Creating a New Formal Solicitation Process

About the Program

Category: County Administration and Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2014

On the eve of a major recession and years of Federal and County belt tightening, social programs under the County administration struggled to adapt existing business processes to accommodate increasingly common funding fluctuations. Existing formal solicitation processes, featuring Requests For Proposals (RFPs) and Invitations To Bid (ITB), were ill adapted to this volatile environment -- they work best in predictable funding environments where long-term funding commitments could be locked in. These techniques made no allowance for contracting with Vendors who did not participate in the original process, and expansions of services were severely restricted. Facing this issue, Multnomah County underwent a process redesign, modifying the existing RFP process into a new solicitation process called the continuously open Request for Programmatic Qualifications or RFPQ. This low cost, win-win solution permits the creation of qualified contractor pools and features a recurring allocation process, permitting the rapid expansion or contraction of social programs as funding changes dictate. Being continuously open avoided the need for multiple formal solicitations and has provided extreme flexible in absorbing and utilizing last minute funding changes through the allocation of funding directly to qualified contractors without putting them through multiple expensive procurement processes.