The county in question is contemplating the acquisition of a system to do a comprehensive job of managing aspects of its needs.
In a request for information (RFI) released Friday, El Dorado County’s Chief Administrative Office, Procurement and Contracts Division acting on behalf of its Information Technologies Department seeks responses from IT vendors capable of educating it on “Asset Management System Software.” Among the takeaways:
- With more than 190,000 residents, El Dorado County is the most populous but not the largest of four “Gold Rush counties,” which also include Calaveras, Tuolumne and Yuba. El Dorado County covers 1,786 square miles and has the city of Placerville as its county seat. According to the RFI, the county is divided into four “functional areas that represent services to residents.” The county currently has 24 departments and about 1,941 employees. It is releasing this RFI, it said, to “survey the marketplace to determine if there are vendors who can provide an asset management system software solution that meets the county’s needs,” and to “gather information about current technology offerings for the county’s desired solution.”
- An overarching goal here may be enterprise-level functionality. Per the RFI, the county’s Information Technologies Department is “exploring options for an asset management solution that meets the county’s specific requirements, but also has the potential to meet the requirements of other asset managers across the county.” The goal of the county’s Asset Management Program is to “shift from reactive to proactive planning.” The county’s objective is to put in place a “comprehensive countywide asset management solution” that can “anticipate maintenance and replacement costs and allocate appropriate funding.”
“The county is seeking an asset management solution that can also track all the costs associated with each asset, such as acquisition, maintenance, replacement, depreciation, residual and disposal,” according to the RFI. - Tentative plans are for an “initial rollout” of the new system for the county’s Information Technologies and Auditor-Controller departments. This would cover areas including capital assets (now defined as $5,000 or above and with three 20 years of useful life); minor equipment valued at $2,500-$4,999; IT assets; and facilities assets. A new asset management system should be able to manage all the county’s assets – “capitalized assets, consumable assets, IT hardware and software, and facilities.” Respondents are encouraged to show how they’d address features including multiple asset managers, multiple depreciation schedules, asset stores, dashboards and reporting, inventory; and support and work orders.
- The RFI doesn’t constitute a contract or an “offer of employment”; and the county will not, it said, “make any awards as the result of this RFI.” However, the county intends to use the information it gathers in responses to write a “competitive request for proposals that will be issued later this year.” The information collected via the RFI, the county said, will be shared with its departments to demonstrate features and functionality; and to “add functional requirements and obtain a list of potential software providers” for the upcoming RFP. The county “anticipates” the RFP will be released approximately 90 days after this RFI closes.
- Aspects of this initiative including an estimated bid value, start/delivery date and project duration are not yet clear. Final questions on the RFI are due Sept. 2, and answers will be posted on or about Sept. 9. Submissions are due before 3 p.m. Sept. 29.
