2018-09-26 Meeting Minutes (EMC)

Home

4. UNFINISHED BUSINESS a. Continued discussion on the motion that any contracts entered into with the Department of Environmental Management contain a percentage of the contract dedicated to an education and outreach component for waste reduction. Chair Bennett explained this item had been on the agenda for several months and that Commissioner Pequeño was prepared to lead on it. Motion and second: Commissioner Pequeño’s motion is that whereas the Department of Environmental Management enters into contracts for source reduction, recycling, composting, and other similar services, the department shall include a mandatory consideration of education and outreach components weighted at a minimum of 15% of all criteria in the selection and awarding process. Commissioner Gaffney seconded the motion. Director Kucharski said everyone’s packet should have included the sample of evaluation criteria DEM is currently using for recycling contracts. These criteria are attached to bidding documents so that people preparing proposals know the criteria. He believes 15% is too high for outreach or education evaluation criterium, but that something between 5% and 10% would be reasonable. He fully endorses having public outreach be part of the bidding criteria, but the percentage should depend on the type of service to be provided. Also, the percentage would need to take away from somewhere, so he would welcome suggestions on where that would be appropriate. Commissioner Fritz said it was backward thinking to say that you have to take something away to give something more. He does not follow that theory. Director Kucharski explained he was talking about the evaluation criteria by which RFPs are judged. Each criteria is assigned a percentage, and the total has to come to 100%. Whatever percentage is assigned to the education component has to be reduced from another category, such as cost. Discussion was held back and forth about the evaluation criteria and where the education component percentage should go. Director Kucharski agreed that having the education as an explicit review criteria for evaluation of an RFP is appropriate. If it is buried within the cost, the value of saying it is important could be lost. Commissioner Pequeño agreed it should be a separate component and hoped to see more creative proposals with educational outreach. He also felt it should be weighed at more than 5%. Director Kucharski said certain RFPs would require a higher level of public outreach than others, and the department could set an appropriate level for the outreach necessary for a particular contract. If the outreach is part of the judging criteria, it will send a message. He supports the idea of making it explicit.