The director of transportation shall issue public notice of the intent of the department of transportation to enter into a contract for professional services. The director shall advertise the public notice via the internet or by other means to ensure that qualified firms are notified and given the opportunity to be considered for the award of the contract. The director may include more than one contract in a single public notice. The director may limit the number of contracts to which a firm may respond for the purpose of ensuring quality in the performance of those contracts.

Terms Used In Ohio Code 5526.03

  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Firm: means any person or limited liability company that is legally engaged in rendering professional services. See Ohio Code 5526.01
  • Internet: means the international computer network of both federal and nonfederal interoperable packet switched data networks, including the graphical subnetwork known as the world wide web. See Ohio Code 1.59
  • Professional services: means any of the following:

    (1) The practice of engineering as defined in section 4733. See Ohio Code 5526.01

  • Qualifications: means all of the following:

    (1) The competence of a firm to perform required professional services as indicated by the technical training, education, and experience of the firm's personnel, in particular the technical training, education, and experience of the firm's personnel assigned to perform professional services for the department;

    (2) The ability of a firm in terms of its workload and the availability of qualified personnel, equipment, and facilities to perform the required professional services competently and expeditiously;

    (3) The past performance of a firm as indicated by evaluations of previous clients of the firm with respect to such factors as control of costs, quality of work, and meeting of deadlines;

    (4) Any other relevant factors as determined by the director. See Ohio Code 5526.01

A public notice issued under this section shall be issued in a uniform and consistent manner, shall be issued sufficiently in advance of the time that responses must be received, and shall do both of the following:

(A) Include a general description of the project, a statement of the specific professional services required, and a description of the qualifications required for the project;

(B) Describe the procedures by which firms may submit statements of qualifications in order to be considered for a contract.