Appendix 7
SHASTA REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION AGENCY (SRTA)
 EVALUATOR GUIDELINES 

I. PURPOSE 

SRTA thanks you for your willingness to serve as one of its evaluators. Proposal and bid evaluators are tasked with assisting SRTA in selecting a grantee, consultant, or contractor through a competitive process. Non-SRTA members are invited to serve as evaluators when SRTA believes they can provide valuable additional experience and input that will assist in the ranking or selection process. These guidelines are intended to provide you with information regarding your responsibilities as an evaluator for SRTA. 

II. ROLE AS AN EVALUATOR 

You were most likely asked to assist SRTA in evaluating proposals or bids due to your experience and/or position as an elected official or as a representative of a public agency, regional interest group, or community stakeholder. The interests of the public with regard to the SRTA procurement or grant program may or may not coincide with the interests of the public or private organization you represent or with your personal interests. Since the funds used by SRTA to pay its grantees, consultants, and contractors are public funds, however, you will be expected to evaluate proposals or bids using objective standards that will best serve the interests of the public and SRTA. 

You will be asked to review written proposals or bids from, and/or interview grantees, consultants, or contractors who would like to be awarded a grant or contract by SRTA using evaluation criteria or specifications that vary depending upon the type of grant or contract to be awarded. All of SRTA’s solicitations contain a section that sets forth specifications and/or assigned weights for each of the evaluation criteria. 

If you are asked to review proposals, you will be given a score sheet and asked to evaluate each proposal based on the criteria in the solicitation. You must use only the criteria discussed in the solicitation when scoring the proposals. Only persons who are members of the evaluation committee may fill out a score sheet and have their scores tabulated as part of the selection process. You may or may not see the costs or bid portion of proposals, depending on the evaluation criteria and selection method determined by SRTA. You may be asked to take part in interviewing proposers after the written proposals are reviewed and scored. The weight of the interview portion of the evaluation process will be indicated in SRTA’s solicitation and interviewers will use standardized questions to ensure proposers compete on equal ground. 

If you are asked to review all or a portion of the bid documents, you will be limited to advising SRTA of whether the bid is responsive to the specifications or contains errors. You must use only the criteria discussed in the solicitation. 

SRTA staff may carry out additional tasks as part of the evaluation process that you will not be involved in, such as checking proposers’ references and holding additional meetings among SRTA staff to further evaluate the proposals. After the evaluation process is complete, a recommendation memo will be prepared for SRTA’s executive director. Evaluation committee members do not have authority to approve entry into negotiations or a grant or contract award with a particular proposer or bidder. 

From time to time a proposer or bidder who is not selected for contract award is disgruntled regarding the evaluation process and files a protest with SRTA. SRTA has protest procedures for dealing with this scenario. If a protest is filed, the objectivity of the evaluators and the integrity of the evaluation process may be closely scrutinized by persons outside of SRTA. Additionally, all proposals, bids, and evaluation score sheets are potentially public records subject to disclosure to the public. Therefore, evaluators should exercise care so that their score sheets and other evaluation documents are legible and do not contain comments that could be perceived as ambiguous, discriminatory, or derogatory. 

III. CONFLICTS OF INTEREST 

Conflicts of interest may arise as a consequence of the many and varied roles you play in our community. One of the goals of these Guidelines is to manage real or perceived conflicts of interest. SRTA has determined that a system of self-disclosure is most effective since conflicts of interest must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Discussion and disclosure generally can resolve issues related to conflict of interest. 

A conflict of interest occurs when there is or could be a divergence between an individual's professional, private, or personal relationships or interests and his/her obligations to SRTA as an evaluator such that an independent observer might reasonably question whether the evaluator's actions or decisions are determined by considerations of private benefit, gain, or advantage. A conflict of interest or the appearance of it depends on the situation, and not necessarily on the character or actions of the individual. The appearance of a conflict of interest can be as damaging or detrimental as an actual conflict. 

Potential conflicts of interest are not unusual and must be addressed. For example, sometimes people from the private sector are selected to serve as a member of one of SRTA’s evaluation committees because of their experience in a particular industry. Therefore, it is expected that situations may arise where a person that has served as an evaluation committee member may work for a private sector employer or client that will in the future want to submit a proposal or bid to SRTA in response to a solicitation. In order to prevent an actual or perceived conflict of interest, a person serving as an evaluator must disqualify him or herself and the private organization he/she is employed by from submitting a proposal/bid to SRTA or receiving compensation from SRTA for a prospective period of one year for work related to the project for which SRTA is conducting its competitive solicitation. The foregoing sentence will not apply, however, if your organization is under contract with SRTA to perform proposal/bid evaluation work as part of its scope of work following a conflict evaluation related to your contract. This one-year bar also applies to persons who were employed in the public sector when serving as an evaluator, but who eventually take a position as a consultant for, employee of, or owner of a private sector firm. California law states that certain financial interests are automatically a conflict of interest. SRTA has listed these prohibited interests as well as others that it chooses to avoid in the attached Declaration Concerning Conflicts. 

It is wrong for an individual's actions or decisions made in the course of his or her SRTA activities to be determined by considerations of personal financial gain or illegal bias. Such behavior calls into question the professional objectivity and ethics of the individual and it also reflects negatively on SRTA. As a SRTA evaluation committee member you must respect SRTA’s status as a recipient of public funds and conduct your affairs in ways that will not compromise SRTA’s integrity. 

For all of the above reasons, evaluators must fill out the attached “Declaration Concerning Conflicts” and return it to SRTA before they begin evaluating any proposals or bids, and must report potential conflicts that may arise during the evaluation process. Potential conflicts must be reported up until the time a contract or grant is actually awarded or until an evaluator’s role in the evaluation process is complete, whichever occurs first, so that appearances can be separated from reality. If an evaluator believes she/he may have a potential conflict and it arises subsequent to submitting the Declaration Concerning Conflicts, the evaluator has an affirmative duty to immediately disclose any potential conflict of interest to the SRTA project manager or contract analyst. Notification of the actual or potential conflict should be given to the project manager or contract analyst. Evaluators with an actual or potential conflict of interest will be excused from assisting in the evaluator process. 

IV. CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION 

Proprietary or other confidential information that a SRTA evaluator may be exposed to at SRTA may never be used in external activities or disclosed to others unless written approval is given in advance by SRTA’s Executive Director or designee. 

V. PROHIBITION AGAINST DISCRIMINATION AND HARASSMENT 

SRTA has a policy of nondiscrimination as required by federal and state law due to SRTA’s use of federal and state money to fund contracts. This policy applies to the selection of consultants and contractors. SRTA’s policy prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, age (over 40), religion, creed, race, nationality, color, disability, sexual orientation, or marital status. All evaluators are expected to abide by this policy when evaluating consultants. SRTA’s policies prohibiting harassment, discrimination, or violence when dealing with SRTA’s employees or using SRTA’s facilities or property also apply. Evaluators suspected of actual or potential discrimination in violation of SRTA policy will be excused from assisting in the evaluation process.