Judges: K. N. AYERS
Agency: Department of Health
Latest Update: Sep. 08, 1987
Summary: Petitioner failed to prove its Request For Proposal was superior.
87-2584STATE OF FLORIDA
DIVISION OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY )
)
Petitioner, )
)
vs. ) CASE NO. 87-2584B1D
) DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND ) REHABILITATIVE SERVICES, )
)
Respondent, ) and )
) LUTHERAN MINISTRIES OF ) FLORIDA, INC., )
)
Intervenor. )
)
RECOMMENDED ORDER
Pursuant to notice; the Division of Administrative Hearings, by its duly designated Hearing Officer, K. N. Ayers, held a public hearing in the above- styled case on July 30, 1987, at Tampa Florida.
APPEARANCES
For Petitioner: Jennie M. Granahan, Esquire
Office of County Attorney Post Office Box 1110 Tampa, Florida 33601
For Respondent: Henry Knobles, Esquire
2303 West Platt Street Tampa, Florida 33609
and
Frederick P. Wilk, Esquire 4000 West Buffalo Avenue Tampa, Florida 33614
For Intervenor: Sarah Rahdert, Esquire
233 Third Street North
St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
By Formal Written Protest dated June 1, 1987, Hillsborough county; petitioner, protests the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services (DHRS); Respondents, award of contract to Lutheran Ministries of Florida Inc. Intervenor, to provide comprehensive manpower and employment services for refugees and entrants in Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties. As grounds therefore it is alleged that in awarding the contract based upon the grades assigned by the five raters, the raters misinterpreted proposed program year; the proposals were not rated on their individual merit; two raters evaluated
petitioner's proposal on criteria not contained in the Request for Proposal (RFP); and raters were not familiar with all definitions and requirements of the RFP.
At the commencement of the hearing, eleven exhibits were marked for identification and Exhibits 1 through 9 were admitted without objection, but Exhibits 10 and 11 were objected to on grounds of relevancy. Thereafter, no motion to admit Exhibits 10 and 11 was made, and those exhibits were not admitted into evidence. Thereafter Petitioner called eight witnesses and neither Respondent nor Intervenor presented additional evidence.
This case was received at DOAH June 16, 1987 and initially scheduled to be heard June 25, 1987. At the request of petitioner; which was concurred in by Respondent, the hearing was continued until July 13, 1987 and again until July 30, 1987. The transcript of these proceedings was received in this office on August 26, 1987. It is noted that the transcript does not accurately reflect the order in which the witnesses testified and in some cases; the testimony of witnesses is not continuous in the transcript. During the morning of the hearings witnesses were called in the following order: Millie Coten, Jimmy B. Keel, Michael Simmons, and Frank Harbor. At the completion of Harbors testimony the hearing was recessed for lunch, and during the afternoon session Andrew Alexandre, Grace McLeary, Diane Conte and Barbara Ecina testified in that order. No index of the witnesses was prepared for the transcript and the testimony at the beginning of Volume 2 is not of the same witness testifying as Volume 1; of the two-volume transcript, ended.
Proposed findings timely submitted by the Petitioner are rejected as unsupported by the evidence. Proposed findings were not timely received (within
10 days of the filing of the transcript) from the Respondent.
FINDINGS OF FACT
In March 1987 DHRS published a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a Comprehensive Manpower Employment Service Programs for Refugees and Entrants (Exhibit 5) which established a time frame for bidders to submit proposals to provide services for the year beginning July 1; 1987 and ending June 30, 1988; established criteria for the services to be provided; and contained all information necessary for a bidder to submit an acceptable bid.
Pursuant to this RFP, Hillsborough County, Lutheran Ministries of Florida, Inc., and Catholic Social Services submitted proposals to provide the services authorized by federal statute to be provided to refugees and entrants predominantly from Cuba/Haiti and Indochina.
Pursuant to this RFP; bidders are required to submit a plan which identifies the services to be provided and a line item budget of anticipated allowable costs that will be incurred in the delivery of the services. Each bid is to be reviewed by at least three HRS employees familiar with the objectives and requirements of this social services program using the rating sheet as shown in an appendix to the RFP. The raters grades are totalled, and the contract is to be awarded to the bidder whose proposal is determined, through the evaluation process, to be most advantageous to the State, taking into consideration program and organizational capability, previous experience and understanding of the project (Exhibit 5 p. 25)
Five qualified raters evaluated the proposals submitted by the bidders. The totals of the grades given by these raters, four of whom testified in these
proceedings, was 603 for Petitioner and 1360 for Lutheran Ministries, thereby indicating the bid by Lutheran Ministries to be far superior to the bid by Hillsborough County.
For the past three years, Lutheran Ministries has held the contract to provide services to refugees and entrants while Hillsborough has held the contract, also from HRS, to operate a program intended to mitigate the impact on counties affected by the large influx of Cubans and Haitians entering this country at the time of the Mariel boat lift and after. The former funds are social services funds and the latter are designated Targeted Funds. Although both funds are operated out of the same DHRS office, they are distinct and separate appropriated funds. The 1986 Legislature failed to provide Targeted Funds for the year beginning January 1, 1988. Accordingly, there will be no Targeted Funds awarded to Hillsborough County to use after December 31, 1987. Apparently to preserve the jobs to carry out assistance to various aliens, Hillsborough County submitted its bid to provide services to refugees similar to the services it has been providing to immigrees.
Petitioner's bid provided for payment of salaries totaling $40,197 for six months, travel costs for six months and specialized transportation costs for six months. Petitioner apparently intended to use the anticipated funds, if its bid was accepted, to continue the staff employed in carrying out the mission to be accomplished with Targeted Funds for the six months between January 1, 1988 and June 30, 1988, with their salaries for the first six months (July - December 1987) paid from Targeted Funds.
Having submitted a bid which clearly shows only six month funding for personnel and certain travel costs, Petitioner's contention that the raters misinterpreted the proposed program year is without merit. Although the bid proposal showed it was for the period July 1 1987 to June 30, 1988, the cost for one year's operation was not shown and Petitioner's bid was properly downgraded for this reason.
That Petitioner's proposal was intended as a substitution and/or continuation of the Refugees/Entrants Employment Services (REES) program which it had administered for the past three years is shown in their proposal (Exhibit
2 p. 7) that "Effective July 1; 1987; the REES program will increase its level of services by adding 0JT and day care to its comprehensive employment." It shows targeted assistance dollars funding comprehensive employment and transportation for the first six months of the program year through December 31, 1987. Such language rightfully led the raters to question what type services would be provided to the refugees under Petitioner's proposal.
Petitioner's contention that bid proposals were not rated on their individual merit, but rather were compared to each other, not only is unsupported by any evidence but also every rater who testified stated that no comparison of bids was made. The remarks on the rating sheets which were relied upon by Petitioner to support this contention disclose another failure by Petitioner to comply with the RFP.
The RFP (Exhibit 5) provided under Part IV General Information (p. 13) that specific questions regarding the RFP and its provisions should be addressed to Millie Coten and that an original and nine copies of the proposal are required. The Hillsborough County audit which was required as a part of the proposal comprised some 80 or 90 pages, which was nearly half of the proposal submitted. In order to eliminate the cost of reproducing 10 copies of this audit, Jimmy Keel, director, Department of Public Assistance for Hillsborough
County, called Michael Simmons, district budget officer for HRS Tampa office to see if they had to include audits in all of these copies. Simmons told Keel that since there would be only five raters, if the audit was included in five copies of the bid, that would be acceptable. Simmons was not the contact officer in the RFP to answer questions regarding the RFP and no evidence was presented that he had such authority. This discrepancy in complying with the RFP came to light during a meeting of the raters when it was discovered that at least two of them did not have a complete bid from Petitioner.
Petitioner's contention that it was rated on criteria not contained in the RFP is allegedly supported by raters' comment on the rating sheets that the salaries for those running the program proposed by Petitioner are too high. For the four positions proposed by Petitioner to run the program, the annualized salary is in excess of $80,000. The cost of providing the proposed services for one year is expected to be less than $80,000. In looking at proposed salaries in such bids, the raters use salaries paid HRS employees for similar duties and responsibilities as well as common sense. The fact that some such standard is used to determine the appropriateness of salaries in bids received should surprise no one. It is well understood by people bidding on HRS service projects that such a salary comparison is made to determine the appropriateness of salaries to be paid by contractors providing the contracted for service. The contention by Petitioner that it was rated on criteria not contained in the RFP is without merit.
Petitioner's next contention that raters were not familiar with all of the definitions and requirements of the RFP was supported by no credible evidence. The four raters who testified all stated unequivocally that they fully understood the definitions and requirements of the RFP. The second allegation to support this position involved the fact that as a governmental agency Hillsborough County does not have a board of directors and articles of incorporation and because of this did not receive maximum points on their rating item. This position is not supported by the evidence. The grades of less than maximum on those items were changed to give Petitioner the maximum grade score before the totals were added.
Finally, Petitioner's contention that the raters were confused by, and misunderstood the contents of, Petitioner's proposal yet failed to contact Petitioner for clarification not only is not supported by any credible evidence, but also ignores the RFP requirement (Part V p. 20) that:
It is the responsibility of the applicant to develop the proposal as clearly and succinctly as possible in order to avoid misinterpretation of the information presented. Proposals will be reviewed and evaluated solely on the basis of the information contained therein.
No evidence was submitted by Petitioner to show that even if Petitioner had been incorrectly rated on some of the rating sheets, a change in those ratings would have brought Petitioner's total score, and hence rating, up to that attained by Lutheran Ministries so as to make Petitioner the successful bidder.
CONCLUSIONS OF LAW
The Division of Administrative Hearings has jurisdiction over the parties to, and the subject matter of, these proceedings.
From the evidence presented it is clear that the proposal submitted by Hillsborough County in response to the RFP was intended by Petitioner to supplement the REES program that Hillsborough County has been providing for the past few years, that this factor caused the raters to conclude that the project as proposed by Hillsborough County was not intended to be funded with social services funds for the whole year of the contract, that the raters were fully aware and cognizant of the requirements of and the terminology used in the RFP, that by intermingling in the proposal Targeted Funds and social services funds, Hillsborough County obfuscated parts of the program they purported to provide, that the scores assigned to Hillsborough County by the raters were appropriate for the proposal submitted, and that the bid was properly awarded to Lutheran Ministries of Florida, Inc.
It is
RECOMMENDED that the protest filed by Hillsborough County to the award of the contract to Lutheran Ministries of Florida Inc., to provide comprehensive manpower and employment services programs for refugees and entrants be DISMISSED.
ENTERED this 8th day of September, 1987, in Tallahassee Leon County, Florida.
K.N. AYERS Hearing Officer
Division of Administrative Hearings The Oakland Building
2009 Apalachee Parkway
Tallahassee, Florida 32301
(904) 488-9675
Filed with the Clerk of the Division of Administrative Hearings this 8th day of September, 1987.
COPIES FURNISHED:
Jennie M. Granahan, Esquire Office of County Attorney Post Office Box 1110 Tampa, Florida 33601
Henry Knobles, Esquire 2303 West Platt Street Tampa, Florida 33609
Frederick P. Wilk, Esquire 4000 West Buffalo Avenue Tampa, Florida 33614
Sarah Rahdert, Esquire
233 Third Street North
St. Petersburg, Florida 33701
R. S. Power, Esquire Agency Clerk
Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services Building One, Room 407 1323 Winewood Boulevard
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0700
Honorable Gregory L. Coler Secretary
Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services Building One, Room 407 1323 Winewood Boulevard
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-0700
Docket for Case No: 87-002584BID
Orders for Case No: 87-002584BID
