6.35 – Selection of Professional Services
A. Purpose
To establish guidelines for selecting professional services.
B. Policy
The college will select professional services through a formal process with established selection criteria for the specific types of services required.
C. Procedures
The college will conduct a formal process to obtain required professional services that are essential to the operations of the college.
A request for qualifications (RFQ) or a request for proposal (RFP) and scoring criteria for the required professional service is established. The request will include the scope of work, desired qualifications, scoring criteria, estimated duration of the services, and the date to submit their response.
Some professional services may be exempt from the formal process due to impracticality or impossibility of competition and thus shall not require the RFQ/RFP process. The college will negotiate a fee, contractual terms that it finds satisfactory, and recommend to the chancellor or his designee that a contract be awarded to the chosen professional service provider. A contract must have board of trustees’ approval when the contract’s annual amount meets or exceeds $50,000.
An evaluation committee is established to evaluate and score the qualifications of the professional service submittals. If determined by the evaluation committee, interviews may be requested to discuss the services in greater detail.
Once the evaluation committee has selected the most qualified submittal, the college will negotiate a fee, contractual terms that it finds satisfactory, and recommend to the chancellor or his designee that a contract be awarded to the chosen professional service provider.
Should negotiations be unsuccessful with the recommended service provider, negotiations will be terminated. The college shall then start negotiations with the second most qualified service provider. Should negotiations fail with the top three selected service providers, the evaluation process shall be reevaluated with respect to the necessary services needed for the project including the review of the scope and desired services.
Purchases from state and federal funds may be subject to more restrictive requirements for grant agreements and any applicable state and federal regulations. Federal procurement transactions must be conducted in a manner as to provide full and open competition consistent with the standards of 2 CFR Part 200 Uniform Administrative Requirement, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, “Procurement Standards 200.317 to 200.326”. The vice chancellor for finance and their designees may establish additional written purchasing guidelines for each grant source and communicate those requirements to the appropriate department vice chancellor. With all purchases the more restrictive procedures and requirements will be followed.
D. Definitions
Professional services are primarily intellectual in character. They involve the exercise of independent judgment and discretion and an advanced, specialized type of knowledge, expertise, or training customarily acquired by a prolonged course of study or experience, or a combination of these qualifications. Professional services include consultants, engineers, architects, land surveyors, financial services, analysts, lawyers, brokers, and physicians.
Request for qualifications (RFQ) is a formal process for the selection of professional services on the basis of qualifications and competence for the specific type of services required.
Request for proposals (RFP) is a formal process for the selection of professional services on the basis of qualifications, competence, and cost for the specific type of services required.
E. Authority
This policy and these procedures are maintained under the authority of the vice chancellor for administrative services.
F. Related Policies
G. Implementation
Policy approved and adopted by the Board of Trustees on 2/8/21.
Purpose, Procedures, Definitions, Authority and Related Policies approved and adopted by the Chancellor’s Cabinet on 1/27/21.
Set for review in fiscal year 2023.