Application is 103 pages long; application window opened on January 30 and closes on March 3 2017
by Rick Thompson/February 8, 2017
LANSING– If you want to be the company providing the mandatory seed-to-sale tracking program required by Michigan’s new medical marijuana business laws, you’d better get your lawyer in gear quickly.
And grab a lot of pencils.
Of the three new public Acts changing the rules for medical marijuana patients and businesses in Michigan, the seed-to-sale tracking program is the least-understood. Adding to the confusion over the program’s complexity is an application process for service providers which is remarkably brief and and application form which is ridiculously complex.
Michigan issued a Request For Proposal (RFP) on January 30 via their website, Buy4Michigan. The application period closes on March 3, creating a window for submissions only 25 business days long. The website includes an application for prospective service providers to fill out; the application is 103 pages long.
The application’s purpose is defined in this way on the state’s website:
This RFP is seeking responses only for a Statewide monitoring system for tracking, inventory, and verification of medical marihuana pursuant to the Marihuana Tracking Act. LARA will leverage an existing enterprise solution for licensing application processes under the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (2016 PA281). Using an existing software package will allow LARA to meet the statutory deadline for implementation of the program while ensuring the needs of our customers are met.
The application includes a timeline with the following dates: the bidding period opened on January 30; questions submitted by prospective applicants must be in by February 9; answers posted online to those questions by Feb 17; bidding ends on March 3; the Anticipated Contract Begin Date is June 8.
When determining which applicant gets the bid for the program, LARA will consider their technical ability, price quote and an oral presentation given by company representatives. LARA may also include a tour of the company’s facilities, an evaluation of the financial stability of the applicant company and their use of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) procedures.
The state reserves the right to “Consider overall economic impact to the State when evaluating proposal pricing and in the final award recommendation. This includes, but is not limited to: considering principal place of performance, number of Michigan citizens employed or potentially employed, dollars paid to Michigan residents, Michigan capital investments, job creation, tax revenue implications, economically disadvantaged businesses, etc.”
Applicants are required to provide their gross annual receipts for the last five years and list three “relevant experiences from the last 5 years supporting your ability to successfully manage a contract of similar size and scope”.
The winning contractor will be announced on the Buy4Michigan website. All applications are subject to FOIA inquiry.
stop calling it marijuana , It’s cannabis !