1-01. Notice to Bidders RFQ 317-26 Forensic Audit and Related Professional Services.pdf

CITY OF AMARILLO

PROJECT SPECIFICATIONS

Contract and Bidding Documents for

REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS

Forensic Audit and Related Professional Services

FOR

THE CITY OF AMARILLO, TEXAS

Bid No.

RFQ 317-26 MRH

Bid Closing:

Thursday, September 10th, 2026, at 3:00 P.M.

REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS

Forensic Audit and Related Professional Services

The intent of this RFQ is to enable the City of Amarillo to evaluate the knowledge, capabilities, and experience of respondents to provide forensic audit and related services on an as-needed basis, specifically those involving relevant governmental and municipal forensic audit expertise. It is the intent of the city to award this RFQ to the highest evaluated respondent.

APPROXIMATE TIMELINE

Issuance of RFQ August 11th, 2026, at 8:00 A.M Advertisement Dates August 11th, 2026, and August 18th, 2026 Deadline for RFQ Questions August 24th, 2026 at 3:30 P.M.

Deadline for Proposal Submissions September 10th, 2026, at 3:00 P.M.

DUE DATE AND DELIVERY LOCATION

Proposers may submit proposals electronically by uploading required documents at the City of Amarillo’s partner’s website, Euna Procurement. This Request for Proposals is for your convenience in submitting an offer for the specified services.

Proposals may be withdrawn prior to the above scheduled time set for closing.

GENERAL CONDITIONS

LEGAL ADDRESSES:

All notices, letters, and other communications to you will be emailed or delivered to the respondent's business address or email address listed in your response. You may change the address or contact information at any time by email to the City of Amarillo.

INDEMNIFICATION:

Consultant agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless City and its elected officials, officers, agents, and employees from and against any and all claims, demands, damages, costs, liabilities and expenses, Including penalties, fines, Judgments (including court costs, interest and reasonable attorney’s fees), of any kind arising out of the negligent acts, errors, or omissions of consultant, its employees, subcontractors or agents in performing services under this agreement. Consultant is to perform in a sound and professional manner by exercising the degree of care, skill, and diligence in the performance of the services as is exercised by a professional under similar circumstances at the time such services are performed. This indemnity provided herein shall survive the expiration or termination of this agreement.

FUNDING OUT CLAUSE:

Notwithstanding any contrary provision of this agreement, each payment obligation of the City created by this agreement is conditioned upon the availability of funds that are appropriated or allocated by the

Amarillo City Council for the payment of the product of functionally similar products. If sufficient funds are not allocated and available for any subsequent fiscal year (October 1 to September 30) during the term of this agreement, the City may terminate this agreement or reduce its obligation to match the appropriated funding. The City shall notify the vendor that funds have not been appropriated by the City Council at the earliest possible time and this agreement will terminate or be reduced at the beginning of the fiscal year for which no funds or reduced funds have been appropriated by the City Council. No penalty shall accrue to the City in the event this provision is exercised, and the City shall not be obligated or liable for any future payments due or for any damages as a result of termination or reduction under this section. This provision shall not be construed so as to permit the City to terminate or reduce this agreement in order to purchase, lease or rent similar equipment from another entity.

INSURANCE:

CONSULTANT will provide insurance coverage in accordance with CLIENT’S insurance requirements as set forth in the “Certificate of Insurance Requirements,” attached to this Agreement and by reference made a part hereof. If the required insurance is terminated, altered, or changed in a manner not acceptable to CLIENT, this Agreement may be terminated by CLIENT, without penalty, on written notice to CONSULTANT. In addition, CONSULTANT will provide Professional Liability Insurance in the amount of One Million and No/100 Dollars ($1,000,000.00) per claim for this Agreement’s term.

PROPOSALS BECOME PUBLIC RECORDS; MARKING CONFIDENTIAL OR PROPRIETARY

INFORMATION

During the evaluation process, the City of Amarillo treats all responses with the highest level of confidentiality. However, once the evaluation process has been completed and a contract is awarded, the entire procurement becomes public information. If you consider any portion of your response to be confidential and/or proprietary and that disclosure of its contents to competitors would cause you substantial competitive harm, then you must clearly identify those portions of your response by placing the term CONFIDENTIAL OR PROPRIETARY in bold letters on the applicable page(s). The City of Amarillo will attempt to protect the identified portions from disclosure to the extent possible under the law. You will be given notice of any request for disclosure of the identified information and given the opportunity to support your claim of confidentiality before the Texas Attorney General.

QUESTIONS, CLARIFICATIONS and CORRESPONDENCE:

All questions and requests for clarification must be submitted to the Purchasing Agent in writing and will be answered by the Purchasing Agent in writing. No questions will be accepted or answered verbally. Except as provided in this section, upon issuance of this RFP, RFQ, or Bid vendors are specifically directed not to contact other City personnel, to include any Engineers or Architects and anyone other than purchasing personnel for answers to questions, clarifications, meeting, conferences, or technical discussions or anything else related to this RFP, RFQ, or Bid. Failure to strictly abide by this policy may result in the immediate disqualification of the vendor from this and other bidding opportunities.

If the answers do not change the information published in the original documents, they will be sent a clarification only. If the answers do change the information published in the original documents, they will be sent an addendum. Addendums require signed acknowledgement of receipt of the addendum and submitted with the response to the RFP, RFQ, or Bid as instructed.

It is the responsibility of the respondent to verify if any addendum(s) or clarification(s) have been issued and to make sure the respondent has received all copies. Contact the Purchasing Department at 806-378-3028 to verify this information. Respondents may also go to our bidding platform, Euna (Bonfire) and register as a vendor with the City of Amarillo and to download a copy of the addendum or any other bidding documents. Addendums and clarifications will be posted to the bidding platform website.

All questions must be submitted at least 10 days prior to the bid due date. All questions will be answered at least 7 days prior to the bid due date. If the questions cannot be fully answered by that time then, the closing date of the bid will be extended by addenda to allow sufficient time for all questions to be answered and those answers to be provided to all registered vendors. All questions must be submitted via bidding platform, Euna (formerly Bonfire). No questions will not be answered by phone, orally or written outside of Bonfire.

ACCEPTANCE OR REJECTION OF PROPOSALS:

The City of Amarillo reserves the right to accept or reject any or all responses or parts of responses, to waive any formalities and technicalities, and to accept the best evaluated response. Responses to this RFQ are to be signed by an officer of the company authorized to bind the company in a contract and shall remain valid for not less than one hundred twenty (120) days unless otherwise stated by the City.

CANCELLATION:

The RFQ may be cancelled (in part or in its entirety) at any time with written notice by the City of Amarillo.

REIMBURSEMENTS:

There is no express or implied obligation for the City of Amarillo to reimburse respondents for any expenses incurred in preparing responses to this Request for Qualifications. The City of Amarillo will not reimburse respondents for these expenses, nor will the City of Amarillo pay any subsequent costs associated with the provision of any additional information or presentation, or to procure a contract for these services.

DISPUTES:

In case of any doubt or difference of opinion as to the services and deliverables herein, the decisions of the City of Amarillo shall be final and binding on both parties. The laws of the State of Texas will govern interpretation and performance of the obligations imposed on the parties pursuant to this order.

Further, the successful respondent agrees that the courts of the State of Texas shall have jurisdiction over the successful respondent with respect to any action brought by the City of Amarillo relating to the performance of the respondent’s obligation hereunder. Venue and jurisdiction of any suit, right or cause of action arising under or in connection with these specifications, shall lie exclusively in Potter County, Texas.

DEFAULT:

In case of default by the successful responder, the City of Amarillo may procure the services from other sources.

CONDITIONS FOR PROPOSAL SUBMITTAL

All responses to this RFQ become the property of the City of Amarillo. The City of Amarillo will not return responses or other information supplied to the City of Amarillo.

All respondents shall comply with all conditions, requirements, and specifications contained herein.

Any departure will constitute sufficient cause for rejection of the response.

Responses are to contain a statement indicating the period during which the response will remain valid.

A period of not less than one hundred twenty (120) days is required.

FAMILIARITY WITH SCOPE OF WORK:

This RFQ is based on the Scope of Work and information included in this document. Prior to submission of any response, each respondent should be thoroughly familiar with the scope, information, and the general terms and conditions in this package. The failure or omission of any respondent to examine any form, instrument or document shall in no way relieve any respondent from any obligation in respect to his/her response. No allowance will be made because of lack of knowledge of this document. It is the responsibility of each respondent to ascertain the completeness of the information contained herein and thoroughly address those concerns in their response to this RFQ.

SPECIFIC PERFORMANCE:

This RFQ will require specific performance on all criteria as stated in your response. All specifications are as written unless specifically taken exception to by you. Any exception accepted by the City of Amarillo will be strictly adhered to. Responders must submit written requests for exceptions to any specifications/conditions with their response. Exceptions made without submission of a written request may result in disqualification.

PROHIBITION:

Do not submit pricing information unless specifically requested by the City in a later phase of the procurement process. If pricing information is submitted, the response to the RFQ will not be considered.

SCOPE OF WORK

Scope of Work is included in “02. Attachment A - Scope of Work - Forensic Audit Services”

RFQ RESPONSE ELEMENTS AND FORMAT

The City requires comprehensive responses to every section within this RFQ. To facilitate the review of the responses, Respondents shall follow the described response format. The intent of the response format requirements is to expedite review and evaluation. It is not the intent to constrain Respondents with regard to content, but to assure that the specific requirements set forth in this RFQ are addressed in a uniform manner amenable to review and evaluation. A response that does not provide all the information requested below may be deemed non-responsive. Your response must concisely contain sufficient information to assure the City of its accuracy and any additional information necessary to summarize the overall benefit of the response to the City. Proposals must include the following information in the order listed:

Cover Sheet Table of Contents A. Qualifications and Experience B. Key Personnel and Credentials C. Technical Approach and Capabilities D. Governmental Client List and References E. Independence, Conflicts, and Disclosures

Detailed information about each response element may be found in Attachment A – Scope of Work.

EVALUATION OF PROPOSALS

After the responses are opened on the date and time stated, they will be reviewed for responsiveness by the Purchasing Department. In order for a response to be considered responsive to this RFQ, it must conform to all the substantial material terms and conditions required herein. A response that does not conform will be declared non-responsive and will not be further evaluated.

The responsive replies will undergo a second evaluation conducted by members of the Evaluation Committee based upon the evaluation criteria and scoring matrix outlined within 02. Attachment A - Scope of Work – Forensic Audit Services. Responsive submissions may then be evaluated by an evaluation committee, which may include representatives of management, finance, internal audit, purchasing, the Audit Committee, or other individuals designated by the city. The respondent selected for award will ultimately be chosen on the basis of the best evaluated response by the City of Amarillo.

The City may request interviews, presentations, or clarifying information from one or more respondents.

The City may also establish a shortlist of the most qualified firms.

PRESENTATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS:

Contract negotiations may be conducted with responsible respondents who submit Qualifications that are reasonably susceptible of being selected. Respondents reasonably susceptible of being selected based on criteria set forth in this RFQ may be given an opportunity to make a presentation and/or interview with the Evaluation Committee. Following any presentation and/or interviews, firms will be ranked in order of preference and contract negotiations will begin with the top ranked respondent.

Should negotiations with the highest ranked respondent fail to yield a contract, or if the respondent is unable to execute said contract, negotiations will be formally ended and then commence with the second highest ranked respondent, etc. However, the City of Amarillo reserves the right, within its sole discretion, to award a contract without presentations or interviews, based solely on information supplied in the RFQ responses.

AWARD OF CONTRACT

CONTRACT FORM:

Please submit a sample contract that your company uses for this service. We will work with the selected respondent to negotiate a contract that is acceptable to both parties. If there is a conflict with the contract and the proposal, the proposal will prevail. All other documents including the original Request for Qualifications package together with all addendums and clarifications and the successful respondents bid documents will be included by reference.

NOTE: the form of contract and business points will be negotiated with the successful proposer.

CONDITIONS FOR AWARD OF CONTRACT

The City may use this RFQ to prequalify firms, establish a pool of qualified firms, or support the selection of a firm for a later-defined engagement. Any final contract, if awarded, will be subject to approval by the City and execution of terms acceptable to the City.

All remaining standard terms in the City's RFQ template, including insurance, debarment, indebtedness, conflict of interest, ethics, contract documentation, and related administrative provisions, should be retained and confirmed as needed in the final issued version.

ASSIGNMENT OF PROPOSAL / CONTRACT:

Once the Contract is awarded to the successful Respondent, the Respondent cannot assign or subcontract the work or any part thereof, without the previous written consent of the City of Amarillo, which shall not be unreasonably withheld.

CONTRACT DOCUMENT REQUIREMENTS:

After the proposal has been awarded by the City of Amarillo, the Purchasing Department will send the awarded respondent a Notice of Award which will include a contract and a listing of other documentation required prior to fully executing the contract. Upon receipt of this notice, the vendor will have ten (10) calendar days to provide the Purchasing Department with all of the insurance, signed contracts and any other documentation that is required by the terms and conditions of the proposal. The Contracts must be signed by the City of Amarillo, insurance, and all other conditions required by the terms and conditions of the proposal must also be met before any work may begin. If there is failure to demonstrate good faith effort in providing the necessary documentation, then the respondent will be considered to have abandoned his proposal. The proposal will then be considered as non-responsive and may be promptly re-awarded to the next best evaluated proposal.

DEBARMENT CERTIFICATION:

Respondent will be required to certify that neither it nor its principals are currently debarred, suspended, proposed for debarment, declared ineligible, or voluntarily excluded from participation in the Contract resulting from these specifications by any federal department or agency. This will be included as part of the City of Amarillo Vendor Acknowledgement Form.

INDEBTEDNESS TO THE CITY OF AMARILLO:

Per City Ordinance No. 6706, the City of Amarillo will not award a proposal to vendors who are delinquent in any indebtedness to this City. As stated in City Ordinance No. 6706: “For contracts or transactions subject to competitive bidding or proposals, pursuant to Chapter 252, Subchapter B, of the Texas Local Government Code or other applicable law, a person who owes a debt to the City as of the date that the bid or proposal is opened shall not be eligible to win the bid or be awarded a contract or have the transaction approved, even if the person presents the apparent low bid, successful proposal, or best offer, unless such person shall within three (3) business days satisfy the debt owed to the City.”

CITY EXCLUDED PARTIES LIST:

Please note the City’s Excluded Parties List attached and submit your bid accordingly. It will apply to this City of Amarillo RFQ.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

Per the terms of Chapter 176 of the Local Government Code, should any vendor be awarded all or any part of the goods or services on which this Proposal solicits a return, then it is the vendor’s sole responsibility to provide the City of Amarillo, with an updated Conflict of Interest Questionnaire, Form CIQ. The vendor must file the updated form within 7 days after learning that a prior filing (if any) is no longer accurate. This form and the names of the City Council Members, Mayor, City Manager, Deputy City Manager, and Assistant City Managers is available on the City’s website located at www.amarillo.gov

FORM 1295

Effective January 1, 2016, The Texas Legislature adopted House Bill 1295, which added Section

2252.908 of the Government Code. The law states that a governmental entity or state agency may not enter into certain contracts with a business entity unless the business entity submits a disclosure of interested parties (Form 1295) to the governmental entity or state agency at the time the business entity submits the signed contract to the governmental entity or state agency. The Texas Ethics Commission has adopted rules requiring the business entity to file form 1295 electronically with the Commission. Before the City of Amarillo will enter into a binding agreement with a business, that said business must submit form 1295. The said business must go to www.ethics.state.tx.us to file the reports electronically. Once the said business has filed the report electronically the said business will print a copy of the form and submit back to the City with the signed copy of the contracts. Once the City has received the copy of the submitted form 1295 and acknowledged the form on the Texas Ethics Commission website the City will execute the Contract.

ETHICS-ENERGY BOYCOTT

Texas Government Code, Chapter 809, prohibits a governmental entity from entering into a contract for goods and services with a company that has 10 or more employees, and the contract is of $100,000 value or greater. Vendor certifies that it (1) does not boycott energy companies; and (2) will not boycott energy companies during the term of the contract.

ETHICS- FIREARMS DISCRIMINATION

Texas Government Code, Chapter 2274, prohibits a governmental entity from entering into a contract for goods and services with a company that has 10 or more employees, and the contract is of $100,00 value or greater. Vendor certifies that it: (1) does not have a practice, policy, guidance, or directive that discriminates against a firearm entity or firearm trade association; and (2) will not discriminate during the term of the contract against a firearm entity or firearm trade association

ATTACHMENTS:

02. Attachment A - Scope of Work – Forensic Audit Services

03. Attachment B - References Template

04. Attachment C - City of Amarillo Vendor Acknowledgement Form

05. Attachment D - Respondent Signature Page

06. Attachment E - Insurance Sample

07. Attachment F – Local Preference Consideration

08. Attachment G – CEP List Revised 10.3.2024