- (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.