RFI for RD - FO Support BPA.pdf

1.0 DESCRIPTION

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development (RD) Finance Office (FO) is issuing this request for information (RFI) to solicit feedback from industry and potential sources related to USDA RD FO’s need for support with report generation, process automation, process improvement, and data analysis for FO responsibilities like Budget Formulation, Budget Execution, Credit Reform Act of 1990 Activities, and Accounting. USDA RD FO expects to award a multi-year Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) to one or more sources for this initiative. Section 5 is the draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) for the BPA. The PWS may be updated based on information gathered from this RFI.

THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE, REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI). This is not a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Quote (RFQ). This request for capability information does not constitute an RFP or RFQ and does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service, whatsoever. Further, the USDA, RD is not at this time seeking proposals or quotes and will not accept unsolicited proposals or quotations. Submission of any information in response to this market survey is purely voluntary. However, responses received will assist the Government if solicitation is issued in the future. The government assumes no financial responsibility for any costs incurred associated with this request for capability information. Not responding to this source sought does not preclude participation in any future RFP or RFQ, if any is issued. Potential offerors are responsible for monitoring government websites such as GSA or SAM for any potential opportunities. Responses do not guarantee award nor exclude/include your company in any potential acquisition process. No feedback or evaluations will be provided to companies regarding their submissions.

This RFI is being used as a Market Research tool for informational purposes and for preliminary planning purposes to identify potential sources that possess the required experience and expertise to provide the required support. Small and large businesses are encouraged to respond.

2.0 BACKGROUND

The objective of the USDA, RD FO regarding this RFI is to obtain information from industry capability statements and RFI responses to questions on specific federal financial activity topics

3.0 REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

Interested parties, who consider themselves qualified sources that can provide the requested support for USDA RD FO activities are invited to provide a written response to the questions in Exhibit A below and electronically submit your responses to jennifer.ford@usda.gov no later than 5:00pm EASTERN TIME (ET) on May 22, 2026 No extensions to the delivery date will be granted.

3.1 Responses:

Submission Instructions: Interested parties are encouraged to respond to this sources sought/RFI. All communications shall be in writing and submitted electronically via email to Jennifer Ford, jennifer.ford@usda.gov and Lawanda Henry, lawanda.henry@usda.gov . No information will be taken by phone. Written responses should be delivered in MS Word (.docx) and/or Portable Document Format (PDF) and are due no later than 5:00PM ET May 22, 2026. Your mailto:jennifer.ford@usda.gov mailto:jennifer.ford@usda.gov mailto:lawanda.henry@usda.gov entire submission should be limited to 15 pages (8x11), single spaced, 12-point font minimum and should be separated by Sections. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED with (PR) nomenclature at the start of each paragraph. Please be advised that all submissions become Government Property and will not be returned. Do not submit a cost proposal.

Exhibit A: Please provide the following information in your submission:

1. Name of Company/Organization

2. Company/Organization Address

3. Company/Organization Website URL

4. Point of Contact (POC) Name:

5. POC Email Address:

6. POC Phone Number:

7. System for Award Management (SAM) Unique Entity Identifier (UEI) (An offeror must have a UEI and be registered in SAM by the time of award.)

8. Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE)

9. GSA Multiple Award Schedule Contract Number and Expiration Date, if applicable

10. Indicate the size classification of your Company/Organization.

a. Small Business (SB)

b. Other Than Small Business

11. Indicate the socio-economic status of your Company/Organization.

a. SBA-Certified Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB)

b. Woman-Owned Business

c. Economically Disadvantaged WOSB (EDWOSB)

d. Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB)

e. Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB)

f. SBA-Certified HUBZone (HUBZ) Firm

g. SBA-Certified 8(a)

h. Alaska Native Corporations (ANC) Tribal, American Indian, Native Hawaiian (NHO)

i. None

j. Other

12. Provide the history and background overview of the company.

13. In your estimation, would your Company/Organization need to subcontract to other companies for any of the task or subject areas in the BPA? If so, which tasks or subject areas?

14. Other than specifics on potential BPA calls, what other information, if any, would be necessary to have to prepare a proposal?

15. Do you have experience supporting Federal Government Budget Execution and Reporting responsibilities as identified in the draft PWS? If so, please describe your experience.

16. Do you have experience supporting Federal Government Budget Formulation responsibilities as identified in the draft PWS? If so, please describe your experience.

17. Do you have experience supporting Credit Reform Act of 1990 Activities as identified in the draft PWS. If so, please describe your experience.

18. Do you have experience with statistical model development, review and validation, particularly with the types of models in compliance with Section 185 of OMB circular A-11?

If so, please describe your experience.

19. Do you have experience supporting Federal Government Accounting responsibilities as identified in the draft PWS. If so, please describe your experience.

20. Do you have experience with measurable organizational operations process improvement?

If so, please describe your experience and approach.

21. Do you have experience with process improvement initiatives focused on data analysis/information management? If so, please describe your experience and approach.

22. Do you have experience with process automation initiatives? If so, please describe your experience and approach to process automation. What automation tools do you have experience utilizing? What organizational levels have the automation tools impacted (e.g.

local/division or branch; regional/agency; enterprise-wide)? Please also describe the size and complexity of the data set(s) involved.

23. Do you have experience managing large Federal Agency data sets; complex or complicated ETL procedures; designing data standards; meta data management procedures; and/or similar activities? If so, please describe your experience.

24. Do you have any experience with using Large Language Models and/or Artificial Intelligence to enhance business processes, data modeling, financial reporting, and/or predictive analytics to forecast future events/behaviors? If so, please describe your experience.

Your capability statement should provide responses to the questions listed in Exhibit A of this document and any additional information to substantiate your demonstrated capability to provide the services described in the draft PWS. Fax submissions will not be accepted. Responses received after this date and time may not be considered in the Government's market research. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information submitted. Respondents will not individually be notified of the results of the Government assessments and should not anticipate feedback with regard to its submission.

4.0 SUMMARY

The information provided in the sources sought is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. The USDA, RD, has not made a commitment to procure any of the services discussed, and release of this sources sought/RFI should not be construed as such a commitment or as authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement would be required or sought.

5.0 DRAFT PERFORMANCE WORK STATEMENT

The contractor shall support the USDA Rural Development (RD) Finance Office (FO) with a wide range of financial and business services and solutions which ultimately support RD Program Areas such as Rural Utilities Service, Rural Housing Service, Rural Business Cooperative Service, USDA RD Business Center and the Innovation Center. Considering the importance of the tasks listed below to the Rural Development mission, it is imperative that the Contractor provide highly proficient, skilled, and experienced staff capable of providing support needs throughout the entirety of life of the BPA and all Calls.

OBP is looking to significantly transform its current financial and business model to exploit technologies and data to become more flexible, responsive, reliable, and secure at a scalable enterprise level. This ultimately will enable Rural Development to be more effective in executing its mission and aligned with USDA’s vision and strategic objectives.

The following categories describe the FO responsibilities in scope for the BPA.

BUDGET EXECUTION

• Apportionment Preparation & Submission- Prepare, validate, and route apportionment requests (Full Year, Continuing Resolution (CR), Carryover, Re-estimate, Modifications, and Warrants) to OBPA for OMB approval; maintain audit-ready documentation; and apply expert analysis of apportionments for compliance with appropriations law when allotting funds.

• Funds Allotment- Plan, prepare and execute funds allotments (Carryover/Recovery, CR, Automatic Apportionment, Full Year, Re-estimate, and other miscellaneous allotments) for RD program areas.

• Funds Obligation and Disbursement- Receive requests from RD organizations and process obligations and disbursements against administrative allotments.

• Funds Control & Tracking- Maintain and reconcile funds control (apportionments, allotments, sub-allotments, obligations, outlays) ensuring alignment with SF-132/SF-133, RC502 and internal funds control plans and documents.

• Spend Plan Development & Maintenance- Build and update annual and multi-year spend plans by budget authority, program level, object class, and project.

• Funds Reallocation and Management Action- Reprogramming, Realignment, Carryover, Recoveries & De-Obligation Sweeps- Identify excess/unliquidated balances/obligations;

prepare realignment packages; execute the carryover and recovery process.

• Regulatory Monitoring & Guidance Implementation- Track OMB/Treasury/Agency guidance;

update standard operating procedures (SOPs) and tools; brief impacts to execution workflows

• Audit Readiness & Documentation- Maintain audit-ready evidence for apportionments, allotments, warrants, non-expenditure transfers (NETs), SF-133, and re-estimates; support internal/external reviews.

• Develop and analyze the RD FTE and payroll forecasts and maintain payroll forecasting data and tools.

• Provide recurring reports on salaries and benefits, actual costs and future forecasting as part of the Burn Rate and Operating Plan reporting for the USEC office and HR to properly plan RD-wide staffing.

BUDGET OUTREACH

• Develop and produce budget year obligation projections and program account justifications. Integrate that data into OMB’s MAX accounting application.

• Internal Reporting – maintain, develop and generate recurring and ad hoc reports and dashboards including monthly status of funds, trends, and the RD Financial/Obligation Dashboard

• External Reporting – Respond to inquiries from non-RD sources. Develop briefing materials for USDA Leadership and Congressional Budget Hearings.

• Develop internal RD communications regarding program allotments and transfers.

BUDGET FORMULATION

• Budget Formulation Analysis – provide analysis and support to RD mission areas. Serves as central point of contact for financial management to each of the three program agencies, the Innovation Center, Business Center and the Office of External Affairs. Perform all budget development activities for all of RD’s program accounts for all cycles of the budget, including Agency Estimates, Department Estimates, and President’s Budget.

• Liaise with the Departmental Office of Budget and Program Analysis (OBPA), Office of Congressional Relations (OCR), Office of the General Counsel (OGC) and other Departmental units.

• Consolidate prior year data and formulate current year and budget year projections for integration into OMB’s MAX accounting application.

• Lead development of budget year obligation projections and program account justifications for the President’s Budget.

CREDIT REFORM ACT OF 1990 ACTIVITIES

• Develop, coordinate, and manage RD's policy on credit, debt, and cash management issues and initiatives; review policy and operational options; and assist with implementation.

• Assess the impact of credit and management initiatives on the programs of all three agencies.

• Calculate the subsidy rates for the President Budget for each RD direct and guaranteed loan program.

• Re-calculate the projected subsidy of the Formulation for every program and every cohort from 1992 to present.

• Perform trend analysis including the preparation of justifications (proposing alternative model arguments or arguments to remove on-off results) when there are unusual fluctuations (five (5) percentage points, increase or decrease) in any of the subsidy rate or component changes.

• Conduct trend analysis research for all the material programs as well as any programs that show $60 million in absolute variation.

• Calculate any modification costs that arise due to changes in legislation or regulations or changes to contractual loan terms that would have an impact on credit subsidy cost.

• Ensure compliance with all guidelines for Federal Credit modeling and accounting as provided in the Federal Credit Reform Act and regulatory requirements set by OMB, Auditors or other stakeholders.

• Maintain, enhance, and develop new financial models as required by law, updates to OMB’s Credit Subsidy Calculators, updates to A-129 or A-11, or other regulatory changes. This includes development of automation tools to facilitate process updates that can be made to increase efficiencies of the financial models.

• Perform apportionment activities for Re-estimates.

• Serves as conduit between RD and OMB for negotiations over model dynamics.

• Assist in the confirmation and validation of specific elements of USDA Rural Development’s portfolio of assets.

• Create, enhance, and maintain USDA Rural Development asset inventory databases.

• Prepare the financial model by checking the input files for abnormality and noting big changes in any input; generate questions and reports for clarification; execute the model to calculate subsidy rate; and generate the certification sheet.

• Review model output to identify, understand and communicate reasonable explanations for programs with significant changes in subsidy rate.

• Maintain and support the operation of cash flow models.

• Make forecast predictions of default, recovery and prepayment based on past/present data and trends.

• Prepare scenario studies of the subsidy impact analysis for the stakeholders (RHS, RBS, RUS, OAF, OMB and Congressional Budget Office). This includes actuals to estimates analysis, trends, Legislative and Regulatory proposal cost scenarios.

• Utilize reports out of loan servicing systems to gather borrower level transaction data at a cohort level.

• Balance loan servicing data to multiple sources that include Funds Control Reports, General Ledger, Bureau of Public Debt, and Apportionment schedules.

• Aggregate data into excel pivot tables via Essbase and Tableau, submit excel pivot tables to Credit Modeling through BICS

• Utilize cash flow data balanced as of prior September 30 to prepare curves and forecasting for each program for subsidy formulation.

• Prepare complex curves and forecast curves for Direct Single Family Housing.

• Estimate 4th quarter activity for each cohort using a comparison of the prior year’s estimates and the actual activity.

• Calculate end of year Financing Account Interest Cost and Earnings using the CSC calculator.

• Prepare abnormal activity as of 9/30, provide explanations for any activity that meets both thresholds of $40 million (absolute value) and 5%.

• Prepare borrower level data for econometric models for Guaranteed Single Family Housing and Guaranteed Business and Industry programs.

ACCOUNTING

• Oversee the RD General Ledger (GL) and financial statements, to include GL coding;

treasury symbol maintenance; monthly reporting and reconciliations; fund balance with Treasury; DATA Act submission and reporting; and year end accruals and closeout.

• Oversee funds control for RD loan and grant programs and ensure reconciliation between loan systems and funds control systems.

• Complete semi annual and quarterly Unliquidated Obligation (ULO) Certification by maintaining outreach to State and National Office contacts and inquiring about status of individual ULOs along with compiling numerous support documents for audit purposes.

• Perform financial forecasting, trend analysis and estimating functions using prior year and year to date data.

Identified tasks deliverables, and activities at the Call level shall be performed in conjunction with government oversight, in accordance with policies and standards, and control procedures coordinated by the Contracting Officer (CO) and the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) with Awardee if applicable.

BPA Calls may be issued to provide simultaneous support to one or more FO responsibilities and/or projects of varying scale. BPA Calls will define the FO responsibilities being supported, the task areas included and the specific tasks, subtasks, and deliverables required within the scope of the individual BPA Calls. If applicable, key personnel requirements will be identified in the BPA Call.

The contractor shall provide consultation, planning and support services to manage programs, projects, services, tasks and activities efficiently and effectively for each BPA call.

The task areas and their representative tasks are identified below.

Task Area 1: Report Generation

The contractor shall provide support with report generation. This includes, but is not limited to the following:

• Gathering data and information from a variety of sources (e.g. RD databases and systems, historical reports)

• Adjusting the information/data into the appropriate format, including by making appropriate mathematical calculations to the data.

• Drafting language for some or all sections of the report. Often this will be language describing RD data and policies.

• Populating report templates with appropriate data, information and draft language.

Task Area 2: Process Automation

The contractor shall provide support with process automation. The automation will utilize the appropriate technology for the task, and should be developed in such a way that basic maintenance can be completed by RD. The types of processes available for automation include, but are not limited to:

• Data extraction, formatting, analysis, and validation

• Report generation, including dashboard development and maintenance

• Credit modeling activities

• Recurring tasks

Task Area 3: Process Improvement

The contractor shall provide support in process improvement. This includes, but is not limited to the following:

• Evaluating public and private sector best practices and technology to suggest efficiency and automation improvements.

• Performing special studies to identify process improvement recommendations.

• Defining the requirements and developing the steps and plan for implementation of recommended improvements.

• Develop and implement technological enhancements to FO processes and procedures to improve efficiency and analytical capabilities as well as scalable automation solutions.

Task Area 4: Data Analysis

The contractor shall provide support for data analysis activities. These activities include, but are not limited to:

• Budget and Accounting Trends Analysis

• Complex Statistical Analysis

• Regression Analysis

• Statistical model development, review, and validation using advanced statistical packages like SAS and R.

• Anomaly identification, research and explanation

Task Area 5: Data Review and Validation

The contractor shall provide support with data review and validation. These activities include, but are not limited to:

• Reviewing gathered data and information to ensure accuracy, appropriateness and consistency with other reports or sources.

• Identifying and explaining Budget and Accounting variances.

• Identifying, analyzing, explaining and making recommendations for the handling of reporting discrepancies.

• Comparing source data to compiled data.