The County of Humboldt Local Equity Program (LEP) manual outlines services available to qualifying equity applicants and licensees. Among those services is direct technical assistance in the form of small business consulting services. In order to comply with county and state laws and regulations, and due to limited staffing and expertise, certain services are contracted out to private consultants. To minimize response time and meet deadlines, Consultant Services Agreements will be negotiated proactively to ensure that an adequate number of consulting firms will be available to provide cannabis small business consulting services to qualifying equity applicants and equity licensees.
Consulting firms within the Pool of Potential Consultants will be asked to provide a detailed fee estimate, estimated time schedule and possibly a refined scope of work for each specific project. Upon receiving and reviewing the project proposals, the County may award a Consultant Services Agreement. Once a Consultant Services Agreement is awarded to a consultant within the Pool of Potential Consultants, and written authorization is given, the selected consulting firm shall perform the required services within the agreed upon parameters. The timing of individual Consultant Services Agreements will occur within 12 months of equity applicant or equity licensee receiving award, and within 3 months of equity applicant or licensee engaging consultant.
The scope of services to be performed under Consultant Services Agreements shall be determined based on consultant’s qualification, but may include, without limitation, business planning, loan application preparation, site location services, human resource management, capital procurement services, bookkeeping and accounting practices and systems, formation and administration of Road Maintenance Associations and formation of agricultural or cannabis cooperative associations. See section 3.2 for more information.
Consultant Services Agreements will have a term of one (1) years unless, prior to its expiration, such term is extended through written amendment. However, under no circumstances shall the maximum term of a Consultant Services Agreement exceed three (3) years total. The maximum amount payable under each Consultant Services Agreement shall be $50,000.00 with a maximum total fee to each consultant not to exceed $50,000.00. It should be noted that actual project costs will be based on wage rates established in the Consultant Services Agreement.
This RFQ is not for specific projects, but for specific services. The County does not guarantee that a specific number of projects will be received by any of the firms within the Pool of Potential Consultants. The County may establish a master list of up to fifteen (15) qualified firms.