Rules & Regulations

1. When professional architectural, engineering, landscape architectural and other related professional services will cost less than $25,000, User Departments shall notify the Administrator, in writing, of their need for such services and provide a description of the services to be provided. This request shall be signed by the User Department Director or designee. The Administrator shall propose the names of firms or persons to contact as candidates to perform the services. The Administrator shall also consult a listing of firms or persons who have been awarded a project without going through the Selection Advisory Committee during the one year period prior to the date when the Administrator was notified, in writing, by the User Department. Any firm or person appearing on the listing will not be contacted unless it can be justified that the nature of the services are such that other firms or persons do not possess the expertise needed. If three eligible firms cannot be identified, the Administrator shall take the action described in Paragraph B.
2. After coordination with the User Department, the Administrator shall contact the three firms or persons, describe the project to them and request that they submit a brief proposal, not to exceed five written pages, within seven (7) City working days. If less than three firms or persons are contacted, the Administrator shall document the reasons in a memorandum to the file for the project and send a copy to the Finance Office of the Public Works Department (for Public Works projects), the Director of the User Department, and the Director of the Capital Implementation Program Division.
3. Upon receipt of the proposals the Administrator shall meet with the User Department. The User Department, after reviewing the proposals, shall decide which firm or person is to be selected for the services. The User Department shall also identify the first alternate and second alternate.
4. The Administrator shall notify, in writing, either the Capital Implementation Program Division (for non-Public Works Department projects) or the Finance Office of the Public Works Department (for Public Works Projects), of the selected firm or person and the alternates in order that service agreement negotiations can commence. Final approval for such agreements shall be made as determined by the Mayor or designee.
5. Should a User Department desire to utilize the procedures set forth in Section III of the rules and regulations for professional services costing $25,000 or more, nothing herein will preclude the use of those procedures.
6. The total amount paid to the Consultant under this procedure for all services including basic services and additional services, expenses, reimbursables, and supplementals shall be less than $25,000, excluding gross receipts taxes. The splitting of services to be performed into increments of less than $25,000 in order to avoid the Selection Advisory Committee procedures for professional services costing $25,000 or more is expressly prohibited. Contracts awarded under this procedure are also included in the calculation for determining deduction points for projects in which professional services cost $25,000 or more.

1. Preparing the Notice of Request for Proposals

The User Department notifies the Administrator, in writing, of the need to obtain professional architectural, engineering, landscape architectural, and other related professional services. This request shall be signed by the User Department Director or the Director's designee. The User Department shall furnish the Administrator with the name of the User Department's committee member, approved by the Department Director as the Director's designated staff alternate, a description of the project, the services needed and a project budget. The Administrator shall review the project description so that only those services desired by the User Department are included in the Notice of Request for Proposals. All project descriptions shall contain the names and telephone numbers of the City project manager.

The Administrator shall follow the general Notice of Request for Proposals. This format may be augmented to provide for the advertisement of more than one project. However, there will be no restrictions limiting the award of projects advertised under the same Legal Notice to different vendors. For special projects, the Administrator, with the concurrence of the User Department, may waive the 15 page limitation. Elimination or modification of the 15 page limitation must be announced in the Notice of Request for Proposals. The Administrator and the User Department committee member shall determine the points to be assigned to each of the evaluation criteria categories shown on the form. A range of 5 to 35 points shall be assigned to each category. Category point assignments in excess of 35 points shall not be permitted.

Engineering, architectural and landscape architectural projects shall be advertised by the Capital Implementation Program (CIP) Office. Proposals submitted to CIP in response to legal notice advertisements that have not been pre-approved by the Administrator, shall not be accepted by CIP and shall not be scheduled for evaluation by the Selection Advisory Committee. The Administrator prepares and then approves the Notice of Request for Proposals by signing it. The User Department shall furnish CIP with a purchase order requisition for advertising the Notice of Request for Proposals. The Legal Notice shall be advertised in an Albuquerque newspaper of general circulation at least twice, not less than one (1) week apart, with a due date of proposals not less than one week after the second publication. Publication of the request for proposals shall be made in the Wednesday editions of the Albuquerque Journal.

2. Conducting a Pre-Submittal Meeting

The User Department may desire to have a pre-submittal meeting for consultants desiring to respond to the Notice of Request for Proposals in order to provide additional information on the project. Under normal circumstances, the pre-submittal meeting shall be held on the day following the second publication of the Notice of Request for Proposals. The Administrator, in conjunction with the User Department, shall be responsible for determining the time and place of the meeting. If the pre-submittal meeting has been designated as a mandatory meeting in the Notice of Request for Proposals, an attendance sheet will be provided by the Administrator for consultants to sign. For mandatory pre-submittal meetings, once the Administrator has adjourned the meeting, additional names shall not be accepted or placed on the attendance sheet. Proposals from consultants whose names were not accepted by the Administrator and placed on the attendance sheet will not be accepted for evaluation. If the meeting is designated as mandatory, the Notice of Request for Proposals will state that proposals will not be accepted from consultants who do not attend the meeting.

The User Department may prepare an information packet for distribution at the pre-submittal meeting which may contain the following:

1. A detailed description of the project including location map, if applicable.
2. Any particular areas of the project that the consultants should address in their proposals.
3. Any time or funding restraints placed on the project.
4. Any other relevant information.

The User Department will brief the consultants on the information contained in the information packet and conduct a question and answer period at the conclusion of the briefing. Answers to questions requiring additional research by the User Department before an answer can be given will be furnished, in writing, to all consultants attending the pre-submittal meeting. However, should a consultant fail to receive such information, this shall not warrant a change in procedure or constitute grounds for special consideration.

3. Receiving the Proposals

All proposals must be received at the Capital Implementation Program Office prior to the date and time specified in the Notice of Request for Proposals. All proposals received by CIP shall be date and time stamped. Any proposal received after the specified date and time will not be considered by the Selection Advisory Committee. Proposals must be bound. Unbound proposals will not be considered by the Selection Advisory Committee.

All proposals shall be checked for inclusion of the Agreement and Insurance Certification. At least one of the proposal copies submitted must contain a notarized original of all required certifications. Remaining proposals may contain copies of the notarized original certifications. Those proposals not meeting this requirement shall be considered non-responsive and will not be evaluated by the Selection Advisory Committee.

Proposals that exceed the page limitation stated in the Notice of Request for Proposals shall be considered non- responsive and will not be evaluated by the Selection Advisory Committee.

The Administrator, in accordance with the requirements of the Selection Advisory Committee Ordinance, shall determine the persons who will serve as Committee Members in addition to the User Department committee member and shall determine the committee meeting place, date and time. Any City employee selected for the Committee must be considered to be "qualified" by nature of professional registration or by having involvement with the project in question. The Committee meeting shall not be held less than two weeks after the receipt of the proposals. The Administrator shall provide committee members with instructions on their duties to ensure that meetings are conducted uniformly. All members of the Committee shall be notified in writing by the Administrator of the date, time and place of the meeting. An information packet for each project shall be prepared and delivered to each of the members and should contain the following:

1. The Notice of Request for Proposals.
2. List of respondents.
3. Guidance on evaluation of proposals.
4. Copy of the Selection Advisory Committee Evaluation Procedures.
5. The evaluation form (scoring sheet) to be used for the project with assigned category values.
6. Copies of proposals

All consultants submitting proposals to CIP shall be notified in writing as to the date, time and location of the Committee meeting to evaluate proposals. The Administrator shall also notify, in writing, those respondents failing to meet the Requirements for Acceptance of Proposals* citing the reasons why the proposal has been rejected. Committee meetings to evaluate the proposals shall be open to the public. However, public comments shall not be allowed. Attempts on the part of respondents to lobby Committee Members is considered to be unprofessional and unacceptable conduct. Such conduct may be cause for the Committee to reject the respondent's proposal.

Requirements for Acceptance of Proposals*:

1. The respondent must provide the published, requested number of bound copies of their proposal. Un-bound proposals will be rejected and will not be evaluated by the Selection Advisory Committee.
2. At least one copy of the respondent's proposal must contain the required Agreement and Insurance Certification form containing an original notary seal. The remaining copies of the respondent's proposal may contain copies of the original form. The original language of these forms must not be modified with exceptions or qualifications of any kind, or the respondent's proposal may be subject to rejection by the Administrator.
3. The maximum number of proposal pages permitted is 15 single-sided 8 1/2 x 11" pages, unless otherwise stated in the Legal Notice for Request for Proposals. If double-sided page printing is used, each side shall be numbered and counted as two separate pages. Any 17 x 11" pages shall be numbered and counted as two pages. Drawings on 24 x 36" sheets shall be numbered and counted as four pages.
   If supplied, the following pages will be excluded from being counted as part of the advertised maximum page limitation:
   • Front and back cover and binding pages.
   • The Letter of Introduction.
   • The Title Page.
   • The Table of Contents.
   • Dividers between proposal information categories.
   • The Agreement and Insurance Certification form and other certifications.
* If any significant text detailing any aspect of the current project, prior consultant projects or the consulting firm is found on any page not normally counted as part of the maximum page limitation, that page may be considered to be part of the respondent's proposal and may be counted as part of the maximum page limitation, as determined by the Administrator.

A responding firm and/or person who believes that its response (or portions thereof) constitutes "trade secrets" within the meaning of Section 30-16-24 N.M.S.A. (1978) should clearly designate their response as such by printing the words "TRADE SECRET" on the top portion of the front cover of their response. The responding firm and/or person may restrict distribution of the responses to only those individuals involved in the review and analysis of the responses. The City of Albuquerque will attempt to restrict distribution of a designated response as directed by the submitting party. In any event, the City of Albuquerque shall not be liable for disclosure of "trade secret" information. Furthermore, all proposals submitted to the City become the property of the City. However, one or more copies of proposals submitted to the City may be returned to respondents, at the discretion of the Administrator, within one month following the meeting date of the Selection Advisory Committee for the related project.

4. Reviewing the Proposals

Proposals will be evaluated by each voting member of the Committee based on the points assigned to the following evaluation criteria categories as published in the Notice of Request for Proposals:

1. General Information
   1. Provide name, address, and telephone number of respondent and, if a firm, when firm was established.
   2. Provide number of employees, technical discipline, registration and registration number.
   3. Indicate where the services are to be performed.
2. Project Team Members
   1. Provide an organization plan for management of the project.
   2. Identify all consultants to be used on the project.
   3. Provide qualifications of project team members shown in organization plan, including registration and membership in professional organizations.
   4. Provide any unique knowledge of key team members relevant to the project.
3. Respondent Experience
   1. Describe previous projects of a similar nature, including client contact (with phone numbers), year services provided, construction cost, if applicable, and narrative description of how they relate to this project.
   2. Provide examples of the Project Manager's City experience within the past five (5) years that serve to demonstrate the Project Manager's knowledge of City procedures.
4. Technical Approach
   1. Describe respondent's understanding of the project scope.
   2. Describe how respondent plans to perform the services required by the project scope.
   3. Describe specialized problem solving required in any phase of the project.
5. Cost Control
   1. Describe cost control and cost estimating techniques to be used for this project.
   2. Provide comparisons of bid award amount to final cost estimate for projects designed by the respondent during the past two years. The consultant may provide justification for any discrepancies that may exist with this information.
6. Quality and Content of Proposal
   1. Committee Members' rating of overall quality of submittal.

Each of the above evaluation criteria categories (a-f) shall be assigned a value between 5 and 35 points, such that the total value of all of the categories shall be 100 points. Each voting committee member shall determine a score for each of the criteria categories and enter that number on the evaluation form. The scores shall not be more than the maximum points assigned to each category. Each voting committee member shall use whole numbers in arriving at the points assigned to a firm for each evaluation criteria category. For example, use 10 or 11; Do not use 10.5 or 10.75 or 10 1/2 or 10 3/4. Each voting member shall then compute a total score for each response by summing the scores for each category.

The Committee Evaluation Form will be used by each voting Committee member in making their evaluation. Each voting Committee member will bring their completed evaluation form to the Committee meeting.

5. Conducting the Committee Meeting

A minimum of four committee members are required to be present at a Committee or Interview meeting in order to conduct the meeting. If one member remains absent ten minutes after the scheduled start of the meeting, the Administrator shall proceed with the meeting. If two or more members remain absent ten minutes after the scheduled start of the meeting, the Administrator shall cancel and reschedule the Committee or Interview meeting at a later date not more than two weeks past the originally scheduled meeting date for the project, if possible. Should unforeseeable disruptions or disagreements occur during a Committee or Interview meeting thereby inhibiting its continuation or the professional conduct of the meeting, the Administrator shall dismiss the Committee members and reconvene the meeting in "Executive Session" at a later date or time to complete its administration. For the purposes of this document, "Executive Session" is defined as a continuation of a previous meeting. Executive Sessions shall be closed to the public. Other than this, a Committee or Interview meeting can only be postponed, reconvened, or rescheduled by motion and majority vote by voting committee members. However, any motion to postpone, reconvene or reschedule must be made prior to the adjournment of the current meeting by the Administrator. Once a meeting for a project has been adjourned by the Administrator no motion to reopen or reconvene will be made or entertained.

Prior to the Committee meeting, the Chairman shall have obtained point deductions for each respondent based on the total dollar amount of basic services fees for the service agreements that the respondent has executed with the City during the prior twelve (12) months and including any agreement executed from the beginning of the month through the date of receipt of proposals. For example, for proposals received on July 16, 1996, totals for agreements executed during the period of July 1, 1995, through July 16, 1996, would be used to determine point deductions. Deduction points shall be computed by deducting one point for every $50,000 of Basic Services fees.

Basic Services includes all compensation stipulated in original agreements and supplements thereto, exclusive of tax for all design service contracts. It does not include compensation authorized by letter subsequent to the execution of the agreement such as additional services or adjustments in compensation due to changes in estimated construction costs. If a firm or person has executed agreements with the City during the year prior to receipt of a proposal from that firm or person that are both single agreements and joint agreements with another firm or person, the joint agreements will not be used in calculating point deductions unless the firm's or person's share of the fee in the joint agreement is 50% or greater.

At the Committee meeting, the Chairman shall:

• Ask the User Department committee member if there is any additional information that should be considered by the Committee.
• Ask each member of the Committee to comment on their evaluation of each respondent's proposal, but to withhold giving their total scores for each proposal.
• Ask the Committee as a whole to further discuss the proposals and apply any changes they desire to their scores to arrive at their final scores before reporting them. Once scores have been reported to the Chairman, they can not be altered.
• Eliminate the high and low score reported for each proposal, total the remaining scores, and determine an initial ranking of the proposals based on the highest remaining aggregate score, second highest remaining aggregate score and third highest remaining aggregate score.

In the event ties result after eliminating the highest and lowest score reported for each respondent, the following procedure shall be used to break all ties:

• The respondent having the highest score dropped as a result of dropping the highest and lowest scores, shall be awarded an additional point to break the tie.
• In the event the high score dropped for both respondents tied is identical, then one point shall be awarded to the respondent having the higher lowest score dropped in order to break the tie.
• In the highly unlikely event that the low score dropped for both respondents tied is also identical, the Administrator shall collect the score-sheets and review all scores to determine which respondent obtained the highest score in the category bearing the highest point value. That respondent shall then be awarded an additional point to break the tie. If two or more categories contain the same highest point value, the scores achieved for those categories shall be averaged to determine which consultant receives the additional tie-breaker point.

If the point difference between the two highest ranked respondents, as determined by Paragraph III-E-4 and possibly including paragraph III-E-5, is equal to or less than 5% of the total points obtainable (the best qualified threshold) point deductions shall then be applied by the Chairman to all of the respondents' scores in order to determine their final ranking. If the application of point deductions results in ties, the Chairman shall break the ties by assigning one point to the respondent having the highest score after the application of paragraphs III-E-4 and III-E-5. Point deductions shall be made if the point difference between the two highest ranked respondents is equal to or less than 5% of the total points obtainable as a result of the application of paragraphs III-E-4 and III-E-5. The Committee's number one, number two and number three recommendation for selection shall be determined based on the provisions of this paragraph, providing that the Committee does not vote to conduct interviews.

The Chairman shall then ask for a motion from the Committee to conduct interviews. If a motion to conduct interviews is raised by a Committee member, that Committee member may specify at least two, but not more than five, respondents having the highest Total Final Scores, with or without point deductions applied, as determined in Paragraph III-E-6 as part of the motion. Interviews shall then only be conducted if the motion is seconded and then passed by majority vote by voting Committee members. These respondents shall constitute the interview "short list."

After the Selection Advisory Committee Meeting has been adjourned, the Chairman shall prepare a composite score- sheet for the project. If a discrepancy is found between the sum of the scores entered for each score-sheet category and the total score reported during the Selection Advisory Committee meeting, the Administrator shall contact the committee member whose score-sheet is in question and allow modification to category scores for clarification. However, the Administrator shall insure that the total score reported by the committee member at the Committee meeting is not altered as a result of corrections made to category scores.