The department may establish prequalified lists of professional service firms in accordance with the following process:
(a)For each type of professional service work for which the department elects to use this article for advertising and awarding contracts, the department may request annual statements of qualifications from interested firms. The request for statements of qualifications shall be announced statewide through the California State Contracts Register and publications, internet websites, or electronic bulletin boards of respective professional societies that are intended, designed, and maintained by the professional societies to communicate with their memberships. Each announcement shall describe the general scope of services to be provided within
each generic project category for a professional service that the department anticipates may be awarded during the period covered by the announcement.
(b)The department shall define a generic project category so that each specific project to be awarded within that generic project category is substantially similar to all other projects within that generic project category, may be within the same size range and geographical area, and requires substantially similar skills and magnitude of professional effort as every other project within that generic project category. The generic categories shall provide a basis for evaluating and establishing the type, quality, and costs, including hourly rates for personnel and field activities and equipment, of the services that would be provided by the firm.
(c)The department shall evaluate the statements of qualifications received pursuant to
subdivision (a) and the department shall develop a short list of the most qualified firms that meet the criteria established and published by the department. The department shall hold discussions regarding each firm’s qualifications with all firms listed on the short list. The department shall then rank the firms listed on the short list according to each firm’s qualifications and the evaluation criteria established and published by the department.
(d)The department shall maintain prequalified lists of professional service firms on an ongoing basis, except that no firm may remain on a list developed pursuant to subdivision (c) based on a single qualification statement for more than three years. The department shall include in each prequalified list no less than three firms, unless the department certifies that the scope of the prequalified list is appropriate for the department’s needs, taking into account the nature of the work, that the
department made reasonable efforts to solicit qualification statements from qualified firms, and that the efforts were unsuccessful in producing three firms that met the established criteria. A firm may remain on the prequalified list up to three years without resubmitting a qualification statement, but the department may add additional firms to that list and may annually rank these firms. For purposes of annual adjustment to the ranking of firms already on the prequalified list, the department shall rely on that firm’s most recent annual qualification statement, if the statement is not more than three years old.