Commission reviews draft design‑build procurement policy, seeks clarifications and state alignment

Clay County commissioners spent the largest portion of their meeting discussing a draft design‑build procurement policy presented by Tyler Biley, a representative of Taker Group. The presentation outlined statutory requirements for adopting a procurement policy, steps for publishing a request for qualifications (RFQ), and options for handling prequalification and bid opening procedures.

The policy matters because it sets the county’s process for hiring design‑builders for construction projects, establishes when and how the county can require prequalification, and determines how price and qualitative scores are combined to choose a contractor. Biley told the commission the policy must be in place before the county publishes RFQs and that the statute contemplates receiving at least three qualified firms before proceeding to price proposals and selection.

Biley said the law includes a carve‑out that can allow the county to skip certain publication steps but noted the carve‑out’s definitions were not explicit in the draft and left interpretation to the county. He described options the commission could adopt, including maintaining project‑specific prequalification or creating a standing prequalified pool of firms for categories of building projects. "If firms come gone through it once, then at least they already have their package," Biley said, arguing a pool could speed procurement for smaller jobs.

Commissioners and staff probed how to preserve bidder anonymity during evaluation. Commissioners asked whether the county could keep vendor identities hidden until price proposals were opened publicly. Biley said the committee could score qualitative submissions anonymously and then open price proposals in public meeting, after which price would be combined with qualitative scores. He described a commonly used formula (dividing each firm’s proposed price by the committee’s qualitative score) and flagged a spreadsheet formatting issue: the sample math in the draft produced results off by a factor of 100 unless the quality score is treated as a percentage. "There's three zeros in this spreadsheet together," he said, recommending either treating quality scores as percentages or removing a misleading dollar sign.

Several commissioners suggested routing bid handling through the auditor’s office to preserve anonymity and neutral administration of the numeric‑scoring step. Biley and commissioners agreed that staff should consult jurisdictions that have used the state or similar processes — Rapid City and Box Elder were mentioned — and speak with the State Engineers Office to confirm operational details. Biley offered to contact Daisy Waters at the State Engineers Office as a next step to review logistics and compliance.

No formal action was taken at this meeting. Commissioners signaled a desire to revise language around prequalification, committee membership, and bid opening mechanics, then return the policy for approval. Biley said he expected to revise the draft to incorporate the commission’s suggestions and bring a version back soon so the county can begin using the process for upcoming projects.

Next steps: staff will revise the draft to clarify the RFQ vs. RFP carve‑out, correct the scoring math and spreadsheet formatting, consider routing bid opening and numbering through the auditor’s office, and consult with the State Engineers Office and nearby jurisdictions before the commission votes on the policy.