Okaloosa County BOCC — August 2, 2016 — Response to Report of Clerk’s Inspector General on the Production and Printing of the Okaloosa County Visitor’s Guide

OKALOOSA COUNTY’S RESPONSE TO THE REPORT ON REVIEW OF THE PRODUCTION AND PRINTING OF OKALOOSA COUNTY’S 2015 VISITOR’S GUIDE The County is in receipt of the Report on Review of the Production and Printing of Okaloosa County’s 2015 Visitor’s Guide (the “Report”) prepared by the Clerk of Court Inspector General. Please find the County’s response to the findings and recommendation contained in the Report. Review Committee and the Sunshine Law FINDING: Board appointed review committees, such as the one established to review RFQ submissions, make recommendations to the Board and as such are conducting the public’s business, subject to Florida’s Sunshine law. In discussions with the Purchasing Department Manager, she indicated that the meeting of the Board appointed evaluation committee was not advertised and minutes were not kept. This is contrary to both the Board approved Purchasing Policy and Florida Sunshine law. RECOMMENDATION: We recommended the Purchasing Department ensure that meetings of the evaluation committee are conducted in accordance with County policy and the Sunshine Law by providing notice of the meeting, opening it to the public and taking minutes. RESPONSE %&Gmm%wgees—wflh%lflfleeemfimmefl—Thls was an isolated incident and the Pure izesCounty agrees that review committee meetings must comply with the Sunshine Law and County Purchasing Manual. In this instance, minutes of the review committee meeting were taken, but misplacedwere misplaced. Although—theThe Purchasing Department historically maintained logs of solicitations submitted to the County and did so in this case. However,~ such logs failed to include a-time-entryan entry indicating the time of receipt of the response. The Purchasing Department has since created a more detailed log, which now requires the signature of a Purchasing Department employee, the vendor submitting the solicitation, and the time the submittal is received by the County. Bid Award and Permission to Negotiate FINDING: The TDD director placed an item on the agenda for the Board meeting held July 1, 2014, regarding the recommendation of the selection committee. While the Board Purchasing Policy permits the requesting department to prepare an executive summary of a proposed purchase that defines the scope of work and justification, it is silent as to who should present the results of the selection committee’s ranking. RECOMMENDATION: We recommend that procurement matters be presented by the Purchasing Department, especially in a case where the department director is a member of the selection committee. This point gets to the heart of the issue of independence and transparency in county procurement matters both in perception and fact. We recommend the county policy be clarified as related to who presents a recommendation to the board. RESPONSE: The-County-generally-agrees-with-thisrecommendation—However-dDepending on the complexity of the goods/services being procured, the Board has-generally believeds that it may be more appropriate for the requesting department, as the subject-matter expert, to submit and present the request to the Board._This allows the individual with the most detailed and specific knowledge of the goods or services being procured to be available to responds to any inquiries. No Contact Clause FINDING: The No Contact provision in the RFQ is different than that contained in the Board’s Purchasing Policy and is unclear as to when the no contact period commences. We noted an email between a prospective bidder and the TDD director (a member of the bid evaluation committee). In that email the bidder is requesting to submit the bid two days after the bid deadline. The TDD director responded to the bidder by email and instructed the vendor to submit the proposal late. While such correspondence between a member of the evaluation team and a prospective bidder does not violate the policy as written, we believe that it does not fulfill the intent of the policy. The ven