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Request For Proposal (RFP)

Case Management and Toxicology Testing System RFP#20-025

The New York State Education Department (NYSED) Professional Assistance Program is seeking proposals for the web-based case management and toxicology testing system.

The contract resulting from this RFP is no cost to NYSED.  All costs incurred by the contractor in providing these services are to be paid by the contractor. These costs may be recovered by toxicology testing fees paid directly to the contractor by the program participants.  The fees charged for toxicology testing are the fees that must be specified in the contractor’s bid. No compensation will be paid to the contractor by NYSED and NYSED shall not be liable for any expenses or for any fees owed by the program participants.

NYSED will award One (1) contract pursuant to this RFP. The contract(s) resulting from this RFP will be for a term of five (5) years anticipated to begin January 1, 2021 and to end December 31, 2025.

Service Area: Statewide

Mandatory Requirements: See Mandatory Requirements section of the IFB.

Components contained in RFP#20-025 are as follows:

  1. Description Of Services To Be Performed
  2. Submission
  3. Evaluation Criteria and Method of Award
  4. Assurances
  5. Submission Documents

Questions regarding the request must be submitted by email to drugtestingrfp@nysed.gov no later than the close of business July 29, 2020. Questions regarding this request should be identified as Program or Fiscal. A Questions and Answers Summary will be posted below on or about August 7, 2020. The following are the designated contacts for this procurement:

Program Matters

Walter Brockway

Email: drugtestingrfp@nysed.gov

Fisical Matters

Richard Duprey

Email: drugtestingrfp@nysed.gov

Bidders are requested to submit their bids electronically to cau@nysed.gov. Please see the information in the documents below for instructions on submitting an electronic bid. All bids must be received by 3:00 pm Eastern Time on August 27, 2020 to be considered.

RFP Documents

Notices and Questions and Answers

Notices:

  1. Bidders are required to submit a Data Security and Privacy Plan and NIST Cybersecurity Framework. The documents will be reviewed to determine adequacy, but no points will be awarded based on the quality of the plan. The 5 points assigned to this section will be re-allocated to other section(s).

Questions and Answers

  1. Case Management System, calendar/scheduling tool – In what way is NYSED using the calendar tool in the case management system? Who is the coordination of events and meetings for, case managers, participants? Please provide an example of a scheduled event.

Answer: The Professional Assistance Program has a need to schedule Admittance interviews, reinstatement interviews and quarterly progress meetings with our participants.  We are looking to be able to do have a scheduling/calendar feature built into the case management system.

  1. Please confirm that the proposal submission is strictly electronic. The RFP makes mention of hard copies.

Answer: The proposal submission is strictly electronic.  Please refer to pages 1-2 of the RFP for instructions.

  1. NYSED is requesting confirmation testing be done using GCMSMS Gas Chromotography - Tandem Mass Spectrometry. Will NYSED accept Liquid Chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LCMSMS) as it is a more efficient method?

Answer: The use of LCMSMS would be an acceptable substitute for GCMSMS.

  1. From the main document RFP 20-025, Section #2) Submission – Documents to be submitted with this proposal (page 7).  It states in the first paragraph that, “New York State Education Department shall own all materials, processes, and products (software, code, documentation and other written materials) developed under this contract”.

Our company will be providing NYSED our web-based software that will be utilized by designated staff of NYSED and PAP, along with the monitored licensed professionals.  As such, NYSED will have its own instance within our software with which to perform all required actions as outlined in the RFP, and more.  As a result of using the system, all data created under the NYSED instance, including all data migrated (historical or current), are property of NYSED.  This includes any reports, documents, forms, artifacts – essentially all data and any permutations of it from a go-forward basis while using our software belongs to NYSED.  Upon request, our company will provide all NYSED data in a mutually agreeable format (ex. .xls, .csv, .pdf, etc…); but will otherwise be stored in our system as long as the contract remains active.   

Apart from this, the software program itself and source code of our software will remain the intellectual property of our software.  
Based on the above, we ask that you please clarify and define the ownership rights as they pertain to software and code.  Does it only pertain to data and all permutations of it as a result of using the system? 

Answer: The only rights NYSED would maintain would be over current data to be transferred over to contractors servers and any new data accumulated while using the system. All software and code rights would remain as intellectual property of the bidder.

  1. Section #2)Submission – Technical Proposal (page 7). 

It states a request for “the original and four copies of the completed Technical Proposal must be mailed in a separate envelope labeled RFP #20-025-Technical Proposal-Do Not Open”. Per the submission instructions on page 1, it states for all bids to be submitted electronically. 

We ask that you please confirm if the technical proposal is part of the complete electronic submission, and/or if multiple copies are required to be mailed out.  If physical copies are required, please specify the mailing address and the recipient. 

We are happy to comply either way.

Answer:  We are requiring electronic submission of proposals as detailed on pages 1-2 of the RFP.

  1. Can you please provide the analytes in the 10 panel Urine you are requesting pricing for on the RFP?

Answer:  At a minimum the 10-panel test would need to include the following:

  • Amphetamines
  • Methamphetamine
  • Barbituates
  • Benzodiazepines
  • Cocaine
  • Marijuana
  • Methadone
  • Opiates
  • Oxycodones
  • Alcohol – Ethyl