New Jersey Administrative Code › Title 17 - TREASURY - GENERAL › Chapter 12 - DIVISION OF PURCHASE AND PROPERTY: PROCUREMENT BUREAU; CONTRACT COMPLIANCE AND AUDIT UNIT; AND DISTRIBUTION SUPPORT SERVICES UNIT › Subchapter 2 - ADVERTISED PROCUREMENT PROCEDURES › Section 17:12-2.6 - Receipt and public availability of proposals

Current through Register Vol. 56, No. 14, July 15, 2024
(a)
				Proposals must be received before the publicly announced deadline at the place
				designated for proposal submission. All other proposals shall be rejected. The
				Director may, in the event of inclement weather or other condition affecting or
				likely to affect bidders' timely delivery of proposals, postpone the deadline
				to the next operable business day. If timely delivery of a physical or
				electronic proposal is not possible due to a documentable cause of delay on the
				date of proposal opening and that is beyond the control of said vendor, said
				vendor can request, prior to the set deadline, that the Director postpone the
				deadline. If the Director determines that a postponement is in the State's best
				interest, the Director shall designate a revised same-day deadline. In either
				of these circumstances, the Director shall post notice of the postponement of
				the deadline for proposal submission on the Division's website. All previously
				received proposals will remain sealed until the revised proposal opening
				time.
(b) Promptly after the
				deadline for submission of proposals, the opening and reading of proposals
				shall be conducted.
(c) If a
				proposal timely received by the Division was not opened because it was
				misplaced by the Division or due to any other inadvertence by the Division, the
				Director shall set a date, time, and place for the opening of that proposal and
				notify and invite all participating bidders to attend.
(d) If there is no public representation at a
				proposal opening event, the Division may opt to forgo the reading of
				proposals.
(e) For RFPs having a
				negotiation component, only the names and addresses of the bidders will be
				publicly announced at the proposal opening.
(f) After the notice of intent to award has
				been issued, files relating to the procurement and, if applicable,
				documentation relating to any negotiations, shall not be considered public
				documents according to the Open Public Records Act (OPRA),
				N.J.S.A.
				47:1A-1et seq., and will only be made
				available to the non-winning bidders and to any taxpayer considering filing a
				protest of the notice of intent to award upon request. All files relating to
				the procurement made available pursuant to this subsection shall be redacted
				pursuant to applicable law.
(g)
				After award of contract(s), all files relating to the procurement shall be
				considered public documents under OPRA and shall be redacted pursuant to OPRA
				and applicable law. The following provisions shall apply for all procurements:
1. Within its proposal, the bidder must
				identify in writing any data or materials it asserts are exempt from public
				inspection under OPRA or other governing law, and explain the legal basis for
				all such assertions;
2. Assertion
				by a bidder that its entire proposal is, or prices offered are, exempt from
				public inspection under OPRA or other governing law shall be presumed to be
				contrary to the law, and the Division need not give the bidder's assertion any
				effect. Such an assertion may result in the rejection of the proposal;
				and
3. In the event that the
				Division receives a challenge from any person or entity to a bidder's assertion
				that any of its data or materials are exempt from public inspection, the
				Division shall give the bidder notice of the challenge, and the Division shall
				allow the bidder to respond to the challenge in the same manner as the Division
				is afforded. The notice given by the Division shall be as much notice as
				practicable based on the circumstances of the challenge and the Division's
				legal obligations. If the bidder fails to timely respond to the notice of the
				challenge, the Division shall make its own determination as to whether the
				bidder's data or materials are exempt from public inspection under OPRA and
				shall not be liable to the bidder for any decision the Division
				makes.