is required to pre­vent undue delay and hard­ship to the Dis­trict, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor has the author­i­ty to approve the change order and bring it before the Board at the next reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled meet­ing with doc­u­ment­ed expla­na­tion of the condition.

BID PROTEST PROCEDURES

In any com­pet­i­tive solic­i­ta­tion con­text, no lat­er than the busi­ness day fol­low­ing the day approval is grant­ed, a Dis­trict employ­ee will elec­tron­i­cal­ly noti­fy a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of each respon­dent of the award decision. 

If a par­ty intends to ini­ti­ate a chal­lenge to an award, it must elec­tron­i­cal­ly noti­fy the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and the District’s attor­ney no lat­er than three busi­ness day after notice of the award­ing authority’s deci­sion. The notice shall con­tain at a min­i­mum: the name of the Pro­tes­tor; the Protestor’s address and phone num­ber; the name of the Protestor’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive; the name and bid num­ber of the solic­i­ta­tion; and a brief fac­tu­al sum­ma­ry of the basis of the challenge.

If no such notice is received by the Dis­trict, it may pro­ceed to exe­cute a con­tract to for­mal­ize the award deci­sion. If the Dis­trict does receive notice of intent to chal­lenge the deci­sion, the Dis­trict will stay the con­tract­ing process, unless the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor deter­mines that the con­tract must pro­ceed with­out delay to pro­tect sub­stan­tial inter­ests of the District. 

In the event of a chal­lenge, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, in con­sul­ta­tion with the District’s attor­ney and the Board Chair, shall decide whether to reverse or uphold the award deci­sion. The District’s deci­sion on a chal­lenge must be pro­vid­ed in writ­ing to the chal­lenger. Any par­ty wish­ing to appeal the District’s deci­sion must file a chal­lenge in Bay Coun­ty Cir­cuit Court with­in four­teen busi­ness days after the date of the writ­ten deci­sion. If the par­ty files its action, the court will uphold the District’s deci­sion unless the court deter­mines that the award­ing author­i­ty did not act in good faith and the chal­lenger demon­strates ille­gal­i­ty, fraud, oppres­sion or mis­con­duct by the Dis­trict or any­one act­ing on the District’s behalf.


LEAS­ES AND CONTRACTS 

The fol­low­ing con­tracts and leas­es shall be reviewed by the District’s Attor­ney before exe­cu­tion by the ven­dor, provider, or con­trac­tor, and prefer­ably before pre­sen­ta­tion to the Board or exe­cu­tion by the autho­rized individual:

  1. All con­tracts, pur­chase orders, leas­es of $50,000 or more. 
  2. All con­tracts, leas­es, and agree­ments with anoth­er gov­ern­men­tal enti­ty or based on pro­cure­ment through the pig­gy­back method.

FED­ER­AL PROCUREMENTS

1. When prop­er­ty or ser­vices are pro­cured using funds derived from a Fed­er­al grant or agree­ment (whether direct to the Dis­trict or ​“pass-through” from anoth­er enti­ty such as the State), the Dis­trict is required to and will fol­low the Fed­er­al pro­cure­ment stan­dards in the ​“Uni­form Admin­is­tra­tive Require­ments, Cost Prin­ci­ples, and Audit Require­ments for Fed­er­al Awards”, 2 C.F.R. Sec­tions 200.313 and 200.317 through 200.327. All pro­cure­ments must be con­duct­ed in a man­ner that pro­vides full and open com­pe­ti­tion. Micro-pur­chas­es of $10,000 or less, do not require com­pe­ti­tion or a cost/​price analy­sis pro­vid­ed the Dis­trict con­sid­ers the price rea­son­able. Small pur­chas­es, $10,000 to $150,000, require price and rate quotes from an ade­quate num­ber of qual­i­fied sources. Sealed bids, com­pet­i­tive pro­pos­als and non­com­pet­i­tive pro­pos­als may be used pur­suant to the require­ments of 2 C.F.R. Sec­tion 200.320.

2. It is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of the request­ing Depart­ment to deter­mine whether fed­er­al funds will be used on any par­tic­u­lar project and of any spe­cial con­di­tions that are imposed upon the Dis­trict through such fed­er­al funding.

3. The Dis­trict shall use the same pro­ce­dures as oth­er­wise con­tained in this Pur­chas­ing Pol­i­cy to the extent that they do not con­flict with the Fed­er­al pro­cure­ment stan­dards. The require­ments of 2 C.F.R. Sec­tions 200.313 and 200.317 through 200.327 will apply in the case of a conflict. 

4. Con­tract Pro­vi­sions. All con­tracts or Pur­chase Orders must con­tain the applic­a­ble pro­vi­sions required pur­suant to Sec­tion 200.327 and Appen­dix II to Part 200 of the Code of Fed­er­al Regulations.

5. Sus­pen­sion and Debar­ment. The Dis­trict is sub­ject to fed­er­al debar­ment and sus­pen­sion reg­u­la­tions imple­ment­ing 2.C.F.R. Part 180. The Dis­trict may not enter into an agree­ment for prop­er­ty or ser­vices with an enti­ty or per­son who has been dis­qual­i­fied (sus­pend­ed or debarred) from par­tic­i­pa­tion in Fed­er­al pro­grams or activ­i­ties unless the applic­a­ble Fed­er­al agency grants an exception.

The Dis­trict shall take rea­son­able steps to deter­mine whether any ven­dor, con­trac­tor or con­sul­tant is or has been exclud­ed or dis­qual­i­fied from par­tic­i­pat­ing in such trans­ac­tion. Pri­or to award­ing any bid, a Dis­trict employ­ee shall check with SAM​.gov to ensure that the bid­der or sub­con­trac­tors, if applic­a­ble, are not dis­barred or sus­pend­ed from work­ing with fed­er­al­ly fund­ed contracts.

The Dis­trict shall include a pro­vi­sion in all agree­ments requir­ing con­trac­tors, ven­dors, or con­sul­tants to com­ply with Part 180 when enter­ing into cov­ered trans­ac­tions with sub­con­trac­tors, sub-ven­dors and subconsultants.

6. Minor­i­ty and Women-Owned Busi­ness Enter­pris­es. The Dis­trict does not dis­crim­i­nate on any basis with­in its pro­cure­ment and con­tract­ing process and encour­ages the par­tic­i­pa­tion of minor­i­ty- and women-owned busi­ness enter­pris­es (col­lec­tive­ly, ​“MBEs”). When work­ing with fed­er­al­ly fund­ed con­tracts, the Dis­trict will con­sid­er the firm’s sta­tus as an MBE or a cer­ti­fied MBE, and also the sta­tus of any sub-con­trac­tors or sub-con­sul­tants pro­posed to be uti­lized by the firm, with­in the eval­u­a­tion process. Inter­est­ed MBEs and cer­ti­fied MBEs are encour­aged to respond. Specif­i­cal­ly, the Dis­trict will take affir­ma­tive steps to assure that minor­i­ty- and women- owned busi­ness­es are used when­ev­er pos­si­ble. These steps include, but are not lim­it­ed to:

a) Plac­ing qual­i­fied small, minor­i­ty- and women-owned busi­ness­es on solic­i­ta­tion lists;

b) Assur­ing that small, minor­i­ty- and women-owned busi­ness­es are solicit­ed when­ev­er they are poten­tial sources;

c) Divid­ing total require­ments, when eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble, into small­er tasks or quan­ti­ties to per­mit max­i­mum par­tic­i­pa­tion by small, women- and minor­i­ty-owned businesses;

e) Estab­lish­ing deliv­ery sched­ules, where require­ments per­mit, which encour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion by small, women- and minor­i­ty-owned businesses;

f) Using the ser­vices and assis­tance, as appro­pri­ate, of orga­ni­za­tions such as the Small Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion, the Minor­i­ty Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Agency of the Depart­ment of Com­merce, and the Flori­da Office of Sup­pli­er Diver­si­ty; and

g) Requir­ing the prime con­trac­tor, if sub­con­tracts are to be let, to take these same affir­ma­tive steps in the admin­is­tra­tion of its relat­ed contracts.

7. Pro­cure­ment of Recov­ered Mate­ri­als. The Dis­trict shall com­ply with Sec­tion 6002 of the Sol­id Waste Dis­pos­al Act, as amend­ed by the Resource Con­ser­va­tion and Recov­ery Act, when procur­ing goods fund­ed through Fed­er­al grant funding.

When­ev­er fea­si­ble, the Dis­trict will pro­cure items des­ig­nat­ed in the guide­lines of the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA) at 40 C.F.R. Part 247 that con­tain the high­est per­cent­age of recov­ered mate­ri­als prac­ti­ca­ble, con­sis­tent with main­tain­ing a sat­is­fac­to­ry lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion, where the pur­chase price of the item exceeds $10,000 or the val­ue of the quan­ti­ty acquired dur­ing the pre­ced­ing fis­cal year exceed­ed $10,000.

The Dis­trict will pro­cure sol­id waste man­age­ment ser­vices in a man­ner that max­i­mizes ener­gy and resource recovery.

The Dis­trict will main­tain an affir­ma­tive pref­er­ence pro­gram for pro­cure­ment of recov­ered mate­ri­als iden­ti­fied in the EPA guide­lines. The Dis­trict may uti­lize the assis­tance of EPA Prod­uct Resource Guides locat­ed at https://​www​.epa​.gov/​s​m​m​/​p​r​o​d​u​c​t​-​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​-​g​u​i​d​e​s​-​c​o​m​p​r​e​h​e​n​s​i​v​e​-​p​r​o​c​u​r​e​m​e​n​t​-​g​u​i​d​e​l​i​n​e​-​c​p​g​-​p​r​ogram for all prod­uct cat­e­gories for all cov­ered procurement.