The state announced today it has an agreement with a consultant to review applications to dispense medical marijuana.

From the state Finance and Administration Department:

The agreement to score dispensary applications was signed today by Public Consulting Group of Boston, Massachusetts. With this agreement final, a meeting will now be scheduled between the five members of the Medical Marijuana Commission (MMC) and officials from Public Consulting Group to discuss the scoring process. A date for the meeting has not been determined but will be announced soon. You will receive notification as soon as a date is confirmed. For this meeting, members of the MMC will be in the normal meeting location (1515 West 7th Street, 5th Floor) but the conversation with Public Consulting Group will take place via teleconference. At the conclusion of the meeting, a total of 203 dispensary applications will provided to the company (electronically) for scoring. A total of 227 dispensary application were submitted but 203 will proceed to scoring (24 did not meet minimum qualifications for a variety of reasons).

Public Consulting was the low bidder on the review process, with a bid of $99,472.