Request for Proposals for Section 504 Self Evaluation of Programs, Activities and Services

Background

The Sonoma County Community Development Commission (CDC) is dedicated to promoting decent and affordable housing, revitalizing communities, and supporting public services that increase economic stability for County residents. Funding for CDC activities flows from a variety of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sources including HOME, Community Development Block Grant, Emergency Solutions Grant, Continuum of Care, Housing Choice Voucher, Mainstream and Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing. 

On June 18, 2019, the CDC entered into a Voluntary Compliance Agreement (VCA) with HUD Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO). The VCA requires the CDC to complete a Section 504 Self-Evaluation of its programs, activities and services. 

Scope of Services

The selected respondent will be required to complete a Section 504 Self-Evaluation of all of the CDC’s federally funded programs, services, and activities. Evaluation must include:

• A review of CDC policies, procedures and practices
• Consulting with persons with disabilities or organizations representing persons with disabilities
• Consulting with CDC program managers and key staff.
• Identifying timeframes needed to complete any necessary modifications to policies, procedures and practices to come into compliance with Section 504.
• Completion of all work remotely.

Upon completion of the Section 504 Self-Evaluation, the selected respondent must provide CDC with a comprehensive evaluation of the Section 504 compliance of all policies, procedures, practices, programs, activities and services. The evaluation shall include any deficiencies found and proposed solutions to the deficiencies. If modifications to policies or practices are required, consultant shall provide draft amendments to policies or practices.

All work must be complete by October 26, 2020 unless consultant and CDC mutually agree to a later date.

Submission Requirements

General Instructions:

To receive consideration, proposals shall be made in accordance with the following general instructions:

1. The completed proposal shall be without alterations or erasures.
2. No oral or telephonic proposals will be considered.
3. The submission of a proposal shall be an indication that the proposer has investigated and satisfied him/herself as to the conditions to be encountered, the character, quality and scope of the work to be performed, and the requirements of the CDC, including all terms and conditions contained within this RFP. Fill in any additional conditions specific to your RFP (e.g. Must be present for a walk-through meeting on X date.)

Proposal Format and Contents: 

For ease of review and to facilitate evaluation, the proposals for this project should be organized and presented in the order requested as follows:

Section I: Organizational Information

Provide specific information concerning the firm in this section, including the legal name, address, and telephone number of your company and the type of entity (sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation and whether public or private). Include the name and telephone number of the person(s) in your company authorized to execute the proposed contract. If two or more firms are involved in a joint venture or association, the proposal must clearly delineate the respective areas of authority and responsibility of each party. All parties signing the Agreement with the CDC must be individually liable for the completion of the entire project even when the areas of responsibility under the terms of the joint venture or association are limited.

Section II: Qualifications and Experience:

• Provide specific information in this section concerning the firm's experience in the services specified in this RFP. Examples of completed projects, as current as possible, should be submitted, as appropriate. References are required. Please provide names, addresses, and telephone numbers of contact persons within This may need to be altered for each RFP three (3) client agencies for whom similar services have been provided.
• Debarment or Other Disqualification - Proposer must disclose any debarment or other disqualification as a vendor for any federal, state or local entities. Proposer must describe the nature of the debarment/disqualification, including where and how to find such detailed information.

Section III: Project Approach and Work Schedule:

• Provide a description of the methodology developed to perform all required services, with an aggressive schedule that will complete the project October 15, 2020, if possible. Schedule should contain specific milestones and dates of completion which will be used to set schedules. Also identify the extent of CDC personnel involvement deemed necessary, including key decision points at each stage of the project. Information as to the type of any software that is anticipated to be used in the planning process should also be discussed.
• Include your response to the Scope of Work as referenced above.

Section IV: Cost of Service

The proposal shall clearly state ALL of the costs associated with the project, broken down by category of products and services, and all on-going costs for recommended or required products and services.

Keep the section below for a competitive RFP or for a bid, but you do not need it for an RFP for which you do not expect a lot of response.

The project costs must be broken out and include all expenses that will be charged to the Commission, including but not limited hourly rates for labor, overhead and profit, subcontractor costs, on-site general conditions, software costs, implementation fees, shipping, insurance, communications, documentation reproduction, and all expenses, including travel, meal reimbursement, hotel per diems, taxes, etc. Failure to clearly identify all costs associated with the proposal may be cause for rejection of the Consultant’s proposal.

Section V: Identification of Subcontractors

Proposers shall identify all subcontractors they intend to use for the proposed scope of work. For each subcontractor listed, proposers shall indicate (1) what products and/or services are to be supplied by that subcontractor and, (2) what percentage of the overall scope of work that subcontractor will perform.

Section VI: Insurance

The selected proposer will be required to submit and comply with all insurance as described in the attached Sample Insurance Agreement (Attachment B) or identify specific exceptions to the sample agreement.

Section VII: Additional Information

Include any other information you believe to be pertinent but not required.

Section VIII: Contract Terms:

Proposers must include a statement acknowledging their willingness to accept the sample contract terms (Attachment A) or identify specific exceptions to the sample agreement.

Timeline

The following schedule is subject to change. If the timeline is changed, all known recipients of the original RFP will be notified of new dates, and any such changes will also be posted on the Commission’s website.

Questions

All questions must be submitted in writing no later than 11:59 p.m., August 12, 2020. If any questions are received, all questions will be responded to in an addendum issued and posted on the Commission’s website. The Commission will not provide verbal responses to any inquiries made by prospective respondents. The Commission will instead direct respondents to submit all questions in writing. Questions should be submitted via e-mail to Holly.Kelley@sonoma-county.org with Section 504 Self-Evaluation RFP indicated in the subject line of the email.  

Instructions for Proposal Submittal

Respondents must submit one (1) electronic copy to Holly Kelley at Holly.Kelley@sonoma-county.org

Note: Respondents must be registered to submit electronic responses. See registration instructions on the Supplier Portal link above. 

Selection Process

1. All proposals received by the specified deadline will be reviewed by the CDC for content, including but not limited to fee, related experience and professional qualifications of the bidding consultants. 
2. CDC employees will not participate in the selection process when those employees have a relationship with a person or business entity submitting a proposal. Any person or business entity submitting a proposal who has such a relationship with a CDC employee who may be involved in the selection process shall advise the CDC of the name of the CDC employee in the proposal.
3. Proposals may be evaluated using the following criteria (note that there is no value or ranking implied in the order of this list):

• Demonstrated ability to perform the services described;
• Experience, qualifications and expertise;
• Quality of work as verified by references;
• Costs relative to the scope of services;
• A demonstrated history of providing similar services to comparable entities;
• Willingness to accept the CDC’s contract terms; and
•  Any other factors the evaluation committee deems relevant. (When such criteria are used for evaluation purposes, the basis for scoring will be clearly documented and will become part of the public record.)

The CDC’s Executive Director reserves the right, in his or her sole discretion, to take any of the following actions at any time before Commission approval of an award: waive informalities or minor irregularities in any proposals received, reject any and all proposals, cancel the RFP, or modify and re-issue the RFP. Failure to furnish all information requested or to follow the format requested herein may disqualify the proposer, in the sole discretion of the CDC. False, incomplete, misleading or unresponsive statements in a proposal may also be sufficient cause for a proposal’s rejection.  

The CDC may, during the evaluation process, request from any proposer additional information which the CDC deems necessary to determine the proposer’s ability to perform the required services. If such information is requested, the proposer shall be permitted three (3) business days to submit the information requested.

An error in the proposal may cause the rejection of that proposal; however, the CDC may, in its sole discretion, retain the proposal and make certain corrections. In determining if a correction will be made, the CDC will consider the conformance of the proposal to the format and content required by the RFP, and any unusual complexity of the format and content required by the RFP. If the proposer’s intent is clearly established based on review of the complete proposal submittal, the CDC may, at its sole option, correct an error based on that established content. The CDC may also correct obvious clerical errors. The CDC may also request clarification from a proposer on any item in a proposal that CDC believes to be in error.

• The CDC reserves the right to select the proposal which in its sole judgment best meets the needs of the Commission. The lowest proposed cost is not the sole criterion for recommending contract award.

All firms responding to this RFP will be notified of their selection or non-selection after the evaluation committee has completed the selection process.

• Under certain circumstances the firm selected by the CDC may be recommended to the Board of Commissioners for this project, but the Commission is not bound to accept the recommendation or award the project to the recommended firm. 

4. Finalist Interviews

After initial screening, the evaluation committee may select those firms deemed most qualified for this project for further evaluation. Interviews of these selected firms may be conducted as part of the final selection process. Interviews may or may not have their own separate scoring during the evaluation process.