Of note, the state of California is planning a mid-October 2016 release of a rebid for the IT Master Services Agreement, which will provide new staffing classifications, pricing and other new features, according to a Sept. 1 slide presentation from state chief procurement officer Jim Butler.
The Department of General Services also is reviewing master agreements for a new cooperative purchasing agreement for cloud as a service undertaken through the NASPO ValuePoint program. DGS plans to work on developing purchasing agreements by mid-2017 that California could utilize for the contract, in alignment with the California Department of Technology’s existing “cloud first” policy.
DGS also plans to solicit vendor comments for copiers, PC goods and storage as soon as fall 2016, according to Butler’s presentation.
On the subject of California’s private cloud (CalCloud), the state reported that it’s finalizing an Invitation for Bid (IFB) for digital signatures, which will become another vendor-hosted storage solution offered through CalCloud. In a related move, California says it’s putting on hold a procurement of a vendor-hosted time and attendance system until a separate procurement underway for a Learning Management System is finished.
California reminds vendors that bid responses for Cloud Backup Secondary Storage is due Sept. 23, and that a bid invitation for On Premise Storage was released Aug. 26.
Other noteworthy procurement developments this month:
- The California Department of Food and Agriculture on Sept. 2 unveiled a pre-solicitation document (pre-RFP) for a licensing solution for the new Medical Cannabis Cultivation Program. The agency also plans to separately procure a “track and trace” solution to track medical cannabis from cultivation through sale at a dispensary, presumably procured through a separate bid. CDFA has posted an online resource with more details about new technology systems it will develop the next two years for the medical cannabis industry.
- The California Department of Justice has released an RFQ for a contractor to provide an authentication and account verification assessment services for the CURES 2.0 system. Specifically, the four-week effort will assess CURES 2.0 registration, user account verification and authentication, and the login process to identify potential improvements for usability and security methods, according to CalDOJ. The Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES) 2.0 system rolled out in January after a soft launch last summer. The modernized platform gives qualified users a secure, browser-based login where they can interact with data that flags patients who are suspected of "doctor shopping" or are prescribed medications that might be fatal when used in combination, among other functions.
