27 CAR § 92-317. Stipend for unsuccessful proposers

(a) In the more traditional DB-B process, the Arkansas Department of Transportation does not reimburse the contractors that submit responsive bids but are unsuccessful in selection for the project. (b) In the D-B process, the costs associated with the preparation of the proposal documents in response to the RFP are significantly higher than a DB-B contractor’s costs to submit a DB-B bid. (c) It is currently an industry practice to compensate the unsuccessful short-list proposers to address some of the financial investment in the project. (d) It is in the department’s best interest to encourage as many capable firms to respond to the RFP as possible. (e) The department should pay a stipend to all short-list proposers that submit a responsive, but unsuccessful, D-B proposal. (f) Providing a stipend to the unsuccessful short-list proposers to pay for a portion of the development cost is an incentive to encourage the industry to participate in the process. (g) A further discussion of stipend process is included as Appendix H.