After months of working to qualify for a new leveraged contract for IT services, the technology industry in California is increasingly frustrated with the Department of General Services (DGS) which earlier this month canceled the Request for Proposals (RFP) for their IT Services Master Service Agreement (IT MSA).
The problem that led to the IT MSA’s cancellation was a new requirement by DGS for three verbal references from each company.
According to Carol Henton, vice president for State and Local Government at TechAmerica, a national trade association, this change was the latest that upset technology companies and made them concerned for the future of the MSA.
"With somewhere between 150 and 200 respondents to the bid, DGS needed to have conversations with between 450 and 600 government customers, many of whom were on vacation (being August) or in other time zones," Henton said. "TechAmerica recommends that DGS simplify its reference-checking process in a way that will cause minimal impact to our member’s government clients."
The reason for the original change, according to department spokesman Eric Lamoureux, was that "agency subject matter experts evaluating bid submissions requested to be able to perform a higher level of due diligence."
Lamoureux said that many references were unable to speak with DGS staff at designated times and rescheduling was complicated by the high number of bids submitted, with the likely result of a high percentage of bidder being disqualified, ultimately resulting in insufficient competition and not enough contractors.
The existing MSA has been extended and a new bidding process is scheduled to begin in early September.
The IT MSA was originally intended to provide IT consulting services at contracted pricing to state and some local government agencies, so that individual agencies would not have to advertise and bid extensively. Contractors were to be pre-qualified for the contract to make the contracting process easier.
"TechAmerica wishes to work with DGS to improve its overall process for this critically important RFP. Before the RFP is issued again, the vendors would like to see DGS circulate its new proposed RFP in draft form — thereby permitting the public to comment on its approach," Henton said.
