Four procurement reform ordinances adopted by the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners took effect September 11, 2026. They raise the formal protest threshold to $5 million, bar protests on awards at or below $250,000, and sharply compress filing deadlines.
On September 1 the Board of County Commissioners adopted the four ordinances implementing the recommendations of the Special Task Force to Reduce Inefficiencies in Procurement. Chairman Anthony Rodriguez, the prime sponsor, put the case in operational terms: the County’s procurement process currently takes “about 349 days” on average, and “rarely does it go below it.” The package is intended to bring that to between 120 and 150 days.
The reform is broad, but the amendments to Section 2-8.4 of the Code and to Implementing Order 3-21 warrant the closest attention, because they alter both who may protest a County award and how quickly a protester must commit to its theory of the case.
A note on timing. Each of the four ordinances took effect on September 11, 2026, ten days after enactment. Award recommendations issued before that date remain governed by the procedures in force at the time, so the transition matters for any solicitation currently in evaluation. The conformed revisions to Implementing Orders 3-21 and 3-34, which give effect to the floor amendments adopted on September 1, had not issued as of publication. The version of Implementing Order 3-21 currently posted on the County’s website remains the order effective July 6, 2025, which still reflects the superseded $25,000 threshold. It should not be relied on for the deadlines described below.
THRESHOLDS
The formal protest threshold has moved from $250,000 to $5 million. The informal band now covers awards over $250,000 up to $5 million. The floor has moved from $25,000 to $250,000, with the result that an award at or below $250,000 is final and not subject to protest. For contracts in that range, a vendor’s only recourse is before the award recommendation issues.
The two tracks are not equivalent. A formal protest proceeds to an independent hearing examiner. An informal protest does not. In the informal band, the department affords an opportunity to settle within five working days of filing, and failing resolution the department director issues a report and recommendation to the Mayor not later than twenty working days from the filing.
FILING DEADLINES
Each deadline runs in working days, and the initial period is counted from the day after the award recommendation is filed with the Clerk of the Board. The compression is significant.
Consider a $12 million award recommendation transmitted to bidders and deposited with the Clerk on a Monday. A written intent to protest, stating with particularity the specific facts and grounds, must be filed with the Clerk by Thursday, together with the filing fee and copies to every other bidder and to the County Attorney. Fees at that level are $5,000, plus a $2,500 administrative fee. The protest itself, with supporting documents and evidence, follows three working days later, on the following Tuesday. An intervening weekend consumes a meaningful share of that period.
A protester that submits a public records request within the initial three day window may rely on the material produced, provided any supplemental filing is made within forty eight hours of receipt.
Thereafter, the Clerk appoints a hearing examiner no later than five working days following the filing of the protest. Within five working days of that appointment, the County may move to dismiss, either for failure to comply with the procedures or on the ground that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the County is entitled to a decision in its favor as a matter of law. The examiner must rule within five working days, and a dismissal is final and binding on all parties. Absent a motion, or following its denial, the hearing must be completed within fifteen working days of appointment, subject to a cumulative extension of no more than five working days. Findings and recommendations issue within five working days of the hearing. Each side is allotted a maximum of two hours.
PRESERVATION OF GROUNDS
The most consequential provision is one of preclusion. No grounds will be considered that were not contained in the protester’s written submission to the Clerk at the time the intent to protest was filed. Later filings may supply rebuttal evidence, but not new theories.
The intent to protest is therefore not a notice pleading. It fixes the scope of the protest, and it is due three working days after the protester learns of the recommendation, ordinarily before the records that would explain the outcome have been produced. A party that treats the intent as a placeholder will find its arguments unavailable later.
OBJECTIONS DURING THE PROCUREMENT
A second preservation requirement operates earlier. In two step qualification based procurements, any question, issue, objection or disagreement concerning the rankings, scoring or recommendations of a selection committee at the first step must be raised in writing, with a copy to the Clerk of the Board, within five working days of the date proposers receive either the Selection Committee Coordinator report for the first step or a notification of shortlisted proposers. An objection not timely raised is deemed waived and will be rejected as a basis for a subsequent protest. That window may open and close well before an award recommendation exists.
CORRESPONDENCE TO THE BOARD
Vendors have long supplemented, or substituted for, the formal process by writing to the Commission when an award reaches the Board. The Board addressed that practice directly. It adopted a floor amendment directing that Implementing Order 3-21 be further revised to require disclosure of whether a protester objected to the issues raised in the protest during the procurement itself.
Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who proposed the amendment, was explicit about the conduct it targets. She said she could identify “seven procurements where there was not an objection, yet when it came to the Board of County Commissioners, we were inundated with letters that were drafted exactly like objections.” Her concern was that tightening the formal path makes the informal one more attractive: a party “choosing not to go down one path so you could take a second bite of the apple, or worse, you do both.”
The amendment was contested on the merits. Commissioner Oliver Gilbert argued that it carried no operative force, since the Board retains discretion to consider whatever it receives, and that it “doesn’t actually change anything.” Regalado’s answer, delivered as she cast her vote, was that “it’s data, not cosmetic.” The item passed unanimously, Gilbert included.
Whatever its formal weight, the practical implication is the same. Grounds should be preserved through the formal channel and on schedule, including in matters a party expects to resolve through other means.
FEE EXPOSURE
On procurements valued over $25 million, a hearing examiner who determines that the factual or legal grounds for a protest are frivolous is now required to award attorney’s fees to the County and to any party defending the Mayor’s award, provided that the County or the defending party filed a notice of intent to seek fees within five working days of the protest being filed. The provision contains an exit: the award does not attach where the protester withdraws the protest before the hearing commences. Counsel reassessing a theory mid proceeding should be aware that the option exists and that it expires.
SELECTION COMMITTEE SCORING
The reform also reduces competitive selection committees to three voting members for contracts estimated below $20 million and five at or above that figure, with the affected user department naming the majority. As filed, the item paired that reduction with elimination of the practice of dropping the lowest committee score in architecture and engineering procurements, on the reasoning that discarding one score from a panel of three would leave an award decided by two evaluators.
Commissioner Gilbert, who sponsored the existing rule, objected. He explained its origin directly:
“What we found previously when we looked at procurements is that sometimes there be like extraordinary outliers. Not to say that anyone would do it on purpose, but it looked like someone was tanking a score for folks.”
He offered the pattern that prompted it, scores of “80, 80, 80, 21.” He also rejected the panel size rationale. “Even under that scenario, if it were larger and you would be dropping the fifth one, you would still be having it just on four. It’s still an average of those scores. So that in and of itself, while you stated it as though it was a fait accompli that it was some unfairness, it really didn’t actually change anything.” On the administration’s scheduling difficulties as a justification for smaller panels, he was blunter: “to rewrite the system based on their calendar availability … it’s almost something that we should be hesitant to admit in public.”
Staff described the existing safeguard, under which a score deviating more than 33 percent from the committee average triggers a request that the evaluator explain the rationale on the record. Gilbert’s objection was that an explanation is not a remedy, because the evaluator may simply keep the score. The Chairman proposed converting the trigger into an automatic exclusion, and Gilbert negotiated the threshold down: “As for 33%, how did you come up with that number? I would be substantially more comfortable with like 25%.”
That is how the rule now reads. The elimination stands, except that a lowest score deviating 25 percent or more from the average awarded by all committee members is dropped. One ambiguity was left open on the record. Staff could not confirm whether the deviation is measured below the average only or in both directions, and undertook to check. That belongs in the conformed Implementing Order 3-34 and is worth watching, because it determines whether an unusually high score is also excluded.
Gilbert framed the stakes in terms proposers will recognize: “Those small contracts and small procurements are really big to small businesses. It is small in comparison to our multi-billion dollar budget, but not to them.”
OTHER CHANGES
Oral presentations before selection committees may now be closed, consistent with the exemption in Section 286.0113, Florida Statutes, with recordings released following the applicable procurement stage. In procurements valued below $5 million, proposers must use County provided technology at oral presentations. The presentation and negotiation team affidavit has been repealed, so technical personnel no longer need be listed with the Clerk in order to participate in an oral presentation or a recorded negotiation.
We followed all four items from filing through adoption, including the substitutes and the amendments taken from the floor. We are available to discuss how the revised deadlines affect a particular procurement.
This article is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship. The deadlines described are short and run in working days, and their application depends on the facts of a particular solicitation or award. Parties facing a live procurement should consult counsel promptly.