Nevada license office contract to be re-bid

The management contracts for five local license offices will be awarded using a competitive bidding process. During the process all of the offices will remain open.

Requests for Proposals were issued Monday by the Office of Administration for the license offices in Joplin, Nevada, Olivette, Poplar Bluff and the Landers State Office Building location in Springfield. Individuals or groups interested in running the offices will have five weeks (until Feb. 16) to respond to the RFPs.

All 183 of the state's local license offices have gone through a reformed bidding process since Gov. Jay Nixon took office one year ago. Office agents used to be named directly by governors, and no formal bidding process was utilized. New criteria for choosing winning bids includes how well a potential office agent deals with customer service, the experience and financial stability of the agent, and the office's location and accessibility. The professional staff at the Missouri Department of Revenue uses a point system to evaluate the bids.

This will be the second time these offices have been put up for bid.

The original winning bidder, Alternative Opportunities, Inc. of Springfield, submitted incomplete information regarding its contract manager on its bids. Any interested person or group that wants to submit a proposal to run any of these offices may do so, even if they did not submit a proposal during the first round of bidding.

Reggie McElhannon of AO said they thought it was simply a technical error, they used the name of the CFO and didn't realize they needed to use the name of an employee.

"We hadn't done anything intentionally," McElhannon said. "When we filled out the paperwork we used the name of our CFO and didn't realize it needed to be a technical employee and not just someone connected to the company."

McElhannon said the state must not think there was any adverse implication about the issue, since the announcement of the rebidding process AO had won three more bids.

"We have three additional offices since the announcement," McElhannon said. "Carthage, Farmington and Nixa."

Copies of the RFPs that bidders will use to develop their bids can be viewed at https://www.moolb.mo.gov/. To review an RFP, select "Guest" on the home page, click on "Open Bids By Agency," then scroll through the list of bids until the appropriate bid is located. (Bid numbers for this week's offices are located below.) Additional information regarding the bidding process can be obtained at http://oa.mo.gov/purch/vendorinfo/DORoffices.pdf or by calling the Office of Administration at (573) 751-2387.

All local license offices provide services that are overseen by the Department of Revenue, but each office is operated by an independent contractor. Transactions conducted at these offices include the issuance and renewal of driver licenses, issuance of titles for motor vehicles, and the issuance and renewal of registration for motor vehicles, boats and outboard motors.

Information for each office is below. The information includes the office address, bid number, estimated number of transactions from Fiscal Year 2009, and estimated agent processing fees from Fiscal Year 2009.

* Joplin -- 1110 E. 7th St., Suite 6., B3Z10170, 148,916 transactions and $505,833 in agent fees.

* Nevada -- 429 E. Walnut St., B3Z10169, 36,832 transactions, $125,459 in agent fees.

* Olivette -- 9652 Olive Blvd., B3Z10168, 86,096 transactions, $289,914 in agent fees.

* Poplar Bluff -- 2186 N. Westwood Blvd., B3Z10167, 74,382 transactions, $251,810 in agent fees.

* Springfield (Landers State Office Building) -- 149 Park Central Sq., Room 252, B3Z10166, 66,477 transactions, $228,181 in agent fees.

The original bids for each office are also available for public viewing. To access these bids, go to http://oa.mo.gov. Under the "Public Interests" section, click on "OA Bids & Contracts Public Record." At the bottom of the next screen, click on "Please Enter Here." On the left side of the next page, select "Search by Bid Number." Type in the bid number and press "Enter." The bid numbers for the original contracts are: Joplin -- B3Z09160; Nevada -- B3Z09215; Olivette -- B3Z09194; Poplar Bluff -- B3Z09273; and Springfield (Landers) -- B3Z09320.