Good afternoon, everyone. The meeting will start momentarily. I'm ready when you guys are ready. Good afternoon, everyone. I am Danielle Cohen-Ebanks, purchasing manager and the meeting facilitator. I would like to call to order this initial evaluation committee meeting for request for proposal RFP number GEN 213-1079-P1 for third-party association for COBRA, domestic partner, and retiree continuation coverage for the Finance and Administrative Services Department, Human Resources Division. The time is 1.03 p.m. on April 7, 2026. This meeting is being held virtually through Microsoft Teams. Representatives from the county are physically here in room 430 of the Governmental Center building located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Attendees, please mute your microphones on your devices to limit any background noises. This is a public meeting and is being recorded by Barrett County. The video recording will act as the official recording of the meeting. The recording will be made available on the Purchasing Division's website under the RLI RFP repository. Information reviewed by the Evaluation Committee as part of the evaluation process will be also posted on the repository. This meeting has been publicly noticed. The purpose of today's meeting is to determine the responsiveness and responsibility of the proposing vendors. Only those vendors that have been determined by the Evaluation Committee today to be both responsive and responsible to the solicitation requirements may proceed to the final Evaluation Committee meeting for presentations and ranking. At the time of the solicitation deadline, 2 p.m. on February 20, 2026, there were three proposals were received. Meeting attendance is recorded in the following ways. The Purchasing Division will record attendance of county staff physically here in room 430. All virtual attendees, including for county staff, please click on the link or scan the QR code that is currently listed in the team's chat to complete the sign-in sheet. For attendees that cannot access the link or QR code in the team's chat, please email the purchasing agent, Desirene Lescott, at D-L-E-S-C-O-T-T, at borough.org, with the subject, E-C-Meeting Attendance, and indicate your name, your title, and the company you represent in the body of the email. The following are the county's project staff, Desirene Lescott, Purchasing Agent, Purchasing Division, Esther Mitchell, Purchasing Manager, I mean Project Manager, Human Resources Division, Javier Navas and Sandy Steed, County Attorney's Office, Danielle Lodizar, Office of Economic and Small Business Development, Coneal Poulal, Risk Management Division, Melinda Henderson, Enterprise Technology Services. We have a quorum present with the following evaluation committee members. Committee members, please say present after your names are called. Please ensure your microphones are turned on. Delwin Friedman, Assistant Director, Human Resources Division, Finance and Administrative Department.
Present.
Thank you. Gregory Q. Meyer, Assistant Director, Office of Public Communication.
Present.
Thank you. John Garasino, Administrative Officer, Senior, Borough County Aviation Department.
Present.
Thank you. It is the evaluation committee's responsibility to review vendor submittals to ensure solicitation requirements are met and to evaluate the submittals to make a recommendation to award a contract. Each evaluation committee member was appointed by the county administrator to serve on this committee based on their experience. The evaluation committee members are responsible for following the county's established committee procedures to select vendors which provide the services that are in the best interest of the county. At the discretion of the board, the evaluation committee members may be requested to substantiate their recommendation. Member, is that a recommendation? Attendees, please ensure that your microphones are muted. At the discretion of the board, the evaluation committee members may be requested to substantiate their recommendation and discuss their submittals of the submittal reviews. In accordance with the Borough County Procurement Code, each evaluation committee member must affirm that they are free of conflicts of interest as provided by Part 3, Chapter 112 of the Florida Statute and the Borough County Employee Code of Ethics. All evaluation committee members and the project manager submitted the required Borough County disclosure forms and responded that they can be fair and impartial to all vendors. The cone of silence has been in effect since the solicitation's advertisement. Vendors are prohibited from discussing the solicitation with the commissioner's office, county staff, or any member of the evaluation committee. The cone of silence terminates when the awarding authority takes action, which ends the solicitation. During the cone of silence inquiries, during the cone of silence inquiries regarding the solicitation should be directed to the project manager or the director of purchasing and or his designee. Also, vendors may communicate with the designated representative from the Office of Economic and Small Business Development at any time regarding the solicitations, small business enterprise, county business enterprise participation. The summary of vendor rights regarding the Borough County competitive solicitation was issued in the solicitation. At this time, the purchasing agent will report on the findings on responsiveness, responsibility, and any exceptions taken to the county's terms and conditions. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Facilitator. Proposals were received from the following vendors. Benefits Outsource, Inc., Flexible Benefit Administrators, Inc., and Total Administrative Services Corporation. The solicitation had four responsiveness requirements involving compliance. Criminal history screening practices certification, domestic partnership act certification, lobbyist registration certification, and pricing requirement. The director of purchasing recommends that all vendors be deemed responsive to all the responsiveness requirements. The solicitation had six areas of responsibility requirements. Affiliated entities of the principals, enterprise technology services, vendor security questionnaire, foreign country of concern requirements, insurance requirements, litigation history, and certificate of authority through the Florida Office of Insurance floor. One of three vendors provided the required documentation for committee's review of responsibility. The following compliance concerns were identified. Flexible Benefit Administrators, Inc. and Total Administrative Services Corporation did not submit the required certificate of authority through the Florida Office of Insurance. Refer to the director of purchasing memorandum for additional information. The solicitation required vendors to state whether they accept boroughed county's standard terms and conditions or, if they do not accept them, to identify the agreement provisions and vendors' proposed changes. Two of the three vendors accepted the county's standard terms and conditions without exceptions. One vendor, Total Administrative Services Corporation, took exceptions to the county's standard terms and conditions. The specific exceptions taken by the vendor are identified in its submittal and will be addressed prior to presentation if vendor advances at the final evaluation committee meeting. This concludes purchasing's remarks and is presented for the consideration of the evaluation committee. Thank you.
The next order of business is to determine vendor responsiveness as defined in the Procurement Code Section 2140A. Committee members, is there any discussion regarding the determination of responsiveness? Hearing none, may I have a motion with respect to the responsiveness of the vendor's submittal?
Aye. Delwyn Freeman.
Go ahead.
We'd like to make a motion to find all vendors as responsive to the solicitation's responsiveness criteria.
May I have a second?
John Garasino, I second.
All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. The next order of business is to determine the responsibility of the vendors as defined in the Procurement Code 2140B. Committee members, is there any discussion regarding the responsibility of the vendors? Hearing none, may I have a motion with respect to the responsibility of the vendors?
John Garasino, I would like to make a motion to find Flexible Benefits Administrators, Inc., and Total Administrative Services Corp. as non-responsible to the solicitation responsibility requirements.
May I have a second?
Second. Delwyn Freeman.
All in favor say aye.
Aye. Aye.
Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Since there was a non-responsibility motion, may I have a motion with respect to the responsibility of the vendor's submittals?
John Garasino, I'd like to make a motion to find Benefits Outsource, Inc. as responsible to the solicitation responsibility criteria.
May I have a second?
This is Greg Meyer. I'll second it. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.
Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. The next order of business is to determine the vendors that were found to be both responsive and responsible. May I have a motion with respect to the vendor that was determined to be both responsive and responsible?
John Garasino, I'd like to make a motion to find Benefits Outsource, Inc. as both responsive and responsible to the solicitation requirement.
May I have a second?
Second. Delwyn Freeman.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. The final Evaluation Committee meeting will be held on April 27, 2026 at 1 p.m. and will include vendor presentation. Evaluation Committee members and project manager, are there any topics or questions you would like the vendor to specifically address during their presentation? If yes, when a knowledge, you can state your name, then your question or your topics. I'll start with Delwyn? I'll start with Delwyn.
No, at the moment.
John?
This is Greg. No, not at this time.
Okay. Thank you. Project manager.
Good afternoon. Esther Mitchell, project manager. I would like the vendor to present on their several topics. Eligibility and qualifying event administration, COBRA notices and compliance, their enrollment and coverage management, the member experience and customer service, and their issue resolution escalation. Thank you.
The Evaluation Committee establishes a length of presentation. This does not include unlimited question and answer period. Is there any discussion regarding the length of presentation? Hearing none, may I have a motion to set the length of presentation? State your name. Aye.
Delwyn Freeman. I'd like to make a motion to set the length of the presentation to a maximum of 60 minutes.
How much? 60?
Five minutes. What do I mean?
No, no, no. So let's have a discussion. Let me go back. Is there any discussion regarding the length of presentation? As it stands, we have one vendor that's both responsive and responsible, and we have a few questions from the project manager.
This is Greg Meyer. I would say 30 minutes, 30 to 45 minutes tops would be ideal. Do you think we need more?
I'm thinking you need less because you have an unlimited Q&A session.
Right.
Oh, that's true. It's up to you guys based on what you're seeing in the proposal and what the project manager questions are.
So for the presentation, let's do 15 minutes and then Q&A unlimited at the end.
Yes, Q&A is always unlimited.
Do you all agree with that?
That works.
15 minutes for the presentation.
May I have a motion to set the length of presentation?
Aye. Delwyn Freeman would like to make a motion to set the length of the presentation at 15 minutes.
May I have a second?
John Garacino, I second.
All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Since there was only one vendor that's both responsive and responsible, committee members, is there any other business that we need to discuss today? No? Thank you. We'd like to thank all the vendors that have responded to the solicitation. We appreciate your time and interest in working with Broward County. The time is 1.17 p.m. This initial committee meeting is adjourned. Thank you.