25-Transcript RFP-2025-014 Pre-Proposal Conference.docx

Pre-Proposal Conference for RFP-2025-014 CRC Correctional Staff Mental Health Services REISSUE (Milwaukee County)-20250718_201439-Meeting Recording July 18, 2025, 7:00PM 1h 13m 49s

Tony MacLellan 0:06 Good afternoon, everybody.

This is Tony McClellan.

I am the RFP administrator for RFP 2025014, which is our reissue of the CRC Correctional Staff Mental Health Services RFP.

Please be advised I'm going to leave one or two minutes at the beginning of the meeting here just to make sure that everybody who's interested in attending can.

Can join us so I will start at about two O 2. Two O 3:00 PM central Standard Time.

All right.

So as it is now 2:03 PM, I am going to begin the conference formally.

So good afternoon everyone.

Welcome to the Pre proposal conference for RFP 202-5014.

That is, CRC Correctional staff, mental health services.

This is a reissue of RFP 2025007 that was cancelled on June 11th.

Again, my name is Tony McClellan.

I am the RFP administrator for this solicitation.

Our meeting today is going to be high level, so it will focus on the basics of working with Milwaukee County, understanding the purchase request, how to submit your proposals and how the county will evaluate those proposals and award the contract the session this afternoon is recorded and the.

County will post the recording to the Bonfire portal following the conference if you require.

Cart options. Please click on the link that is in your webinar.

Invitation.

If you are running into additional technical issues, you need help.

I ask please that you either give a call to our main procurement line at 414-223-8100 or e-mail them at procurement at Milwaukee County, WI. Gov.

I will put both of those in the chat.

The reason I ask for that is although I am accustomed to presenting at this point, I am not so good at it.

As to be able to do technical troubleshooting at the same time as I am speaking to the group.

So please, if you do need that technical assistance, reach out and our team will help you.

All attendees today should be registered. The county must track the attendees and we will post a list of those attendees on the bonfire portal following this conference.

So if you are not registered and you're accompanying someone who is registered, please make sure that you register yourself or you can e-mail your registration information directly to me.

My e-mail address is available in the Bonfire portal and the information summary sheet of the RFP.

That I will also provide it in the chat so that everyone has immediate access to it.

Please keep in mind that my first name is Eli.

LAEL.

It's a bit tough to pronounce, so I will typically go by my middle name, but my e-mail uses my first name, so please double check to make sure that you have the correct e-mail address so that I receive your communication if you send it to Tony dot M.

At Milwaukee County, WI Gov.

It will not get anywhere.

As a reminder, any questions that are asked during this pre proposal conference may or may not be answered today. Whether or not you receive an answer, none of the answers that we give verbally today will change any of the terms of the solicitation.

Now that means if for whatever reason your question or concern requires a change to the RFP in order for you to propose successfully.

To you know.

Correct an error or disagreement in the RFP document or anything like that. We must have that in writing so that we can formally amend the RFP document.

So again, if you have a question that requires a formal answer, please submit it following the Q&A process that is outlined in the RFP, we will discuss the Q and AA little bit later in the meeting.

We do ask that everybody please mute your microphone.

Turn off your camera. Unless you're asking a question.

Do please feel free.

To raise your hand, ask questions and chat, jump in.

Interrupt if you need to.

Whatever method works best for you is perfectly fine so that we get any questions answered.

Our agenda today will cover.

First, we'll we'll start with introductions for the county. So that'll be both the Department of Administrative Services and our CRC. We will then talk a little bit about working with targeted business enterprises and the bonus points available in this RFP process.

We'll talk about the scope of work, so I and the CRC will will take on that, and then I will cover a little bit more about the timeline and RFP process, procedural type issues. At the end, I like to leave about.

10 minutes for supplier questions and any preview of bonfire. If anybody needs that.

So we're gonna jump right into introductions again.

My name is Tony McClellan.

I'm the RFP administrator for this RFP. I am one of several contract managers in our procurement division.

We essentially handle large and complex solicitations, so RFP's and contracts and my primary support areas are our court services.

What we call our public safety.

Functions which are the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office Community reintegration Center and our Office of Emergency Management and it.

So I am here as the contract manager, assisting the Community reintegration center.

I will hand it to anybody who I mean else from procurement.

Pardon the stumbling a little bit.

Who would like to introduce themselves?

Suzanne Carter 7:45 Hello everyone. My name is Susanne Carter and I am the purchasing manager here in procurement.

That means I oversee our three contract managers, including Tony and a few other things.

Tony MacLellan 8:01 Looks like.

Looks like there are no other attendees from procurement, so I will hand it over to Lamont and the Office of Economic Inclusion.

Lamont Robinson 8:11

OK.

Thanks, Tony. Good afternoon, everyone.

Lamont Robinson, director of the Office of Economic Inclusion.

You'll hear from me a little bit later in the presentation as we start discussing the tbe portion of the presentation.

So glad to have everyone here today and I believe we have Janine Eilers from our office online as well.

So, Janine, if you're on, please introduce yourself.

Jenine Eilers 8:34 Hi everyone.

I'm Janine eilers.

I'm the contract compliance manager in the Office of Economic Inclusion.

I work under Lamont Robinson in support of our programs.

To, you know, include.

Our.

Small and diverse businesses in our county projects.

Tony MacLellan 8:58 And from there it will turn it over to the Community reintegration center.

So just so that everybody knows as well who I have pictured on the screen, here are your command staff for the Community reintegration center.

Not all of them are in attendance today, but these are the folks who you should know.

Brenda Smith 9:15 I'll take lead.

My name is Brenda Smith.

I am the contract administrator for the CRC.

I've been with them for a little over a year now and I handle all of the contracts for the department.

Tony MacLellan 9:38 Assistance if I saw you go off mute, but I can't hear you.

Shayla Fenceroy 9:42 You're unable to hear me.

Tony MacLellan 9:44 There we go. Now we've got.

Shayla Fenceroy 9:45 Can you hear me now?

Tony MacLellan 9:47 Yes, ma'am.

Shayla Fenceroy 9:47 Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Shayla Fitzroy.

I am the assistant Superintendent at the CRCI oversee operations at the facility, including overseeing two of our larger correctional contracts, which includes our medical and food service contracts.

Tony MacLellan 10:08 And I believe that's everybody from CRC because I know director Tardif couldn't join us this afternoon.

So at this point, I will turn over back over to Lamont and his team to talk a little bit more about the bonus points and TDE use in this project.

Lamont Robinson 10:27

OK.

Thank you, Tony.

So with this opportunity, it's a little different.

To how we normally do things where we would either have a goal or.

Half points awarded for TV participation.

There's another component that I'll speak to in a little bit that was added to allow for a more diverse and inclusive.

Grouping when it comes to submitting to the proposal so, so this particular opportunity has no goal.

So there's no goal associated with it, so there's nothing that has to be met as a requirement of responsiveness for the solicitation.

So there is no goal, but we also know that there may be opportunity to utilize small and diverse businesses in a way on this contract. And so we want to award those individuals that find the opportunity to utilize.

Them on this contract opportunity.

So when we're talking about the awarding of the points, if a firm has a is recognized as a TBE certified firm, and I'll explain what that is.

So a TB certified firm is a firm that has a specific certification through an agency that's recognized by Milwaukee County.

So if a firm has the disadvantaged business enterprise certification or DBE certification through.

The Wisconsin UCP, or the unified?

Certification program. They have that DB certification. It could be eligible for that. Tbe certified firm and being eligible for the 100 points if the firm is minority business Enterprise MBE or women's business Enterprise WB certified by the State of Wisconsin Supplier Diversity Program, they're also El.

As a TBE for the additional.

100 points if the firm is certified as an.

SBE with Milwaukee County, they are eligible for that TV and they 100 points.

Lastly, if they're recognized in the Small Business Administration Sam registry as a small business concern, they're also eligible for the for the 100 points.

So again, they're very specific to those entities and those certifications to be eligible for the 100 points.

Now, what we're doing differently.

Is now we're offering additional points for individuals that are using diverse.

Businesses that aren't certified. So if they have potentially like the LGBTQ or veterans or service disabled veterans or or or they're able to speak to their business being a diverse and inclusive organization, they are also eligible for additional points. But on a smaller scale, I believe the the.

Additional points on this one is 25% or 25 points if if I'm correct, Tony.

Tony MacLellan 13:18 Well, if we moved this one to mimic the other ones, Lamont.

Lamont Robinson 13:21 OK so.

Tony MacLellan 13:21 So I think it's 150 same as the other.

Lamont Robinson 13:23 This OK, perfect.

So then this would be the 50.

So if you're unable to identify a certified TBE firm but you find another diverse business that doesn't have that certification that you'd like to use, you may be eligible for the awarding of the of the 50 points. Now you'll have to be able to substantiate you know who.

They are when you're looking to utilize them and your proposal so that we can make sure that we award accurately. But suffice to say.

Whatever firm.

That you plan to utilize really have to make sure that the work that they're doing is getting related to the work being asked for in the solicitation.

So we're really making sure that they're providing the commercially useful function to the ASK and the needs of the solicitation.

So it's so it's not just using anyone that has a certification to give points, but making sure that the work that they do is now relative to the the needs and the ask of the solicitation for the contract work that'll be coming out of there.

In regards to the TB, there's a TB14 form that would need to be completed.

So when you find a firm that has the eligible certifications, you'll fill out that fourteen form to show the work that they'll be doing and and and all the information that's required in that form. And if you have any questions, you are more than welcome to reach out.

To our office to help kind of navigate this space, so don't feel like you're you're alone or you're just hearing it this one time. And then you have to figure it out if you have any questions, concerns or just wanna.

You're out. What it is that you're looking to do to get those points? You're more than welcome to reach out to our office and we'll work it through the through the process and and hopefully get you on good footing for your submission. When the time comes due for.

That so. So again we have the 100 points for the certified TV, we have 50 points for non certified firms but that are diverse in nature. And again we'll be doing work relative to the needs in the nasco of the of the contract so.

So I think that's all that I have.

Janine, did you have anything that you'd like to add?

Jenine Eilers 15:27 No, just, you know, the fact that you know, we aim to recognize and support the proposers who incorporate these small and diverse businesses, you know, so that we can expand beyond our traditional certification requirements, you know, promote a broader inclusion.

So you know again, you know same sentiments as Oman. Thank you.

You know, and that's all I have to.

Offer.

Lamont Robinson 15:54

OK.

Thanks, Janine. Back to you, Tony.

Tony MacLellan 16:00 Thanks Lamont and Janine.

I will also make one side note here, just so that proposers you are all aware.

There are a few sections in the RFP that talk about this.

So what?

I've intentionally done is pulled those out for you here in the list on this slide.

These are the specific sections in the RFP that we'll talk about.

What do you need to do?

How many points are there?

How will they be assigned?

How do you provide proof?

How will we score you?

So please take a look at those sections. The other document that I strongly recommend you take a look at and I had it up on the screen while Lamont was speaking about the UCP and those other agencies. A lot of people say could you repeat that? That's a.

That's a lot of acronyms.

PRO C1.

Contains that information.

So for detailed information about eligibility and you know how how the eligibility works.

Please take a look at proc one that will help you.

From there I am going to jump. Oh, go ahead, Janine.

Jenine Eilers 17:08 I'm also. Oh, sorry tone.

I'm also gonna post you know the links in the chat as well.

Tony MacLellan 17:16 Perfect. Thank you.

So what I am intentionally doing that that's a little different than other pre proposal conferences in the past is I'm focusing on the meet here 1st and then we'll get to some of the procedural items later.

So, especially because this RFP is a reissue, one thing before we even talk about min Kual's scope of work evaluation criteria that I want to point out is that both the pre proposal conference and the original RFP document.

From the cancelled RFP.

Are still available to you in bonfire, so I have added them to this project.

For reference.

I am aware that it is very likely we'll have a couple of firms who proposed the first time propose again.

So what I am recommending very strongly is that you know you take a look at the original RFP and the reissue to understand what has changed.

That is why those have been provided for you.

So do you need to refer to those documents?

No, you do not.

They are there for your convenience only.

So when you're looking for the.

RFP document.

Double check to make sure that you have.

Sandra Kayser 18:30 Shoot.

Tony MacLellan 18:32 Have 014 that is the current RFP and that you are not answering questions in 007 which is the cancelled RFP.

So just something to keep in mind.

Minimum qualifications. What I explain to everybody when we talk about minimum qualifications is that they are a bar 2 entry.

Metaphorically, you must be at least this tall to ride, right?

So there are several things that we ask always in almost every RFP is minimum qualifications and those are one that you are not debarred or suspended from.

Working with another government entity so you will know you should know if this is the case for your entity. This would be an instance where you have been told by another government agency that you are not allowed to bid on their projects or to enter into contracts with.

Them for some cause.

The second one is we assume and remind you to assume that if you win an award under any RFP, you're going to negotiate in good faith with us and enter into a contract.

That is generally not, you know, not at issue.

We are not.

You know, we're not going to negotiate contract terms during the RFP process or anything of that nature.

Yes, you can submit exceptions and negotiate changes to those contract documents.

But generally you should just be aware that that is a requirement and we expect that everybody is going to agree to abide by all the regulations, regulations, policies, those kinds of things.

What is specific to this RFP? Are these four points that you see on your screen?

So the first is that the off Aurora can demonstrate it will deliver the requested services using licensed and certified mental health clinicians.

They must be legally authorized to practice in Wisconsin.

I did have a question come in about that involving, you know, is it possible to use?

Certified, you know?

Mental health professionals, Wellness coaches, those kinds of things.

In combination with a licensed or certified mental health clinician, yes, you may.

However, you must have available that licensed clinician.

There are services that are going to require that.

The second is that you show that both the offer or its clinicians, so it could be either or here either your agency does.

Or your clinicians do, or both have at least three years of experience providing mental health support services.

To municipal law enforcement agencies, jails, detention centers, state federal prisons, similar entities, what is really vital here?

What we are looking for is evidence that you have worked with a first responder, law enforcement, or correctional population.

Before.

Please keep in mind this is about agencies, not individuals.

So if you have, you know, acted as a one-on-one personal therapist to somebody who is in one of these roles, that's not what we're talking about. What we are talking about is providing these kinds of services to a larger population of individuals in any one of.

These groups there may be some groups that are comparable.

So before you assume that you are not qualified, it is worth asking.

If there is, if we can look at the examples of experience and see a direct correlation or a connection between the service that you provided and the population, we are likely to accept it.

So it's always better to try than not.

But please keep in mind that this is, you know, experience with agencies, not with individuals only.

We also ask that you demonstrate the ability.

To retain permanent records for a minimum of seven years in full compliance with applicable regulations, that includes HIPAA.

And the reason is obviously you will have some of those documents, they will have some sensitive data.

It's very important that those documents are kept.

In an appropriate way.

And finally, we ask that you provide at least three references from municipal law enforcement agencies, jails, detention centers, state or federal prisons, or comparable. As I mentioned in the second bullet.

So yes, we will check these references.

There is a section in the preliminary evaluation Questionnaire that will ask you to provide the person's name, the entity they work for, their title, their phone and their e-mail address.

It is important that we have all of these, so if I if for whatever reason we cannot contact one of those references, we will let you know and the expectation will be that we will need another reference.

So please keep in mind we absolutely do check these.

So before you put anybody down your questionnaire, please make sure you've talked to them and they are available to give a reference during the period of scoring for the RFP.

And now we're gonna do a little tag team here.

But I will give a high level of scope of work, so scope of work you can find in the RFP. It is Section 6 that is pages 19 through 27.

The emphasis here really is on psycho education, mental Wellness, conflict resolution, additional one-on-one support as requested.

That is fairly thoroughly explained.

In section 6.

But we also wanted to give the opportunity to the CRC to.

Talk to you a little bit about what that program looks like for them.

Now what?

They're hoping it'll look like in the future, and the population that you will serve, so I won't give a moment to CRC to let them.

Speak on this.

Brenda Smith 24:49 Sorry about that.

So the CRC is looking for proposals for a comprehensive mental health services that is designed specifically for the correctional staff.

The selective provider will serve as a operational partner in fostering a workplace culture that prioritizes mental health, mental well-being, resilience and stress management among staff members.

The goal of this program is to reduce stigma, enhance staff, mental health, mental fitness and improve interactions with CRC residents, their families and the broader community.

Currently, the services that are provided are more route based therapy sessions.

And we are looking to expand that current service by offering individual counseling sessions as well.

Along with those group therapy sessions.

Also looking for things like stress management, works, apps, Brazilians, training classes, intervention services, ongoing mental health and education and support programs as well.

See.

I believe that's pretty much a lot of the things that we're going to be looking for.

Assistance for assistant Superintendent fence for is there anything that she would like to add that I may have missed?

I think I got it.

Shayla Fenceroy 26:17 No, you pretty much covered it.

Just just looking for like Brenda say, an ongoing support.

For our staff, some of them can be a little resistant to the support, but ultimately.

Need it.

So.

Like she said, we're currently using kind of a group therapy type of format and we've gotten a lot of positive feedback on it.

So we just want to.

Continue providing these type of services in the future.

Tony MacLellan 26:53 And I will add just lessons learned from the last RFP.

There are a couple things to be aware of.

One is that the program and the information that you'll find in Section 4, which is the background.

The past what has happened in the past?

Discusses the pilot program.

So what you're looking at is truly something that was developed by a vendor for the county based on the pilot.

What we are looking for in this RFP in the scope of work in section 6 substantially expands what occurred and what was provided in the pilot program.

It's also very important to keep in mind that much of that pilot program includes that vendors intellectual property, so you should not come into this with an assumption that you're going to be handed a program or a set of documents that you can follow.

You will need to sort of build the program from the pilot.

But on your own, from your own materials.

So that came up a few times in the previous RFP and there were some questions around that. If you have any questions about that as you go forward, reading the scope of work and that Section 4, which is the history, please, please put them in the Q and.

A so that we can get you the information that you need.

From here, I'm going to jump into sort of more of the procedural side of things.

So first of all, the timeline please keep in mind that timelines for any RFP are based on estimates. So we will always reserve the right to extend the timeline as necessary to ensure that we are fairly, equitably and transparently scoring all the proposals. I'm gonna take a PA.

Because I see your hand, Roberta, go ahead.

Roberta Holmes (she/her) | ASWR 28:42 Yeah. Hi Tony. Thanks.

Are you sure the screen you're sharing is just showing the information about the SBE certification program?

Are we supposed to be looking at slides right now?

Tony MacLellan 28:53 Huh.

Yes, and I see them on my side. And you don't? OK, hang on.

Thank you for letting me know.

Try this again.

See if refreshing it helps.

Can you see the slides now?

Jenine Eilers 29:15 No, Tony, they're not.

That's still back at the certifications. It's not advancing.

Tony MacLellan 29:17 Hmm.

Alright. Well in that case I see that.

In that case, what we will have to do?

Bear with me one moment.

I just had to go into presenter view on my on my opposite screen and share the screen, so be it.

There are worse things.

OK.

Here we go.

Apologies for the delay everybody.

All right. Can we see the slides now?

Jenine Eilers 30:04 Yes.

Roberta Holmes (she/her) | ASWR 30:05 We can.

Tony MacLellan 30:06 Fabulous, OK.

I apologize everybody.

Thank you, Roberta, for bringing that up.

Otherwise I would have had no idea.

And I do see one other hand. So go for it.

Maybe that that wasn't. That wasn't OK, I said.

OK, hand rather than. I have a question hand 10 four so and I apologize. I'm gonna be looking a little bit this direction.

There are two screens here, so bear with me.

So we are here 81 a little bit before here, which is 8125, that 8125 is when questions will be due.

The reason that we ask for questions to come in by a deadline is so that we can get you answers in advance.

Of the RFP closing, I will continue to answer questions on a rolling basis as quickly as I can.

However, I will give a digest on August 8th of all those formal answers for anybody who will be looking for that, and that is a week in advance of when your proposals will be due.

So that is why we ask for those questions to come in by the 1st of August. Proposals again will be due on the 15th of August.

Once we receive all those proposals.

There's about a week where we perform what's called preliminary evaluation, so that's against those minimum criteria and we will then.

Determine if anybody has not met the minimum criteria, so preliminary evaluation is pass fail.

You will either get through or you will get a notice that you did not meet a criteria or in some cases a notice asking hey there there is an irregularity in your proposal.

Did you intend to not answer Question 7?

If you're able to correct those things, and usually that's somebody made, made an accidental typo, or they missed a question, they have the answer.

But the spreadsheet didn't upload correctly. Something like that.

They're quickly able to to correct those things. We prefer to give the opportunity to allow you to do that so that we don't have to eliminate anybody on procedural grounds.

So that is what will happen during preliminary evaluation period.

Once the preliminary eval is done, all of those proposals which have passed.

Asked that evaluation will be given to the evaluation Committee for Independent scoring.

Right now, that's estimated to take place between the 18th and the 22nd of August.

I'm sorry, I repeated myself.

The 25th of August and the 9th or the 5th of September.

So prelim eval 18th to 22nd of August.

Independent eval from the committee, 25 August two 5th of September.

I apologize.

That means that we are expecting that if we hold shortlisted offer or interviews, which is the intent and plan that will occur during the week of September 8th.

The reason I try to give that in advance is that I would rather have, you know, as far in advance as possible that when you may be asked to be physically present in Milwaukee County.

For such an interview.

So that you're not getting that information a week or a few business days in advance and then having to try and.

Handle logistics for that.

So there is no guarantee obviously, that anyone entity will make those short listed offer interviews. But we suggest that you at least keep some time open on your calendar during that week should you be invited to that interview.

That means that we are expecting estimating notice of intent to award to occur.

Or on or around the 22nd of September. It could be a little sooner, could be a little later.

Depending on when that notice of intent to award is issued, we have a 72 hour protest period.

So, assuming it is the 22nd, that protest period will run until the 25th of September and we will begin contract negotiations right after that. So right now I'm estimating it'll take about a month to negotiate to fully negotiate a contract.

Which means that that negotiation will be done by the end of October.

Our board date for approval of the contract will be in December.

There is not a board meeting in November and that means that our proposed service start date will be January of 2026.

What I'm going to go through now is just a very high level little procedural information. So procurement process using the RFP documents as tools and guidance, communicating with us submitting your proposal and evaluations and award.

We already talked about scope and requirements earlier, so.

This slide really just mimics that timeline that I showed you 2 slides ago.

This is a very simple step by step of sort of how the procurement process functions. So you are here at Pre proposal conference. There are not site tours for this particular RFP. So you do not need to worry about that.

Once the conference is over, obviously we will continue in the submission and preparing your response phase after that come evaluations and scoring and then notice if it's to award contract negotiations.

So using the RFP documents.

I strongly advise I realize that the documents are voluminous, but they're long.

It's hard to read.

There is.

A.

There's a best practice, shall we say, in how to approach this.

So what I recommend is that first you take a look at what is truly the meat of the ASK, and that is going to be Section 4, which are the historical data.

Operations and background. What has happened already up until today?

Section 5, which is the request.

That's a summary of what we are asking for.

It also includes the minimum qualifications and what we consider to be evidence of non responsibility or non responsiveness. So that will tell you sort of you know the you must be this tall to ride rules Section 4, Section 5 Section 6 is your scope of work.

That is what we are asking you to do.

In the future, SO4 is past what already happened. 6 is future.

What will happen?

Section 7 contains the questions that you will need to answer for this RFP. It is the proposal content section, so I also strongly recommend you look at that section.

That's, you know, the what do I need to do, Tony, to submit this proposal answer these questions.

In Section 7, please.

Knowing that the contract will be based on Section 6.

So 4 through 7 are going to be the most important information for you to understand the services both past, present and future.

There are still, you know, it's a boilerplate sections that are important for you to read, and those are sections 8 through 10.

They cover the RFP process.

Your responsibilities are rights, those kinds of of items and issues.

That's where you know you want to be concerned about any legal requirements that may be in the offer or responsibilities.

What are you obligated to do?

Section 11 gives some tips and instructions on how to prepare and submit your proposal so it will step you through how to submit the proposal, what you'll need to submit, but it also provides some advice and guidance on how to get a better score.

So I strongly recommend you take a look at that.

Section 12 is the evaluation process, so the evaluation criteria.

And how we will score your proposals.

And finally, 13 is the award process.

So there are other sections obviously in the RFP.

This is not intended to suggest that any of these sections are more important than any other sections necessarily, but my experience has been it's a big document.

It's difficult to navigate. It's a little bit easier to know.

Hey I should start here.

This is what really really matters.

Scope of work. What's happened in the past?

What questions do I need to answer?

What matters to me?

How do I?

How will I be evaluated?

So please do read the whole document, but if you're looking for a little guidance on where to start and sort of what order to go in, I recommend.

Revisiting this slide.

I apologize that these pictures are quite small.

My eyes are not good either, so bear with me.

So it's figure 12. Four is the required proposal documents what this figure is intended to do is give you an idea of what do you actually need to submit.

What do you need to give Milwaukee County in order to have submitted a complete proposal?

It is what is in figure 12. Four should be exact.

The same or very close to what you will see on the Bonfire Portal page under the requested information.

So if you look at this figure 12-4, you see preliminary evaluation Information Questionnaire 26, Q 26 DE you look at that image on the right, you can see the same thing name, preliminary evaluation questionnaire Q26DE, right.

If there may be slight differences here, one of the examples that I have is required forms.

So you can see that in required forms in 12 four there are only four, but in the bonfire portal there's one more.

That's your targeted business.

Enterprise forms. You may have a little bit of categorization disagreement, but the actual names, file types, and numbers should match between these two sections.

So if you see any that do not, please let me know.

Anything that has a bright red required if means it is only necessary if the condition is met.

For example, if you would like to receive those TVE participation bonus points, you must submit the TBE documentation.

If you have anything that in your preliminary eval questionnaire that does not fit in the space that we gave you, that is character limited. Sometimes it happens.

You should submit it in your technical proposal documentation. If you have proprietary information which you wish to keep from public disclosure.

Closure.

Something that you identified in your proprietary information disclosure form.

Then you should submit your redacted documentation.

What that means is Milwaukee County is subject to Wisconsin's open records law proposals.

Their content and especially costs are considered public record.

So price, I will say right off the bat is always considered a public record.

There is no way for me to keep your cost, your pricing as proprietary or confidential.

I will not be able to do that. The only way to do that is to not bid, however.

Any trade secret or other confidential information that's in your proposal can potentially be kept confidential under Wisconsin public record law.

So what?

We ask you do is please submit a redacted copy of your documentation and the reason we ask.

You to do that is so that we are not making that judgment call on your behalf, right? It. I do not want to try and determine whether or not on Page Six, you know, sentence 7 falls into confidential information or not.

It that that is something that is best identified by all of you as the owners and operators of your business.

So we ask that you give us that redacted documentation so that if there is.

An open record request of any kind.

That is what we will provide.

We will not provide the whole unredacted proposal. Are there some instances where there may be challenges to proprietary confidential information? Yes, they're very rare.

And we can talk more about that during contract negotiation if it gets to that level. But generally speaking, we ask that you submit that redacted documentation so that we are not guessing on your behalf.

Figure 12. Three is the appendices and the exhibits.

So first proc one which I mentioned earlier, that's the one that contains that TDE, detailed data.

Appendix.

A&B are new for RFP 014. What these are are an optional proposal template and sample formatting.

And the reason that I'm providing that is one of the most important things that the evaluators ask for you to do is when you are providing an answer to a question.

Provide the question and then your answer.

So what that means is essentially retype the question and answer underneath the re typed question.

The reason that we ask for that is please keep in mind that the evaluation committee is comprised of people who work in all county divisions and departments.

They are doing this evaluation as essentially other duties as assigned, so they have their own work that they are working on. We get a lot of proposals.

Often they can be quite long.

It is very difficult to go sort of hunt and Peck for the answer to a question in a proposal.

If you haven't formatted it in a way that gives us a direct aha, I see we asked them for this information.

Here is the information that they provided us in response.

That is what the evaluators will score.

They are told they do not need to go hunting for the information if they can't find the information, and that answers a question they can score accordingly.

So what I strongly recommend is one of two things.

Either.

Feel free to.

Use that proposal content template.

It includes every question that we have asked, meaning you can just open it up and type your answers underneath those questions, or you do not need to use that template.

Many entities are gonna have your own proposal.

Template's perfectly fine. Appendix B shows you how the question and answer should be formatted.

So please help us.

Help you. You will get a better score if we can find the answer to the question.

Appendix C is the pricing workbook that's also new for this RFP.

And that is because we had a bit of difficulty in the last in the last round comparing price between.

Offers fairly, so the intent now is. Please use that pricing workbook as the base form to submit your pricing.

That way, everybody's will look the same.

We'll be able to compare them fairly.

To the best of our ability.

And that will hopefully prevent any any concerns about disparities between vendors.

Appendix's, DE and F will give you some more information about both the CRC, the org chart and role information.

Our county service inventory.

So our racial equity, racial and HealthEquity service inventory and our county policies.

The exhibit.

I'm sorry everybody.

We lost the hard wired Internet at my location, so we should be back online.

Can everybody hear me and see me now?

OK, let me get that.

Let's get back to that presentation.

I apologize for that inconvenience.

Oh.

Alright.

Just checking in.

Did everybody hear me get to the end of Appendix F?

Is that sort of where we cut out?

OK.

So the exhibits those are going to be those documents.

Which you will essentially resubmit to us A and BA little bit less than others AB and C.

But A is your sample contract.

Yes, you can make edits to that contract. They would come in your exceptions form.

B. Is your insurance requirements and C is our information technology policy for vendors.

DEFG and H are those forms that need to be submitted back to us.

So the proprietary information disclosure your TBE forms if you choose to do so your sworn statement.

The EEOC compliance form, and if you have exceptions, your request for exceptions form.

Evaluation criteria you can find in section 13 of the RFP.

I have reproduced that here.

This has been changed in the new art whoop.

I apologize in the new RFP.

So what I am showing is what existed in 007 and the reason I'm doing that is so that those who are proposing this time will have a comparison.

So I'm going to share this piece and then I'm going to share.

A.

The direct.

Evaluation criteria out of the current RFP document. So in the past what was done is that the weighting of the point values for the evaluation process.

Were listed as percentages.

That is not clear to everybody, and that is something that.

We corrected going forward so that it would be clear.

So when you're looking at the new criteria, open this up so that I can show everybody what that looks like. They will be by specifically by point value.

So that should be very clear for everybody. If you still are confused or have any concerns understanding the evaluation criteria, please let us know.

It is important to know that as soon as we can, because obviously if if it's difficult to understand the evaluation criteria, it's quite difficult for you all to propose successfully.

So.

Go share this this screen now.

So.

Your evaluation criteria are available in section 12, so you'll see this is figure 12/1.

And you can see the difference here.

So in the previous we had that experience credentials, technical skills listed as 20%. In this case we've shifted that and is now worth 100 points. So these.

Hyperlink sections will take you directly back to the questions that we are asking for you to answer. To gain these points.

So what?

You should be able to do is click here.

It'll jump you directly to experience credentials and technical skills.

And the questions that are in that section, so that is this 7111213456 all the way down here to 11.

So those 11 questions represent 100 points and that will be true for each one of those sections.

Now make sure you double check exactly how many points to each section.

So I realized that I said that and it sounded like I was saying 100 points to each section.

That's not what I meant.

What I meant is.

The A number of points to the section will be listed in that criteria across from that section link within the RFP document.

Very, very quickly because we lost a little time thanks to my Internet snafu. We'll talk about communicating with the county.

It's a little bit of uncommon sense.

So we'll talk about asking questions, exceptions, formal changes and the restrictions that exist when you are asking questions.

We talked about this earlier.

This is truly a repeat.

Please make sure you are asking them using the bonfire portal during the Q&A period.

Only the questions that are asked in the portal are going to be formally answered by the county.

And only formal answers.

Change the terms of the RFP and its requirements.

So if you don't understand something, please ask if you are not sure, please ask. If you find a conflict a typographical error, some other mistake.

I am very, very human.

I am fallible all the time.

I make spelling errors every day.

If something is unclear, please ask.

It is much, much better to ask and have us fix it, then try to make an assumption and potentially lose points.

You know, we don't want to see that happen.

Much better to ask your question.

The county is not going to answer business or operational questions once the Q&A period closes. This comes back to.

That timeline.

The reason that we don't answer those questions.

After that period, closes is so that everyone has access to all of the answers far enough in advance of the closure date of the RFP that you can use that information in a meaningful way.

If you have technical issues or questions after the Q&A period, please contact me directly.

I will help you take care of those.

So if it's, you know, I can't submit this document or I'm submitting it and it looks just completely wrong or you know.

I can't even access bonfire at all.

Please do e-mail me with those questions.

I will be answering the questions on a rolling basis as quickly as I can.

However, I will also issue a digest of the answers and it will be published on August 8th.

So that will be before the RFP is due about a week before the RFP is due.

All of the questions and answers remain public, so the rolling Q&A you should still be able to see those questions and their answers before that August 8th date.

So I do recommend keeping an eye on it, but please know that no matter what, I will send a digest on the 8th of August.

Requesting exceptions if you are requesting an exception to the solicitation, it's terms, the scope of work, the contract. Please make sure you present them in your proposal response.

That is exhibit H the request for exceptions form.

During the prelim evaluation, if there is something in your requested exceptions that we cannot accept, I will contact you and let you know what it is.

And what possible steps there are to move forward, either most of the time we will either offer you the opportunity to rescind an exception and continue or we'll say, hey, did you know that you didn't answer question #7.

No, I didn't know that.

I'm sorry. Here's the answer. So we will try to resolve any procedural issues.

So that we don't need to eliminate anybody for procedural issues.

I have not seen that I can think of any request for exception that has been so.

Substantive that we have denied.

A vendor the opportunity to to be evaluated, that's that's very, very rare.

So we're not talking about negotiating contract terms or any of that during this process.

We are talking specifically about just making sure that any exceptions are actually listed so that we can treat them as part of the evaluation. What will happen if if by some unlucky circumstance?

Really is something so onerous that we could not accept it.

The only time I think I've seen that is, you know, somebody doesn't have the necessary experience necessary years of experience or can't provide a reference or something where you know, we simply can't put that entity forward if every other entity was able to meet the criteria, then the.

Proposal is likely to be considered non responsive and you may be eliminated.

That doesn't typically happen, but it can.

Formal changes.

So again, Tony is is human and makes lots of mistakes.

It happens all the time.

Sometimes, because Tony is human and makes mistakes, there will need to be a change to the RFP documentation that might correct an error might resolve an omission, or a conflict might make the RFP more accurate.

Or it might clarify how you should propose or what to include in your proposal if you need that formal change, you must make that request in writing using the bonfire portal during the Q&A.

We are.

We are not gonna change the terms of the solicitation unless that formal question is asked.

We are not going to consider those formal changes outside the Q&A period unless there are exceptional circumstances.

Or the formal change would be in the best interest of the county in those cases usually.

That's something where somebody notices an error and it is truly problematic and it's close to the closure date of the RFP. And in those instances what we may do is, you know, acknowledge that there is something that has made the RFP unclear.

Here extend the deadline.

Send a correction so that everybody can propose appropriately.

Communication restrictions very, very quickly.

This is uncommon sense, and that's why there are three slides on it during the solicitation process.

You should only communicate via the bonfire portal or e-mail with the RFP administrator. That's me.

What that means is please do not contact county staff or officials or, you know your cousins, Joe's friend who works in the Department of Health and Human Services to talk about.

The RFP, its requirements, your proposal.

Evaluations or anything else related to the RFP or the RFP process that includes discussing the open RFP with any current contact you have at the county.

However.

That does not include and we'll talk about this a little bit later. Current contracts that you have with Milwaukee County.

So what we are talking about is the RFP. You may not talk to anybody in county government about the open RFP.

Wow, it's open.

The county expects all of our vendors to uphold the highest levels of ethical behavior during the RFP process.

So remember that even an appearance of bias or unfairness or access to insider information is not acceptable and conduct your communications accordingly. In the example I give here is this. We have had an instance in which.

A family member of a director of a department.

Went to lunch with that director during an open RFP process that the family members company happened to be bidding on.

Does that mean that that person was given insider information by that director? No.

But it had the appearance.

That that information could have been shared.

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

Back to the statement I made earlier, 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 perfectly fine. That is allowed. If you are talking to somebody in a county department about a CONT.

If you hold with that department today, perfectly fine.

It is only the RFP you should not discuss.

When in doubt, please ask me.

It is better to ask permission than beg forgiveness.

I do not want to eliminate anybody for this.

You know it.

It's much better to not eliminate anybody on procedural grounds.

So please, let's keep everything.

Both actually, and apparently as above board as possible.

And very last very quickly, I am not going to go to each of these links, but I want everybody to be aware what they are using the bonfire portal.

So this first link goes directly to the portal page itself.

All of you should have been there or you would not be in this meeting because you wouldn't been able to find the link.

So you should have this link already, but it's there for your convenience.

The second two are much more important. So Bonfire has a vendor support section.

This link here that second one will go to that vendor support section. Most of you will be standard vendors.

There is a paid or premium account that is available through bonfire, but it is in my experience most vendors don't. Don't use it and you don't need to.

So when you are on their support page, you want to choose the tile that says standard vendor.

Unless you've paid for premium, the 2nd is the vendor registration and submission video.

This will do 100% better at teaching you how to register and submit your proposal than I ever could.

It's about a 10 to 15 minute video.

I don't go through it in this presentation because it'd be too long, but you can use that link.

Go out and view that video. What I've also advised people, and I'm gonna stop sharing my screen again here for just a second.

Is when in doubt if you have a question, a technical question about Bonfire.

Unfortunately, Tony is not the person who can answer.

Answer that question.

I have many things but I do not work on the back end of the IT system.

For bonfire, so if you have technical issues, it will be much much faster to use this question mark.

There will be a blue circle with a question mark on the bottom left hand corner of your screen.

That question Mark, when you click it opens the Resource Center, the second link is the vendor help center.

So when you click on this, not only will it give you that link to the vendor help center.

But it also gives you the ability to e-mail bonfire support directly. So essentially to enter a ticket that is gonna be much faster, they're going to respond much more quickly to your technical questions than I possibly can…