21-Transcript RFP-2025-009 Pre-Proposal Conference.pdf

Pre-Proposal Conference for RFP-2025-009 Countywide Vending Services (Milwaukee County)- 20250718_190030-Meeting Recording

July 18, 2025, 6:00PM 59m 57s

Tony MacLellan 0:09 Good afternoon, everybody.

This is Tony McClellan.

I am the RFP administrator for RFP 02025009 which is county wide vending services.

Please be advised we will give one or two minutes at the beginning of the presentation just to make sure that everybody is here and can access the meeting and so I will be getting started at 1:02 PM CST.

Eckes, Bryan 0:35 Hello, Tony.

Happy Friday to you.

Tony MacLellan 0:37 Hey, Brian, how are you?

Eckes, Bryan 0:38 Doing well, thanks. Thanks for asking.

Tony MacLellan 1:29 For those who are just joining us.

I am giving a couple of minutes at the beginning of the presentation just to make sure everybody can join us, but I will be getting started in just a moment here.

All right.

So 102 PMCST having arrived.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to the Pre proposal conference for RFP 2025009, which is countrywide vending services.

My name is Tony McClellan.

I am the RFP administrator for the solicitation.

The meeting today the intent is to be high level.

So we are going to focus on some basics of working with the county, understanding targeted business enterprise.

Participation for this project, which we'll talk about a little bit understanding the request, what we're looking for, how to submit your proposals and how we will evaluate those proposals and award the contract.

Please keep in mind the session this afternoon is recorded.

The county will post the recording to the Bonfire Portal following this conference. If you require cart options.

Please click on the link in the webinar invitation.

You should be able to get those options from there.

If you need additional help, you can give our main procurement line a call at 414- 223-8100 or you can e-mail them at procurement@milwaukeecountywi.gov.

I will put that in the chat.

The reason that I say that is while I am a seasoned presenter, I am not a good enough presenter to both manage technical difficulties and.

Troubleshooting and present.

At the same time.

So for purposes of getting help while I am speaking.

Please use the phone number or the e-mail and those are now in your chat for you.

All attendees should be registered.

The county must track the attendees and we will post a list of those attendees on the bonfire portal after the conference. If you are not registered and you're accompanying someone who is registered, please be sure that you register yourself or e-mail your registration information to me. I do.

Need to keep track of who is here so my e-mail address is available in the bonfire portal.

And in the information summary sheet of the RFP document, I will also provide that in the chat.

Please keep in mind my first name is Lyell LAEL, which is a little tough to pronounce.

So I go by Tony, which is my middle. But my e-mail uses my first name. So please double check to ensure you are using the correct e-mail address. So.

That I get your communications if you send it to Tony dot McLellan at Milwaukee County, WI Gov.

It will not get to me.

No.

This is that e-mail address. It's now in the chat for anybody who may need it.

As a reminder, any questions that are asked during the pre proposal conference may or may not be answered today.

So whether or not you receive an answer, no answers that we give you in this conversation will change the terms of the solicitation.

Why does that matter? If you have a question that requires a formal answer, meaning you have found an error in the RFP document, there is something you do not underst.

Stand and it will prevent you from proposing successfully.

You must submit that using the Q&A process that's outlined in the RFP. And if I if we don't get those questions in that formal process and we do not give you a formal answer, that means that the RFP as it is written today remains in force.

That's why that's important.

We'll discuss the Q and AA little bit later in the meeting.

We also ask, please, I I don't think we'll have any trouble with that today, but please mute your microphones and turn off your cameras unless you're asking a question.

I believe.

You should be able to interrupt me to ask questions, so please feel free to do that.

Raise your hand.

Use the chat feature.

Whatever works best for you is perfectly fine by me.

Very quickly, agenda for this meeting, we are going to do a quick round of county introductions. So with us this morning or afternoon, I apologize are the procurement team and our Office of Economic Inclusion.

We'll talk a little bit about working with Tbes and the Tbe bonus points.

I will go through for you a little more in depth. The scope of work, the timeline and the RFP process.

So we'll talk a little bit about the RFP documents, how to use them, that kind of thing.

And then I try to reserve 10 to 15 minutes at the.

The end for both taking a quick look at bonfire for those who have never used it and for any questions that the suppliers may have for us.

So I've already introduced myself.

I am one of several employees here in our procurement Division I.

My title is contract manager.

What that means is that I handle large and complex solicitations and contracts, including this RFP.

My primary support areas are our what we call our court services, our public safety functions. So our Sheriff's Office, Office of Emergency Management Community Reintegration Center and IT.

But I also have the tendency to get.

The county wide items.

So that is how I ended up on this project.

This is considered a county wide RFP and unlike other RFPs, what you will notice is that there is not a client representative here. That is why. So there are several clients, there are 404445 divisions and departments across Milwaukee County. At this point I believe.

Five or six of them have expressed an interest.

In participating in in this RFE and receiving these services.

So we are working on.

Expanding the contract to those areas that don't have it today, the data that exists that's available for you will show you where items are today. And I wanna give just a second to anybody else on the procurement team who'd like to introduce themselves.

Jennifer Malchow 8:05 I can go ahead, Tony.

My name is Jennifer Malkow.

I am the purchasing analyst here in procurement and I'm just here to provide additional support.

Tony MacLellan 8:15 Do we have anybody else from procurement this morning? Afternoon.

Why do I keep saying this morning?

I wish we had more time in the day.

It sounds like that.

Office of Economic Inclusion would you like to introduce yourselves?

Lamont Robinson 8:33

Absolutely, Tony.

Good afternoon, everyone.

This is Lamont Robinson, director of the Office of Economic Inclusion.

Apologize for not having my camera on and having some activity issues with my laptop or even just being around the house, so I had to get around the house.

We'll leave the house and use my phone, so not gonna get rid of me that easily.

But here to talk about the tbe and just the additional awarding of points that.

To potentially, a proposer could have so looking to get into that a little bit when we get to it, but glad to have everybody here and I believe we also have Janine Eilers from my office as well. If Janine wants to introduce herself.

Jenine Eilers 9:18 Hi everyone.

I'm Janine Eilers, Lake lamonta.

I'm the contract compliance manager in the Office of Economic Inclusion and I work under Lamont in support of our efforts.

You know, getting our small business firms to work on county projects.

Tony MacLellan 9:40 So I have shifted OEI's slides to the front of the presentation, so bear with us.

That is a change.

Normally this comes at the end, but considering the the circumstances in this RFP, it's a little bit different than what you would see in most RFP's. There is not a TBE goal here, but there are bonus points. So we're going to talk about that first sort of.

Get that?

Discussion out of the way so that you understand how that will play into the other components of the RFP.

So apologies, Janine and Lamont for switching you.

I know you're usually at the end.

Lamont Robinson 10:19 That's no worries, Tony.

Happy to to address this at the moment.

So again, good afternoon everyone.

Lamar Robinson with the director of director of the Office of Economic Inclusion.

So when we're talking about the the TBE and the opportunities that exist with this particular.

Contract correct.

There is not a goal associated with this contract, so.

There is no goal that affirm.

Has to meet or be responsive of when it comes to TV participation, but in lieu of not having participation, we still understand that there are opportunities potentially for certified firms or even diverse firms that aren't certified. And we want to be able to capture that in some way.

And reward those proposers that find that opportunity or utilize that opportunity on on this on this specific.

Contract.

So when we're talking about Tbe, we're talking about firms that are certified by the Wisconsin UCP as ADV.

Anced for TB.

So they must be certified by in the state of Wisconsin with the UCP as Ade firm to count towards TB. If you utilizing one of those firms, if they are MBE or WBE certified with the state of Wisconsin Supplier Diversity Program, they are eligible for TB so again.

Those very specific certifications are eligible for TBE, or recognize a certified firms. In addition, small business concerns that are listed in the SBA Sam Registry are eligible.

For tbe participation.

So if you find firms that you want to work with and utilize, and they're half certifications with those specific entities, you're eligible to receive up to 100 additional points in your proposal.

So if you find those firms, you wanna utilize them with additional 100 points maybe awaiting you if you wanna use a non certified firm.

But it is a diverse firm, so we're talking about firms that don't necessarily fit into what our TB program states, but say they are.

BTQ or they are a veteran or just a diverse business, you have the potential to utilize those firms as well and be warded up to 50 additional points for for those firms.

So we recognize that all of the firms may not necessarily have the certification, but we did not want to dismiss the opportunities that could still exist with the non certified business or a diverse.

Entity that could potentially do work within the project and the way you substantiate that in your proposal is on the TBE we have the TBE 14 form in which you would complete with the information of the TB firm you plan to utilize. The scope of work, the C.

That they have.

App and then that'll get reviewed by our office after submission to determine the eligibility of the potential extra points or if they are not a certified firm, you'd have to be able to provide documentation that supports the diversity the.

Inclusiveness the the things that we're looking for for those non certified firms in the on the on the submission to show to be you know awarded potentially the the 50 points so.

So this is something a little different from us because normally it's always relegated to those certified firms, but we also understand that there's now opportunities outside of that and we want to be able to recognize those in some fashion to be able to reward those proposers that find.

Value in utilizing subcontractors and utilizing those small and diverse disadvantaged businesses so.

So I hope that I answered more questions than than probably.

People may have, but if not, you are always welcome to reach out to our office directly for further clarity in regards to this.

But I think, Tony, unless Janine, unless you have something to add, I think, Tony, I'll turn it back over to you.

But like I said, this is something we're doing a little different and really looking to see what the impact will be from doing something different and and looking to award points based off of.

An expanded.

Look.

Into the diversity of business and not just certified businesses.

So again, thank you all for attending and good luck in New York proposals and feel free to reach out to our office should you have any questions or concerns.

Tony MacLellan 14:54 Thank you very much, Lamont.

Brian, I see your hand up.

Eckes, Bryan 14:59

Hey, Tony.

Hey, Lamont, just a couple quick questions.

Could you repeat those three, those three letter abbreviations real quick?

I got on UCB and SBA.

Lamont Robinson 15:11

OK.

Eckes, Bryan 15:12

OK.

I I'm happy to do that.

Lamont Robinson 15:13 I I'm happy to do that for.

Tbe which is target business enterprise, we accept the disadvantaged business enterprise Oregon, DBE certified firms when they're certified by the Wisconsin UCP.

So the Wisconsin UCP has its own specific directory where you can find those firms.

So if the firm is in there and they have the, the the work scope in their certification to do what you're asking them to do, they could.

We have the minority business enterprise MBE or women's business enterprise WBE with the state of Wisconsin Supplier Diversity Program.

So firms that are certified by the state that have that designation of MBE or WBE, they could potentially count towards the the 100% in the additional awarding of points. In addition to that, there's the SBA Sam registry.

Where firms are listed as small business concerns and so within that registry.

You can identify firms to utilize to count towards TVE as well.

So I I know it's a.

It's an alphabet soup of of.

Of certifications and and and everything else and. And trust me, we're not expecting everybody to to grasp all of this.

Right now I'm sure the information is is going to be in the solicitation packet and again, you're more than welcome to reach out to our office directly to have greater conversations and provide any more clarity that's needed.

To make sure that the right certifications and the right information is being shared so that it leaves hopefully no room for ambiguity when it comes to reviewing the proposals once they're submitted.

Eckes, Bryan 16:53 Sure. Thank you.

And then just two follow up questions, if that's OK.

If, if, if we're. If you're out for already DBE certified with the county.

My first question is, would we would we be grandfathered in under that or do do we need to refill out the form? That's my first question.

Lamont Robinson 17:13 OK, if you are already DB certified and you're certified by the Wisconsin UCP. So if Milwaukee County, Dane County.

Eckes, Bryan 17:20 If we're using that under a, if we're already doing business with the county and we already have Ade partner.

Lamont Robinson 17:27 Oh, OK.

So then yeah, but you would do what you would, you would fill out that Tbe 14 form where you're now identifying that DB partner that you're planning to use and you would spell that out with how you, how you plan to utilize them. So yes, that that T.

Eckes, Bryan 17:28 Yep.

Tony MacLellan 17:37 Yeah.

Eckes, Bryan 17:41 Perfect.

Lamont Robinson 17:42 14 form is what you would provide with your proposal, yes.

Eckes, Bryan 17:46 Perfect. And then is there, I know it says it's not a part of the you guys just said it's not a part a requirement, a minimum on the RFP. Do we have if if we do get the 100 points or 50 points?

Is it? Is there any percentage of sales that is tied to that or is it as long as you're using them for anything at all, if that makes it my question makes sense to you?

Lamont Robinson 18:09 No, it does.

We didn't tie a specific level 'cause that kind of is what the goal would do if we set the goal.

So since we don't have a goal, we're just utilizing the opportunity for proposers to find opportunity, if it exists, to utilize those those businesses.

So is it to a specific level? No, it's not.

Eckes, Bryan 18:26 Got you.

Got you. Got you.

And then finally, the 100 bonus points.

If I am I reading it right that that would are there 100 total points in all other areas?

In the RFP before this and then you would get a, you would get, you could essentially double your point value with 100 bonus points.

Tony MacLellan 18:48 Quite that far. We will talk about.

The evaluation criteria in just a minute and I'll show you what the breakout is.

I wanna say that it's 10% of the total, so there's 1000 points, 100 of them potentially come here.

Eckes, Bryan 18:59 Thanks.

Tony MacLellan 19:05 So if you are not using, I believe and I'll, I'll double check this when I present that slide. But I believe that if you do not have, if you do not have participation, which is totally fine, then the Max points that you would get would be 900.

Eckes, Bryan 19:05 Awesome. Awesome.

Tony MacLellan 19:20 But we'll talk about that when I get to that slide. I also wanted to let you know, just not just you, Brian, but everybody listening what I have on my screen right now is proc one and the reason I brought that up is the question that Brian asked.

Eckes, Bryan 19:21 Right.

Tony MacLellan 19:33 About the alphabet soup.

So yes, that does exist, it is explained.

It's in proc one as well as some of you may have noticed that there was a change almost right away when we issued the RFP.

And that's because we use some language.

It just did not work.

So what occurred is that there was an Addendum 1 issued almost immediately, and that addendum 1 contains all the information about how to get the bonus points.

So that's the addendum to look at for what do I have to do exactly to get these points?

I've replicated some of that in the slideshow presentation, but not all of it.

So I definitely, definitely recommend both reading proc one as well as taking a look at addendum one and those sections of the RFP that.

Cover how we will handle the assignment of those points.

Jenine Eilers 20:32 Tony and Lamont, would you like me to post the directory sites in the chat for DBE MB EWBE, Milwaukee County SBE, and the Sam Directory for SB?

Tony MacLellan 20:33 And I.

Jenine Eilers 20:46 I can put those.

Tony MacLellan 20:46 I think that would be very much appreciated, yes.

Jenine Eilers 20:49 OK, I've I'll put those in the the chat, all the links for those.

Tony MacLellan 20:56 So the next thing we're going to talk a little bit about is the scope and requirements.

I tried to go from the the mediast parts that you know draw the most questions to the procedural parts at the end. So what?

We'll talk about for just a few minutes.

Here are the minimum requirements, the scope of work and the evaluation criteria.

So minimum qualifications.

There are two minimum qualifications that are in every single RFP that I issue.

One of them is that you have not been debarred or suspended from working with another government agency.

What that means is you're not.

You have not been advised that you are not allowed to contract with them or not allowed to propose to their solicitations.

You should know if this is the case that that's a pretty specific instance that usually the the entity is well aware that that has happened.

And the second one is understand that by submitting a proposal and if you win an award, the expectation is that you're going to enter into a contract with Milwaukee County.

Does it have to be exactly what the sample contract says?

No, it is subject to negotiation, but the expectation is in every RFP that you know you're going to do that in good faith and that you know we're all going to abide by all the applicable regulations, laws, policies.

So that's in every RFP.

What's really important for this RFP, minimum qualifications keep in mind are a bar 2 entry. They are.

You must be at least this tall to ride.

And So what that means is if you don't prove these three things that I've got on the screen right now, your proposal is not going to get through preliminary evaluation.

It's not going to even get to the evaluators.

So it's important that these three things are something that you've shown.

Both in your preliminary eval questionnaire and in your proposal itself.

So the first one is demonstrating at least three years of experience providing full service vending, unattended retail to government or institutions.

So we acknowledge that not everybody obviously is going to serve the government, but the the more important thing is volume.

So colleges, universities, hospitals, large business complexes.

Anything that's comparable to something of the complexity of the county where you've got multiple buildings, multiple floors, multiple locations.

And we're looking at we have about 4500 staff now, the volume of who goes through which floors, that's a little bit tougher to tell, especially post COVID. But there, there has been a fairly substantial return to work at this point.

So most of those locations are quite busy. I want to say.

That when I looked at the spend over the last three years, it was averaging in the multiple hundreds of thousands.

So it's not a small, it's not a small arrangement here.

The second is that we need at least three references.

For whom you provide today or provided in the last three years similar services.

So yes, you can use a past client as long as they were a client within the last three years.

Years. We do check those references so it is very important.

You'll see that it's in the preliminary eval questionnaire. When you look at that questionnaire, it's gonna ask you for names, titles, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, that kind of thing.

We do check those.

So it is important to make sure you fill that out completely.

And finally, to comply with obviously the requirements in the scope of work, which is section 6 and answer all the questions and provide all the requested information.

That's in Section 7, which is the proposal content. We'll talk about that in just a second.

So scope of work, Section 6 of the RFP, this is pages 16 through 32 at a really high level.

We're not asking for anything. I think that that's shocking or different from what you might see from any other similarly situated government entity, public transit organization, college, you know.

We are essentially seeking both vending machine options.

Bottled beverage, candy, snack and healthy.

As well as micromarket solutions, we have one micromarket currently in operation.

It is on a secure floor in our criminal justice facility.

It is extremely important to those individuals because they work all three shifts, often mandatory overtime, so this is a note of importance in this scope of work.

There are several locations where you have staff who will be present in that building.

All three shifts, and they essentially rely in those locations on these services.

So when you're looking at specifically the MCSO locations and the CRC location out in Franklin, they do not have good access to, you know, local food store locations, anything like that.

So if they are put on a mandatory double.

And they have not brought food with them. They are relying on these services.

As well as in part, we do have an employee program through our Correctional Food Service vendor that's hot food.

So generally speaking, they're kind of two separate verticals, but it becomes much more important for those folks because they have no access.

To food drink.

Sustenance of any kind when they're on a second or third shift, unless we provide it to them.

You'll also find that there are a number of what I would call new or additional requirements.

Please keep in mind that the original contract and I've seen a couple of questions about this in bonfire and answered them there.

The original contract was not based on a formal solicitation at that time. We had no idea what the level of spend was. It was estimated at about $10,000 a year.

And we were just looking to get something up and running so that we would have a contract in place.

So truly, you know what is in that scope of work is representative of all the conversations.

That I've had with all of the divisions and departments about what their needs are and what their expectations are there is.

A section of that scope of work that talks about sustainability. We have an office of sustainability in Milwaukee County.

They do have a number of initiatives.

One of them has to do with polystyrene foam and certain other packaging components.

There is a requirement by our county board that we that vendors specifically.

Do not use those things, so make sure you take a look at that if that's going to be truly onerous, please let me know.

We can work with sustainability and try and, you know, determine what, what the any potential changes would need to be to that, to what degree, you know, the expectation is gonna be no, we don't use polystyrene and you know we're looking for biodegradables and you know where is.

That probably an exception. If I had to guess, I would say that in vending machines it is much more likely to be an exception.

With micro markets, I think there's going to be much more push toward making sure that any service where you know, containers, those kinds of things.

Are in line with the sustainability policies.

I'm not gonna go line by line through that scope of work because I I just having looked at other jurisdictions, I don't see that it's substantially different from anybody else's.

So if you've proposed in the recent past it it looks very similar to that the OneNote that I will make is there, there is information.

For you in, I believe it's Appendix A which is the service locations and sales data for the last few years.

So you can at least get a sense of overall volumes, the type of products that are sold at certain locations, the sort of levels of sales of those items.

I have had a great number of requests for a few things.

One of them is healthy options we I acknowledge.

I understand that you know.

There are gonna be some locations where that's just not going to work because there is not enough turnover of the product and you'll end up with a lot of a lot of loss due to spoilage.

Perfectly fine, but keep in mind that that is something that everyone has asked me for.

So when you're considering what to propose and where.

Definitely take take into consideration that that request is out there.

Even if it is not possible to do, you know sort of truly fresh, healthy food, there should be at least.

Some options available to folks, especially those paying attention to sodium, caffeine, sugar, we have, you know, staff from all over.

They have all kinds of different needs. We try to meet them as much as we can.

The other major requests that I have seen in a number of locations and we had for a little while and did not go as well as we might have liked, was hot beverage.

Everybody likes that. However, the maintenance of it becomes a problem.

So we had it and I think removed it at one point because.

Sanitation wise it was just not up to the standard that, you know, we would expect to present to the public.

So we are interested in that, but it's considered a.

Nice to have because we understand that, you know, the sanitation may be an issue.

Same is true for ice machines.

So I've gotten a lot of requests for that, but I think everybody has acknowledged that they obviously take more sanitation than, you know, a vending machine does.

And so you'll find those in the value added area of the RFP. What's in that value added area of the scope of work.

It's all you know.

Brainstorming, we are looking to you vendor community to help us solve our problem.

So none of that is, you know, set in stone.

It's not. Hey, these value added like fresh food lockers and those kinds of things.

You absolutely must do.

No, that's not true.

We really want to hear what you think is going to work best for the sites that exist.

Very quickly through timeline.

Please keep in mind the timeline for any RFP is based on an estimate. So we we always reserve the right to extend the timeline as necessary to make sure that we are fair, equitable and transparent in our scoring processes for the proposals.

But generally we will hold to the timeline as best that we can.

So we are a little bit before here, which is the deadline for offer or questions.

As those of you have entered questions I've seen, I will answer them on a rolling basis wherever possible, but we ask that all of the questions are in by the 25th, which is next Friday, and the reason we ask for that is I try to make sure.

That everyone gets a formal digest of all the answers at least two weeks in advance of the closure date of the RFP. We're a little bit closer than that on this one because I don't suspect that they're going to be too many.

Terribly complex questions.

You know, as there might be in, say, an IT RFP.

So I expect to issue that a week ahead of when the proposals are due.

I will continue to answer on a rolling basis.

All of those questions are visible, so keep that in mind.

But that is why we ask to have the questions in by the 25th, the proposals will be due on the 8th.

That means that preliminary evaluation, which is the first round of evaluation, that's a pass fail, will occur between the 11th and the 15th.

Everyone who passes pre liens evaluation will have their proposals moved on to the evaluation Committee for scoring. That typically takes about two weeks. So we're estimating right now the 18th of August to the 29th of August, give or take.

And if we do ultimately do offer our interviews, you know, machine tests taste testing, that kind of thing, that is likely to occur the week of September 1st.

And the reason I warn people of that in advance is it's a quick moving process and I don't want anybody you know.

To be surprised if they get a request.

To attend an interview or something like that on what seems like short notice.

So I I would recommend assuming that you may need to be available the week of September 1st.

Once the scoring is done for those shortlisted interviews, demos, things like that, we will go directly to notice of intent to award.

So that will be published on the Bonfire Portal.

I'm expecting that to be around the 15th of September.

At this point, that means that we have a 72 hour protest period that will run until the 18th of September.

So contract negotiations will begin right after that mid to late September and I expect them to run to the end of October just because that's usually how long it takes, which means we would go before the board in December of 25 and services would start in January.

Of 26th.

I'm going to talk very quickly now about the procedural part of the RFP and you know what, what you need to know in terms of steps and the process itself.

So we'll cover the process using the documents, communicating with the county.

We already talked about scope and requirements.

We'll talk about submitting a proposal and then how we will evaluate an award.

So very quickly, you've already kinda seen this in the timeline, but this is the general procurement process at Milwaukee County.

You are here.

Yes, we can do site tours. I have had conversations with the secure areas, so generally for site tours.

What I recommend is any area that is open to the public.

I strongly recommend vendors use their due diligence.

Go out. You have access to those buildings and locations.

Please go see them.

There are going to be areas you simply cannot access.

And those are gonna be insecure facilities.

So if you are interested in a site tour, please let me know if I have no interest then I am not going to ask our security teams for our Community reintegration center, our youth detention and those kind of places. Take time out of their day to stand around.

Waiting to see if somebody's gonna come.

So if you are interested and you wanted to do a site tour, please let me know and I will help get that scheduled.

After the site tours and Prepopposal conference, we continue the submission phase.

And preparing response phase until it's submitted, at which point we go to evaluation, notice of intent and then contract negotiation.

So what's important in the RFP and what documents should you use to build your proposal?

The RFP document has been provided in both word and PDF.

We do that for accessibility reasons.

So it's exactly the same document.

You choose the format you'd rather read.

There are a number of sections that are more important.

Shall we say than others? So there are.

There are gonna be several sections in the RFP that are boilerplate introductions, you know, standard county.

Legal terms rights. Responsibilities.

But when you're looking at understanding the services, the sections you want to look at are 4-5 and six.

Section 4 is what is going on today.

That is the current operations and the background. The point of giving you that data is so that you have as much, you know sales and information as.

Data as possible so that you can develop your proposal in a meaningful way. If you have questions or some information is missing, please let us know.

I will do the best I can to get it for you.

There are going to be some areas where we just may not have complete information and if that happens, we will ask you to do your best with what we have.

2nd 5 which is the request is essentially a summary of what we're asking for and includes the minimum.

Qualifications and those things that we consider to be signs of non responsibility or non responsiveness.

Section 6.

As we've said, is the scope of work.

So that's the meat of understanding the the services we're looking for and understanding what what we're looking to see in your proposal and what you'll be expecting to do if you win an award.

Section 7 is the proposal content and I will repeat this and shout it from the mountaintops forever because there are questions in it. And those questions do need to be answered. What I have done in this RFP is included both a sample of how to answer those quest.

As an appendix as well as a template of all of those questions, do you need to use the template? No.

Feel free to submit the proposal.

As you choose, however, what is most important is that when you are answering a question, please please make sure the question you are answering is typed in your proposal so that the evaluator sees the question and your answer in the same location.

The reason we ask this is, you know, frankly we, we we are.

Having evaluators from departments and divisions.

Where this is not their day job, they're doing this other duties as assigned. It is onerous for them.

And so we ask, please make our lives easier and improve your score by being sure that you've retyped that question and answered under the question. That way the the offer is sure to give you the points that you earned for your answer.

Sections 8 through 10 are the process and responsibilities, so those are truly, you know, procedural information that you will need to engage with the RFP process.

Section 11 gives some tips and tricks on preparing and submitting your proposal.

So I definitely recommend reading that through fairly thoroughly.

It will give you some hints on how to do better as well as guide you through what documents you need to submit. Section 12 is the evaluation process.

Us. That is where the evaluation criteria are.

It will also explain how we will score you.

And section 13 is the award process.

So what happens once an award is made so?

Again, if you're looking for information about what services we're asking for and how they've been delivered in the past, that's 4-5 and six. If you're looking for what questions do I need to answer in order to get points?

That's seven if you're looking for.

Those other questions about process.

Us how to submit a proposal, how we'll evaluate those are 8 through 13.

I realize this is very small and I apologize for that, but I do want to draw everybody's attention to the figure 12/2.

So what? Figure 12/2 shows you in the RFP is what documents you must submit.

That.

Chart. That figure is exactly the same or should be, as the requested information.

Figure in bonfire.

So these two things should match up.

There may be a few more items in requested information and they may be split out a little bit compared to this chart, but it should mirror one another so you can see for example in the forms section for required forms. These five forms should match up to these.

4 forms.

Here and that tbe documentation so you can see required form proprietary information.

There it is, proprietary information, right?

If there is a required, if that means it depends on what you submit.

So for TV documentation, if you want the bonus points, then you must submit the TB documentation.

With your technical proposal, if for any reason your answers don't fit in a space in your preliminary eval or anything else like that.

We will ask for additional technical proposal documentation so that we can.

Appropriately score.

For your redacted documentation.

If you've claimed proprietary information of any kind in your proprietary information disclosure, please make sure you've submitted redacted documentation.

We ask that because your proposals are going to be subject to Wisconsin open records law, which means that they are public records.

Price is always made public.

It cannot be kept private.

I have had vendors ask about that and.

And I I have had to advise that the only way to keep your prices private is not to bid.

So please keep that in mind.

But we ask that you submit the redacted documentation so that we are not. If somebody makes a request for a proposal, we don't need to come to you and ask, we don't need to try and guess for you on your behalf what's proprietary or not, you've told us.

We have your redacted documentation. That is what we would release.

Figure 12. One is the appendices and the exhibits.

So that proc one that I mentioned earlier that shows up in these in this figure 12, one Appendix A is your service locations and sales data B&C are that optional content template and formatting?

A exhibit A is gonna be our sample contract and the IT addendum.

And so on and so on.

So you do need to make sure that you've at least looked at these things. If you have any questions.

About them, please feel free to reach out to me at any point.

Evaluation criteria. So back to Brian's question earlier about how do these points work.

So if you take a look at the I have two finger 12 ones. So I will have to go fix that.

That's a typo.

This figure is the evaluation criteria.

What you'll see in this column represents the points to each section. These links should work, meaning you should be able to hyperlink jump right back to section 711.

And figure out which questions are worth these 50 points.

Very quickly I also wanna make sure that we go through communicating with the county.

This is a little bit of uncommon sense.

That's why I'm bringing it up. So we'll talk about asking questions, make requesting exceptions, formal changes, and any restrictions that we have.

So asking questions questions should only be asked using the bonfire portal.

And they should be asked during the Q&A period.

They are the only questions we are going to formally answer.

So if you e-mail me or procurement at Milwaukee County, WI or OEI or anybody asking a question, it's not a formal question.

You're not going to get a formal answer.

Very likely we will say sorry. Please put that in the bonfire portal.

Only formal answers change the terms of the RFP and its requirements.

We will not answer business or operational questions once that Q&A period closes.

However, if you have technical issues or questions after the Q&A period closes, contact me directly by e-mail.

So you have trouble getting into bonfire.

Something isn't submitting properly.

You know any any of those types of questions?

That's perfectly fine, but we are not going to continue to give out information.

Related to business or operational questions after.

The 1st of August.

Questions will be answered on a rolling basis.

Oh, there's a typo too.

They should have, said August 1st, so you will get that digest on August 1st.

If you are requesting exceptions to any of the solicitation terms or the scope of work, you must present those exceptions. If you don't present them, they will not be honored.

So Appendix M and I'll double check to make sure it might be an exhibit now, which is the request for exceptions form. That is what you need to use to make that request.

During the prelim eval, if for any reason we cannot accept.

A request for an exception. I will contact you.

And let you know that we will not accept that exception, offer you the opportunity to either change, rescind, to continue in the process.

That's rare.

So that that usually occurs when somebody is, you know, missing their references entirely, for example, or inadvertently didn't fill out a section.

Things like that, where generally it's it's resolvable fairly quickly. If you are unwilling or unable.

To rescind or change an unaccepted exception. It is very likely your proposal will be considered.

Nonresponsive, and you'll be eliminated from consideration. So that's usually, you know, when I've seen that the most somebody does not have the required experience.

Unfortunately, there's just no way to to indicate that the necessary level of experience, and therefore they're not eligible.

But there have been.

You know, I have seen one or two other thing types of exceptions that we couldn't accept, so.

Please keep in mind let us know what they are so that we can let you know if we can accept them or not.

Formal changes, sometimes including today in my presentation and probably in the RFP, Tony makes errors. Tony's Human Tony makes spelling errors all the time.

So sometimes a change to an RFP document is necessary to correct an error to resolve an omission to resolve a conflict, to make the RFP more accurate, or to clarify it to you all. How to propose or what to include in your proposal.

If you identify a formal change that needs to be made.

It to that RFP document, you must make that request in writing using the bonfire portal during the Q&A.

And the reason that we say that is we are not gonna consider formal changes outside the Q&A period unless there are exceptional circumstances or the formal changes in the best interest of the county. And the reason we do that is just to keep the process moving.

So what we don't want is for everybody to be drawing what might be very large.

Concerns on the second or third day before a proposal is due. That's very onerous.

To everybody else.

In the participation group, so all the other suppliers, it's very difficult for them to pivot. If somebody asks a major question that might make a major change to an RFP at a late date.

A couple communication restrictions.

Like I said, uncommon sense during the solicitation process.

You the offer, or should only communicate via the bonfire portal or by e-mail with me.

What that means is please do not contact any county staff officials.

You know your sister's cousin Joe to discuss the RFP, its requirements, your proposal, the evaluations, or any other information that's related to the RFP.

The process and the reason that we say that we'll talk about in the next slide, but it has to do with the any appearance of any conflict of interest.

So you should not discuss the open RFP with any current contact that you have at Milwaukee County. So if you were serving any division or Department of Milwaukee County right now in any capacity, you can continue to talk to them about your current contract.

But you should not in any way shape or form talk to them about the RFP.

The county expects that vendors are going to uphold the highest level of ethical behavior during the RFP process.

So remember that even an appearance of a bias, unfairness, or access to insider info is not acceptable.

Conduct your communications accordingly.

The best example I have of this is an instance in which someone had a cousin who was bidding on a project at the location at which that individual was a director.

They took the cousin to lunch during an open RFP process.

Even though that may not have been to provide that person with insider information, it had the appearance.

Of a possibility that this person is the director was feeding information to a family member about an open RFP.

So if it looks like a conflict, if it quacks like a conflict, it's probably a conflict, even if it's not an actual conflict.

Apparent conflicts are as much a conflict as an actual conflict is.

If again, if you have current business relationships with the county, you may continue to correspond with your contacts at the county for those contracts or relationships.

When in doubt, the answer is please ask me.

It is much better to ask permission to beg for forgiveness here.

I do not want to eliminate anybody on procedural grounds because you've been talking to.

Somebody in a county department about the RFP before it closes.

And very last here before I open for any other questions using the bonfire portal.

So if you have not visited the bonfire portal yet, although I think all of you must have done otherwise, you would not be here.

The link to the Bonfire Portal is the very first link here.

There are two other things that I recommend you take a look at, especially if you've never worked in bonfire before.

The first one is bonfire's vendor support section, so this link will take you to the main vendor support page.

Most of you will probably be standard vendors.

There is a paid version of bonfire that vendors can purchase. However it's not required, so I haven't seen personally any of those individuals where I've had like a premium vendor.

It's it's always been standard vendors, so there will be some tabs at the top of that page.

You want the one that says standard vendor unless you've paid for premium and the 2nd is.

The vendor registration and submission video. This will do.

1000% better and it is the reason why I don't teach how to use bonfire in these pre proposals.

It is substantially better than anything that I could do.

It is about a 10 to 15 minute video totally worth watching.

I also advise folks, the one thing that I cannot help you with is technical questions with bonfire.

So if you're having a technical problem, I am not in the back end of bonfire and I can't help you.

What you want to do is use the blue question mark.

And I'm going to show everybody what that looks like just a second.

There is.

In the bottom left hand corner of your screen there will show a blue question mark and that is how you access your.

Technical Support.

For bonfire.

So.

It looks like this.

Hopefully everybody can see my screen.

Please let me know if you can't, but in the bottom left hand corner of your screen you'll see this blue circle with a question mark in it. When you click on that, it will open a a menu.

You'll choose vendor help center and that will take you over to the help center or if you need support, need to enter a ticket. It gives that gives you their support e-mail that is much faster than anything that I will do unfortunately.

You know, technologically savvy as I may be, I am not able.

Well, to fix problems that exist in bonfire.

And with that, that's the end of the information that I have to present.

So I will open it for any questions. Any remaining questions, shall we say?

And I will stay here.

Until 2:00 CST. In case people do have questions.

So if you do not have questions, then thank you very much for joining us.

We appreciate the time that you've taken.

We look forward to seeing what what you have for us and if you have any questions as you know you can contact me via bonfire. Otherwise, for those who may have questions, I will be here until 2.

Vonte Green 54:18 Hello question.

Tony MacLellan 54:19 Go for it.

Vonte Green 54:22 I'm a SVEDB certified company.

But I have a janitorial company. I also do vending on the side.

I have a separate vending company, but that's not certified with Milwaukee County.

Do I need to certify my glass moon vending company?

And or should I just add a nasco under the janitorial services that's already registered?

Tony MacLellan 54:48 Is Lamont still with us?

I think he is.

Lamont Robinson 54:51 I am still here, Tony.

Tony MacLellan 54:52 Perfect.

I kinda know the answer to that question, but I'd rather it come from the expert.

Vonte Green 54:55 I'm going to say.

Lamont Robinson 54:57 Yeah, if you if you have a business already set up that does, I know this probably won't be the popular answer, but if you already do the work in a business that you already have established and if it has its own separate EIN or Tax identification number, then.

That firm would be the one that needs to be certified. So based upon the the scope of work that you'll be performing.

Within this contract.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's easy to say, you know, can I just move this this nice code or this scope of work underneath my my certified firm?

But you know, ideally you would like for.

The scope of work to to mirror mimic the the the purpose and the core function of the business.

The cool thing about the the TBE which we didn't mention in our presentation part is that a firm could be in a process of being certified.

Right. And can count towards TV participation?

So if you wanted to go ahead and begin the process of getting that other firm again, if it has its own separate EIN number and things of that nature, you can go ahead and start the process of being certified. And then once that firm is certified, work that.

Is done can count towards you know the goal or towards the.

To the TV and things like that because we don't have a goal.

So that is an option.

For you. But I don't want you to to, to kind of murky up your businesses to try to meet what we're asking.

So if that is something that you're interested in, I would say, you know, probably go ahead and look at starting the process to get the firm certified. And if you're a part of our proposal, be able to substantiate the the evidence or information to show that, you know.

Certification, you know application is is in process and things like that. But any work done prior to the firm being actually certified.

I would not count only the work that performed after the certification approval would be able to.

Count and again, I know I'm talking about goals because normally we're talking about goals.

So in the short answer, if it has its own EIN number and it does, that scope of work, I would say start applying for a certification to get that firm certified either DBE or MBE, W whatever. Whatever makes sense for your business.

Vonte Green 57:25 Thank you.

Sounds good.

Lamont Robinson 57:27

OK.

Tony MacLellan 58:07 I will just give everybody a…