36 Miss. Code. R. 2-9-209.2
Section 25-53-5(o) of the Mississippi Code specifies that any contract for a technology acquisition be awarded to the vendor submitting the "lowest and best" proposal. This requirement means the evaluation criteria and scoring formula for evaluating vendor proposals include both quantitative and qualitative measures. For each Request for Proposals (RFP) and Letter of Configuration (LOC) issued, ITS works with the customer agency/public university to develop a scoring formula, based on 100 points.
The initial determination in any scoring formula is the division of the 100 points between cost and non-cost components. Cost identifies the "lowest" proposal, but many other components applicable to determining the quality of the proposal are also considered in determining which proposal is both "lowest and best." The number of points allocated to cost is typically between 25 and 90 (i.e. 25% to 90% of the basis for determining the winning proposal). The cost points assigned for a particular procurement depend upon the nature of the products or services being acquired. This allocation is a business decision made by ITS and the customer agency or public university.
For a small number of LOCs or Invitations to Bid, the specifications consist of a list of specific hardware or software components and cost is the only determinant. A cost-only evaluation methodology is the exception for procurements under the purview of ITS. The higher the service component, the larger and more complex the project, and the greater the risk to the State, the higher the percentage of points allocated to the non-cost portion of the scoring formula.
Examples of factors other than cost that are considered for inclusion in the scoring formula are:
* Quality and responsiveness of the proposal
* Technical merit of the proposed solution
* References
* Company information
* Quality of the project plan
* Qualifications of proposed staff
Once the relevant non-cost evaluation criteria for the given RFP or LOC are selected, each criterion is assigned a weight. For some procurements, the evaluation criteria are applied in steps. In these evaluations, each step may designate a threshold or pass/fail criteria that must be met for the proposal to be considered further.
ITS reserves the ability to add up to five "value-add" points for features of significant value to the State that are over-and-above the requirements of the RFP or LOC and are offered at no additional cost to the State. The scoring criteria developed for each procurement will specify whether value-add points are available and how they will be assigned. Value-add points are in addition to the 100 base points. In practice, Value-add points are rarely used.
Other procurements have optional evaluation steps, such as an onsite interview or oral presentation, built in as contingencies. These steps are exercised or bypassed at the State's sole discretion, based on an assessment by the evaluation team as to whether the extra information is needed for an adequate evaluation and determination of the award.
Scoring of the non-cost components in the evaluation criteria is always somewhat more subjective than the quantitative scoring of proposal cost information. Each valid proposal is evaluated against the requirements of the RFP. Proposals are not compared with each other. Unless otherwise justified by the nature of the project, ITS uses a consensus scoring approach to assign points to non-cost criteria. See 018-010 Proposal Evaluation Process for a description of consensus scoring.
Cost scores are computed using lifecycle costs (See 005-400 Terms: Lifecycle cost). The cost score is computed as a ratio of the difference between a given proposal's lifecycle cost and the lifecycle cost of the lowest valid proposal. The following cost scoring formula is used for every proposal evaluation:
Points awarded for cost = (1-((B-A)/A))*n
Where:
A = Total lifecycle cost of lowest valid proposal
B = Total lifecycle cost of proposal being scored
n = number of points allocated to cost for this procurement
In simpler terms, lowest price gets a perfect score. A proposal that is 20% more expensive than the lowest priced offering gets 20% fewer points.
When the above formula would result in a negative cost score (i.e. the lifecycle cost of the proposal being scored is more than twice that of the lowest valid proposal), the cost score is set to zero, rather than deducting points from the vendor's score.
36 Miss. Code. R. 2-9-209.2