(A) In accordance with rules the director of administrative services shall adopt, the director may make purchases by competitive sealed proposal whenever the director determines that the use of competitive sealed bidding is not possible or not advantageous to the state.

(B) Proposals shall be solicited through a request for proposals. The request for proposals shall state the relative importance of price and other evaluation factors. Notice of the request for proposals shall be given in accordance with rules the director shall adopt.

(C) Proposals shall be opened so as to avoid disclosure of contents to competing offerors.

In order to ensure fair and impartial evaluation, proposals and related documents submitted in response to a request for proposals are not available for public inspection and copying under section 149.43 of the Revised Code until after the award of the contract.

(D) As provided in the request for proposals, and under rules the director shall adopt, discussions may be conducted with responsible offerors who submit proposals determined to be reasonably susceptible of being selected for award for the purpose of ensuring full understanding of, and responsiveness to, solicitation requirements. Offerors shall be accorded fair and equal treatment with respect to any opportunity for discussion regarding any clarification, correction, or revision of proposals. No disclosure of any information derived from proposals submitted by competing offerors shall occur when discussions are conducted.

(E) Award may be made to the offeror whose proposal is determined to be the most advantageous to this state, taking into consideration factors such as price and the evaluation criteria set forth in the request for proposals. The contract file shall contain the basis on which the award is made.

Effective Date: 10-25-1995.