A.__The Director of the State Planning Office within the Executive Department or the director's designee;

B.__The commissioner or the commissioner's designee;

C.__The State Tax Assessor or assessor's designee; and

D.__Three municipal officials and one official of a county or regional government subdivision, selected by the commissioner, each of whom has successfully engaged in a regionalization effort.__The commissioner shall consider geographic diversity, including rural and service center representation.

2.__Review panel duties.__The review panel established in subsection 1 shall:

A.__ Determine whether each eligible applicant for a cooperative services grant or planning grant meets the eligibility criteria under section 6205 and provide written notice to that applicant of its eligibility determination; and

B.__In accordance with the request for proposals issued under section 6209, review and rank proposals from applicants eligible for cooperative services grants and planning grants under section 6205 against the funding criteria defined in section 6207 and award cooperative services grants or planning grants to proposals that best meet the funding criteria in section 6207 subject to availability of funding.

§6209.__Request for proposals

No later than November 1st of each year, the department shall issue a request for proposals in accordance with the Bureau of General Services Rules, Chapter 110 that includes the schedules for submission and action on applications for grants under this chapter; procedures for scoring and ranking those applications; and procedures and information requirements related to application submissions.__The department shall provide reasonable notice to all eligible applicants about the availability of the fund and the solicitation of grant proposals.

§6210. Report