Hillsborough County evaluation committee awards top score to Johnston & Stewart in RFP for state lobbying services

An evaluation committee for Hillsborough County has completed consensus scoring of seven proposals submitted for RFP 25-00318, the county's solicitation for state lobbying services, and recorded Johnston and Stewart Government Strategies LLC as the top-scoring firm.

The committee met publicly but limited active participation to committee members. Dawn Denima, the county’s chief buyer, opened the meeting and said, “All questions, comments, and concerns must be directed to my attention and my attention only,” and noted the session was being recorded and that the county’s phone-of-silence procurement restriction remained in effect.

Why it matters: The committee’s consensus scores will feed the county’s procurement recommendation for a contract to provide state lobbying and government relations services. Procurement staff will post the meeting record and the evaluation summary, and the chair was asked to forward a written recommendation.

What the committee did and decided - The committee evaluated seven proposals and agreed scores by consensus against five criteria in the solicitation: Criteria 1 (qualifications, 30 points), Criteria 2 (performance, 30 points), Criteria 3 (technical approach, 30 points), Criteria 4 (proposed fee, 10 points), and Criteria 5 (DNDWBE bonus points, 5 points). Procurement calculated fee and bonus-point adjustments where needed. - The committee recorded these total consensus scores (as announced by procurement): Johnston and Stewart Government Strategies LLC — 89.62; Ballard Partners Inc — 87.94; Southern Group of Florida Inc — 84.94; Shoemaker Advisors Florida LLC — 84.56; Pittman Law Group LP — 81.00; Mernick Group LLC — 68.57; SBM Partners Inc — 60.94. - Procurement noted one pricing clarification: Shoemaker Advisors had submitted pricing described as a 1-year fee; procurement recalculated Shoemaker’s proposed fee over the 3‑year term of the solicitation and adjusted scoring accordingly. - On DNDWBE bonus points (maximum 5 points), Pittman Law Group LP submitted a minority certification but failed to include required supporting documentation (a letter of intent from a current contractor committing to subcontract at least 10% of total fees and letters of acceptance from proposed DNDWBE subconsultants). Procurement therefore awarded Pittman zero bonus points under the county’s DNDWBE participation requirements.

Discussion and record details - Committee members spoke to strengths and weaknesses in each proposal when assigning consensus scores. Several members noted proposals that listed long histories of engagement but lacked clear, dated performance outcomes or specific examples of county-specific appropriations and results; those concerns lowered scores for some firms. - References were checked for all but two firms: the Marinette/Mernick Group and the Southern Group of Florida each received fewer than the requested three references; procurement reported one reference for Mernick and one for the Southern Group, which procurement characterized as acceptable but noted in the record.

Next steps and administrative direction - Committee chair Carl Harness was asked to prepare and send the evaluation summary and his recommendation to procurement for inclusion in the procurement file. Dawn Denima said she would finalize and post the meeting report and the scoring spreadsheet and obtain signatures. - The committee did not request oral presentations from offerors at this meeting.

Meeting context and limits - This session constituted the committee’s consensus scoring for the solicitation; it did not itself award a contract. Any contract award remains subject to subsequent procurement review and county approval steps.

Ending - Procurement staff will post the meeting recording and the evaluation summary; the committee meeting was closed after the scoring and instructions to staff were confirmed.