Solicitation Process for Purchases over $25,000

When products or services are required, a requisition from the respective Department or Division of the County is submitted to the Purchasing Section of the Office of Management and Budget. The requisition outlines what is to be purchased, when it is needed and verifies that funding for the purchase is available.

Purchasing then issues a solicitation for the purchase by advertising in the Citrus County Chronicle and the Internet (ONVIA DemandStar) to get as many potential companies as possible to submit bids.

A submittal due date and time is established for the submittal or responses to the solicitation and when the due date and time is reached, no additional responses can be accepted for the particular commodity or service being procured.

After the responses have been received, Purchasing conducts a public opening of the responses. This event is open to the public as well as the companies who submit responses.

After the responses have been opened, Purchasing evaluates them for completeness and compliance with established solicitation criteria. This is to ensure an "apples-to-apples" comparison of the responses so that no one vendor is favored over another. Responses from companies that do not meet the established criteria are rejected.

Depending upon the type of solicitation (ITB, RFP or RFQ), the responses are evaluated by the Department or Division and they make a recommendation of award to Purchasing (see Purchasing Process) who then presents the recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners for their final approval.

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