Under the Maryland Public Information Act, General Provisions Article §§ 4-101 et seq., I am formally requesting the following records related to the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) Contract that was solicited to audit services on Department of Special Education (DSE).
1. Cost Information
• The total cost submitted by each vendor.
• Final negotiated price and any amendments or addendums affecting cost.
2. Award Justification & Evaluation
• The complete award justification, including rationale for vendor selection.
• Evaluation committee scoring sheets, ranking documents, rubrics, and reviewer comments.
• Any internal memoranda, emails, or documents explaining or supporting the award decision.
3. Executed Contract
• The Scope of Work
• The final executed contract, including all attachments, exhibits, statements of work, and pricing schedules.
• The list of all vendors who submitted proposals.
Responsive to this request, under MPIA GP § 4-344, which allows a custodian to deny inspection of confidential opinions, deliberations, advice or recommendations from one governmental employee or official to another for the purpose of assisting the latter in the decision-making function, we are withholding the evaluation committee’s score and evaluation records. These records reveal pre-decisional recommendations of the evaluation committee used to inform the award by the Procurement Office, where release would be contrary to the public interest given its potential to inhibit full and frank discussion in the procurement process.
No list of all vendors along with total cost submitted exists beyond the individual cost proposals appendixes submitted with each response. As noted in the Bids and Contracts report from November 2024 linked below, eight vendors submitted proposals. Of these, only six qualified for award and would have been reviewed for consideration. These included:
• The Ability Challenge
• Public Consulting Group
• Education Northwest
• American Institutes for Research
• Gibson Consulting Group, Inc.
• Research Triangle Institute (RTI)
o As - RFP Section 3.1
o Bs- RFP Section 5.2 F 1-3
o Cs - RFP Section 5.2 G and G-1