ALC-Executive Subcommittee

Members called executive search limited order. Richey he been here this afternoon we have a reason for meeting is to present the proposals received a response for the or the per state budgeting and revenue forecasting consultants Mysteel. There is a recognized in this day Stennett we'll both be presenting you're recognized president. Thank you Mr chair Jill Fairbury Legislative Research. At least in a pure of Legislative Research. So we are just very briefly going to go over with you the proposals that we received in response to an RFP that was put out four AM wrecked state budgeting and revenue forecasting consulting services you should all have gotten a binder yesterday and that contains the for proposals that we received. I'm at the front of your binder you should have a summary for you have a copy of the R. F. P.. And then you should have several check lists or tables one is the response checklist a price comparison table and then a tab for each of the four proposals that we received. And you also have reference tables Ellie Act call called all of the references that each vendor submitted to check we have the standard set of questions that we ask and she's here to answer any questions you may have about their references. I am you can see on the processing pairs and table that I've included there for you the hourly rates for all of the staff that they propose to use and their travel costs if they included it and subcontractor rates only one of the proposals included a subcontractor and that was B. Katie. I am on the RFP response checklist. There is an indication under ran me that we had not yet received their a proof that they're authorized to do business in the state of Arkansas but I've since received that so from all four of them and we did receive all the items on this checklist. I'll just quickly talk about each one I did a summary should have a summary table at the front of each tab so first for BKD M. they did have a redacted version of their proposal so when you look at their reference table you'll see that it just refers to reference one reference to reference three I was one of the items that they redacted was reference names they also redacted vendor experience so your summary and your proposal you have in front of you does not list that I'm their total Max bid was five hundred ninety thousand dollars. They do have offices located here in Little Rock. And the subcontractor that they propose to hire is foster and foster and they would use them only for their actuarial services that they would provide. I am one at. Point of concern with this proposal is that if you reviewed the R. F. P. under the scope of work you'll see that the purpose of the at R. F. P. and hiring a consultant was for them to be an ongoing consultant to whichever committee choose to use them for to provide the fiscal impact statements for bills and revenue forecasting any research projects that you might have related to the finances and the budgeting of the state and became the proposed to do more of a study at preliminary report a final report that wasn't really what was asked for in the R. F. P.. And the second proposal is from a Kanye metrics. They are primarily located in Utah. And the two staffers for this entity our previous legislators led legislative staffers for the legislative legislature in Utah and their Max bid amount was twenty nine thousand five hundred dollars. Their plan seem to match with what you had asked for in the earthy. And again their team is small and they're they're bit is quite a bit smaller than some of the others. The next proposal is from IHS Markit. And you will see in your tab are behind that tab with them I included an email that I had an email exchange I had with them where I clarified their bid and I had originally put that there because the way they done their process that proposal at their Max bid was seventy six thousand dollars as I begin reading their actual proposal more closely I it looked as though that was actually a process for one piece that they would do and so I clarified that with them and asked what their actual Max bid is for all the work in the scope of work and and you'll see in this email that they said their Max bid there would be a million dollars. They are primarily located in Colorado. And. Their plans seem to match with what you're asking for in the R. F. P. as far as I'm going work. And they're not proposing to use a subcontractor. And then the last one that you have here is ramie and that name may be familiar to some of you the bureau has contracted with Rennie previously to do some dynamic scoring we use them with the tax reform task force and I believe they also by consultants time on the big river steel project and Remi is located in Massachusetts their bed is a hundred and seventy thousand dollars however you'll notice in their proposal that they are I am proposing to do a couple of fiscal impact statements primarily to sell the software that they use to do dynamic dynamic scoring and then to provide training to the bureau staff on how to operate that software I'm so that is not exactly what was asked for an RFP but that's what they're it is I'm pleased with that we'll take any questions you may have. Question of members. Representative dodging you're recognized thank you Mr On the I. S. H. market. The million dollar Max bid. They give any sort of indication like how likely it was to get because seventy six thousand. Russia's million seems to be a pretty large range of. Expectation there right and that the seventy six thousand was for I believe they said it is Hendren he put it I am a fixed price for a one report deliverable and regarding revenue forecasting the one that pressed for a maximum contract pricing explained that what we do is we ask for a maximum contract amount with hourly rates for staffing and that they would invoice us and we would pay them up to that that amount M. is when he responded and said that you know and it's difficult to assess they don't know how many bills we might end up needing to send them or how many projects but that they would commit to a Max bid of one million dollars so in so this is over a one year contract right this contract would expire at the end of twenty twenty two so as far as bills that we would send them anything that's filed in twenty twenty two would be what they would be. Potentially scoring and getting back to us with all of these yes and and they're all aware that even when it was twenty nine five yes okay. Thank you. Okay the Committee any other questions. Senator Bledsoe you're recognized. Thank you Mr chair until of which one did you say extended their service and doing projects and that kind of thing it seemed like they were little more. working different areas even you know as we do the main thing or did I just get confused on that. Was it because the. An EKG and their plan it talks about more of a study and talks about giving I guess they would analyze Arkansas's economy and hence and that time thing right but the others do not is that correct correct okay thank you. Senator Irvin you're recognized. Thank you thanks for the summaries These are so like across the map you have different way different and pricing and so I kind of go back to the R. F. P. you know I know it was written broadly and and those kinds of things to be able to guess creativity an opportunity for people to respond but any ideas as to why you have such a variance from you know twenty nine. Thousand five hundred to up to million just different ideas that were brought to the table I'm not sure between the twenty nine thousand and the one million dollar one actually their plans are very similar so for them I think it's just the rates the number of staff they're going to use and the smaller bed is and. Almost of at Seoul own proprietary business it's too two men who are researchers that work together and then that I. H. S. Markit is a national international actually company so that may be the difference I'm not sure okay. All right and then just the last one is can you give me a little more detail about the software and that type of the. As you can just. Sure different kind of an approach but I kind of one of the little bit more from your study of it okay I am yes we ran me that is that's what they do they are a modeling company Nelly may actually be able to give a little bit more information she's worked with them some also and we had a running contract with them for a while Richard Wilson would use them to do dynamic scoring and that they create a software model based off of Arkansas as a Kanemi and then as set it up so that it's easy to plug and requests and when they primarily look at dynamic scoring and that's what we use them for for the tax reform task members and so that really looks at bigger projects also small changes to the budget wouldn't really work in their software it's my understanding LED. Yes so they're going to build a model of the entire economy my understanding is it's not going to be specific to the state government it's going to be much broader and so we're going to be able to see economic affects of bills to say we lower sales tax by one percentage point they'll be able to push that through their model and come up with an economic effect but the ability of them to then say how that affects the state government budget is less than that's not the purpose of the model it would be an off shoot if they were to design something to tell us that that's my understanding. And and they would train the staff to be able to utilize that is that correct yes that's part of their proposal and our offices in the price that's interesting okay thank you. Senator you're recognized a just back on the H. is what what page was early rate on that when I understand that you have to get that email that to where they had to clarify yes official official prosper proposal sheet is located should be at the back is at the back of your. As there appear tab for them. And then it's also and the price comparison table that I did for you at the front. It is a state it looks like. It says the attachment a especial price proposal she right. Okay thank you. Representative Dotson you're recognized. Thank you Mr at. So. If we're. I guess I'm trying to get clarification from the chairs on or are we trying to choose which one of these are going to come present to us or What what are we doing here after Wardlaw Williams some question. I think I think what we're doing is analyzing that ability and we're come back in a or C. exact committee next week on a regular schedule meeting and talk through the committee process on how we want to proceed from that point these are some discussion whether we can do it ourselves or whether we need to hire consultants and whether these prices are worthy of tackling those type of objectives so I don't think we're ready to make that decision today and I think we can come back next week and discuss and then if we wanted to percent thank you present to us in December at a later time okay so I don't think any company was scheduled to come present to us at any time. But they will be depending on what we decide next week yes okay I mean. The various proposals look. I mean they're they're various. They have different it seems like they went different directions as far as what they thought were asking for And I you know I I obviously. May like some of the aspects of various ones more than others but I like to hear the feedback from from an individual proposals the entities and see where they're actually going with them and how how will they can actually accomplish the goals of of Of the legislation before we end up hiring any of them so for whatever that's worth if we can hear from or at least. Whichever the top ones that rise to the to the level of of hearing from and it if if we need to. Talk about that over the next week and then make that determination which ones I think our feelings are that fairly mutual and we all absolutely want to have that same objective but will make sure that we're doing it correctly and good starts a taxpayer dollars at same time. Time wise we've got some time to the we we feel like we can do that so not seeing anymore questions without any objection we will but on the taking this back up next Thursday November eighteenth that are ten AM exec meeting. Was there any other business before the committee today. If not we are Jr.