The Department of General Services (DGS) is planning to revise its IT consulting MSA in 2017 and wants feedback on proposed changes and additions to this popular and often-used procurement vehicle.
Under a pre-RFP released publicly this month, DGS is proposing to expand the number of eligible job classifications to 25 (previously there have been just seven), allow vendors to adjust their pricing based on California's Consumer Price Index in some circumstances, and allow purchase orders completed before the end of the MSA term contract to continue as needed beyond the MSA expiration date, among other changes.
"As successful as that [IT MSA] contract has been, we knew there were some features we needed to improve," DGS deputy director and state chief procurement chief Jim Butler said in September.
DGS is asking for feedback on the pre-RFP and requests responses be submitted by Dec. 16.
More than 165 contractors are currently qualified to provide services under the MSA for IT consulting services. It most recently was put out to bid in 2013. The existing IT Consulting Services MSA is scheduled to expire in March 2018 for a majority of contractors; some contracts, though, will be over in 2017.
As currently constructed, firms qualified under the MSA list are able to charge prenegotiated hourly rates to state customers for contract staff. Delegated purchasing authority for a single order is capped at three tiers: $1.5 million, $5 million and $10 million. Those three tiers won't change under the new procurement.
DGS explains in documentation on its website that "the services under the [current] IT Consulting MSA include, but are not limited to IV&V, Project Management, Cloud Assessment and Migration Services. IT Consulting Services does not include staff augmentation, commercial software or hardware."
State agencies and departments typically are required to go through a Request for Offer process when procuring services through the MSA.
Within the pre-RFP, DGS lists the proposed 25 job classiciations:
a. Senior Project Manager
b. Project Manager
c. Senior Technical Lead
d. Technical Lead
e. Business Solutions Analyst
f. Senior Programmer
g. Programmer
h. Technical Writer
i. Information Security Specialist
j. Senior Enterprise Architect
k. Enterprise Architect
l. Product Manager
m. Technical Architect
n. Interaction Designer/User Researcher/Usability Tester
o. Writer/Content Designer/Content Strategist
p. Visual Designer
q. Front End Web Developer
r. Back End Web Developer
s. DevOps Engineer
t. Security Engineer
u. Delivery Manager
v. Agile Coach
w. Business Analyst
x. Digital Performance Analyst
y. Informatics Data Analyst
