1.    A contract for commodities or services may be entered by competitive sealed proposals when a determination is made that the use of competitive sealed bidding is either not practicable or not advantageous to the state. The request for proposal must state the relative importance of price and other factors and subfactors, if any.

2.    Proposals must be opened so as to avoid disclosure of contents to competing offerors during the process of negotiation. All proposals received pursuant to a competitive sealed proposal process are exempt records under subsection 5 of section 44-04-17.1 until an award is made.

3. Discussions may be conducted with responsible offerors who submit proposals determined to be reasonably susceptible of being selected for award for the purpose of    clarification to assure full understanding of, and responsiveness to, the solicitation requirements. Offerors must be accorded fair and equal treatment with respect to any opportunity for discussion and revision of proposals, and revisions may be permitted after submissions and before award for the purpose of obtaining best and final offers. In conducting discussions, there may be no disclosure of any information derived from proposals submitted by competing offerors.

4.    Unless all proposals are rejected, award must be made to the responsible offeror whose proposal conforms to the solicitation and is determined, in writing, to be the most advantageous to the state, taking into consideration price and the evaluation factors set forth in the request for proposals. No other factors or criteria may be used in the evaluation. The contract file must contain the basis on which the award is made. Written notice of the award of the contract to the successful offeror must be promptly given to all offerors.