After staff received direction from Council on the need to analyze the impact of Flagstaff's minimum wage, it was determined that a full Request for Proposals (RFP) would be solicited to allow staff to identify a competent and experienced contractor to perform the research. Staff worked to create a scope of work for the study and it was fully vetted by the City Manager’s Office, the Office of Labor Standards, the Economic Vitality team and several members of Council. The scope of work requests a data-driven baseline with specific data points prescribed and the determination of current and potential impacts, as well as best practices for businesses to adapt to the changes.  There is no part of the scope of work that requests an opinion on the minimum wage as a concept or on the nature of the specific details enacted by the citizens.

On August 28, 2019, the City's Purchasing Section published the RFP in PlanetBids and advertised it in the Arizona Daily Sun on September 1, 2019. Direct email notifications were sent to three potential firms; the Alliance Bank Economic Policy Institute (NAU); Rounds Consulting Group, Inc; and Elliot D Pollack & Company. Two firms participated in the pre-proposal meeting, and the City received a total of one (1) proposal response. The evaluation committee was comprised of five (5) evaluators, all of whom are City employees. Once the evaluation and scoring were complete and the scores were aggregated into a matrix, the evaluation committee determined Rounds Consulting, Inc. to be both responsive and responsible with high scores given by all five (5) evaluators. The contract with Rounds Consulting was signed in early October, 2019. The procurement for these services, resulting in contracting with Rounds, was conducted appropriately and within rules and regulations of public procurement.

Recent clients of Rounds Consulting Group include the AZ Dept of Housing, AZ Office of Economic Opportunity, NACOG, the City of Mesa, the League of Arizona Cities and Towns, Maricopa Association of Governments and Maricopa County. Staff at Rounds Consulting Group also have experience in conducting work for organizations throughout Arizona, including the Cities of Buckeye, Chandler, Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, Gilbert and Florence. Rounds Consulting has also recently been contracted by the City of Flagstaff for an economic analysis related to a specific request for City participation in a development project and an analysis of the impact of various populations on the City sales tax.  Their performance and output has been deemed satisfactory or better.

As the contract with Rounds Consulting was signed in early October, work on the study is well underway. Rounds Consulting is actively conducting a statistical analysis on the impacts of minimum wage as requested in Sections A-C of the Scope of Work and has recently conducted in-depth interviews with a variety of Flagstaff business owners to build a "best practices toolkit", as requested in Section E of the Scope of Work. Preliminary findings of the study are scheduled to be submitted to City staff by December 20th and a presentation of these preliminary results to Council is scheduled for January 7, 2020.