At a reconvened County evaluation committee meeting for RFP 25-00293 on the Disaster Recovery Management Program, staff said the committee will ask proposers to submit best-and-final offers (BAFOs) with refined, fixed-price units so the county can compare bids on an "apples-to-apples" basis. Ethan Kersey, the senior buyer assigned to the project, opened the meeting and described the process for issuing a BAFO and a bid table to firms.

Why it matters: The contract would support the county’s Community Development Block Grant - Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) work, a federally funded program subject to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) oversight. Committee members said clearer, unitized pricing will help the county evaluate costs across consistent deliverables before negotiating a requirements contract with the selected firm.

Committee members emphasized that the underlying scope of work will not change; staff are asking only for more detailed pricing. Robert Hendrickson, management and budget, summarized the rationale: "One of the challenges with a complex program like this is making sure that all of our proposers are providing cost information on a level playing field with enough specificity to ensure that we're receiving costs for like items." The committee agreed that converting many line items to fixed monthly or per‑unit prices would reduce variability from time‑and‑materials proposals.

Staff walked the committee through the draft BAFO bid table and the unit assumptions the county will request. Key pricing assumptions and quantities the county will ask proposers to price include:
- A fixed price for a 60‑page CDBG‑DR framework and two review cycles with six county staff meetings.
- A 30‑page program management plan with three review meetings.
- A fixed monthly price for program management office (PMO) leadership (to be multiplied across the contract term) and a fixed monthly price for case management system configuration, licensing, and maintenance sized to support at least 2,500 applicants and 50 users annually (staff instructed proposers to amortize one‑time costs across 36 months).
- A fixed monthly price for call center services, assuming 2,000 calls per month and monthly reports on volume and duration.
- DRGR (Disaster Recovery Grant Reporting) work priced as a one‑time setup fee plus a fixed price per quarterly report.
- Compliance monitoring priced per quarterly monitoring unit, with an assumption of five subrecipients for budgeting purposes; staff agreed the fourth quarterly visit may also be treated as an annual compliance audit for pricing.
- Audit assistance priced as the cost for one annual audit unit; committee discussion indicated multiple audits are likely (internal/external/HUD and other funders) and the county may multiply the unit price (staff will receive unit pricing and multiply as needed).
- Multifamily predevelopment and repair pricing assumptions: staff initially proposed four replacement and four repair projects at $10 million and $11 million respectively, then adjusted those assumptions during the meeting. A committee member asked that the assumptions be increased to eight replacement projects at $25 million each and eight repair projects at $15 million each; staff confirmed they would change the bid table to assume eight and eight at the higher amounts and apply those figures across task 4a, 4b and 4c. For task 4c staff also asked proposers to assume 12 change orders and 150 draw requests over three years.
- Environmental reviews and training: fixed prices for virtual training; tier 1 reviews including mapping and mitigation measures; tier 2 reviews with site‑specific checklists (excluding on‑site inspections and A/E services unless separately priced); and fixed prices for 40 Phase I and 40 Phase II Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs). For Phase II ESAs staff asked proposers to assume up to five borings to depths of up to 25 feet, up to 10 soil samples, up to 10 groundwater samples, and laboratory analysis, assuming shallow groundwater conditions.
- Task 7 (infrastructure vetting) to be priced as a fixed price to vet a set number of projects; staff changed the working assumption from 50 to 100 projects after committee input.

Committee members and attendees reiterated two consistent points: the county is not changing the written RFP scope, and these BAFOs will be used to help evaluate price reasonableness and to set negotiation ceilings in the final contract. Scott Stromer (attendee) noted the BAFOs are intended to give proposers parameters for unit costs and not to change overall requirements. Staff said proposers will receive the bid table and explicit submission instructions, and the BAFO package should be issued early next week.

No formal motions or votes were taken. The committee’s action is a direction to staff to issue the BAFO request and bid table to proposers with the assumption list described in the meeting. Staff also confirmed recordings of oral presentations completed in October 2025 will be made publicly available at a future date.

Next steps: Staff will issue the BAFO bid table and resubmission instructions to proposers; the committee will use the returned unit prices to evaluate and compare proposals and later negotiate a requirements contract with the selected firm.