26-001_CalVCB_2026_RFI_Modernization_Solution_final.pdf

California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB)

RFI 26-001

California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB)

RFI No. 26-001 Compensation and Restitution System Modernization

RELEASE DATE: August 24th, 2026 RESPONSE REQUESTED NO LATER THAN: September 24th, 2026 2:00PM (PST)

ISSUED BY: State of California

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

A. PROJECT PURPOSE

B. PROJECT BACKGROUND

C. PROJECT VISION

D. CURRENT CHALLENGES

E. SUBMISSION OF QUESTIONS

F. RFI RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS

G. SOLUTION DEMONSTRATION

H. RFI KEY ACTION DATES

I. DISCLAIMER

2. GENERAL PROVISIONS

3. ATTACHMENTS

A. ATTACHMENT 1 – RFI RESPONSE WORKSHEET

B. ATTACHMENT 2 – LINKS TO IT AND SECURITY GUIDELINES AND STANDARDS

1. INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

The California Victims Compensation Board (CalVCB) is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to solicit innovative input from qualified vendors (Respondents) for a modernization solution to replace CalVCB's current claims processing system.

RFI responses will be reviewed and analyzed by CalVCB to determine if solutions are available to satisfy CalVCB’s technical and business needs. This RFI is for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a competitive solicitation. No award or contract will result from this RFI. Any future solicitation resulting from this RFI is anticipated to be released on the California State Contract Register (CSCR) system (CaleProcure).

A. PROJECT PURPOSE

CalVCB is seeking information and best practices from qualified Respondents to assist CalVCB in determining what is currently available in the marketplace based on the objectives and requirements as described herein. The intent of this RFI is not to select a proposed solution or supplier. The objective is to conduct market research that will assist CalVCB in investigating alternatives to modernizing the current processes with a highly configurable solution. Responses may or may not assist CalVCB in the development of a future procurement strategy.

Respondents are invited to respond to this RFI with potential products and/or suggested approaches to assist CalVCB in determining if solutions such as a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS), Modified-Off-The-Shelf (MOTS), integrated product set (i.e., integration of multiple products), COTS Configurable, or a custom solution would best address the required functions described in this RFI. Multiple products may be described in the response.

B. PROJECT BACKGROUND

The California Victim Compensation Board (CalVCB) is a three-member Board dedicated to assisting victims of violent crimes. CalVCB administers the Victim Compensation Program, which provides reimbursement for crime-related expenses to victims who suffer physical injury or the threat of physical injury because of a violent crime. CalVCB also administers the Erroneously Convicted Persons Program, the Restitution Recovery Program, the Good Samaritan Program, and the Missing Children Reward Program.

CalVCB reimburses victims of violent crimes, once all other payment sources have been exhausted. Applicants file claims for reimbursement for out-of-pocket costs for medical and dental, mental health, income loss, relocation, residential security, and other such sub-categories. CalVCB has a claim maximum benefit amount that includes sub-categories with benefit limits. Benefits are payable over the life of the claimant, up to these limits.

The Compensation and Restitution System (CaRes) provides a means to capture and process all the information associated with a claim to determine eligibility. Bills are also captured and processed for benefit determination and then payments are processed and sent to the claimants and/or providers.

CaRes is currently a workflow-based system that follows the claim through its life cycle. Work flows within the current system through work items generated and presented in queues for staff, with designated permissions. Reports are generated to review aging, assigned and processed work. The application comes in (online, via mail or email), and if accompanied by appropriate supporting information, an eligibility determination is made. If supporting information is absent, the application must be held and the supporting information requested – either from the claimant or external sources (i.e., crime reporting agencies, Department of Justice, etc.). Once a determination can be made, the application is either approved or denied, and any associated bills can be reviewed for processing. There is an emergency award process that allows for expedited reviews in dire circumstances.

Both documentation of the emergency request and independent processing of the application must be available.

If an application is denied, an appeals process is triggered. Currently, a denied application generates a letter with appeal rights and timelines explained. Without a request for an appeal, the denial becomes final in 55 days. If an appeal is requested, the claim moves into an appeals status to allow legal to review and process the appeal. The appeal process is similar for both eligibility of applications and denial of bills. No pending bills are eligible for processing while a claim is in appeal status.

Once an application is determined to be eligible for benefits, any bills submitted are reviewed for completeness, crime relatedness and processed for payment.

If submitted via standard form CMS 1450/1500 the bills are initially processed through a third-party vendor that adjudicates the bills. The adjudicated bills are received from the vendor and loaded into CaRes. CaRes runs the bills through a rules engine to allow for automatic payment. Bills that cannot be paid through the rules engine or those that are required to be manually reviewed are presented to staff for processing. All bill denials are presented with the opportunity to appeal and follow the same process described above for application denials.

Appeals of both eligibility and bill determinations are documented, assigned and processed. Letters are generated, timelines are calendared and claim statuses are updated.

CaRes also provides the ability to track criminal disposition cases and offenders, providing court staff and judges with the necessary information to impose fines and orders. This serves to collect offender fines towards the Board's restitution fund. The CaRes system supports approximately three hundred users at the CalVCB as well as users throughout the state in county Joint Power (JP) and Criminal Restitution Compact (CRC) offices.

In some instances, CalVCB receives returned benefits for a variety of reasons, including returned warrants, settlements, and overpayments (adjustments).

Returned benefits must be credited to the claimant’s benefit limits for potential future disbursements.

C. PROJECT VISION

CalVCB is seeking an agile, robust, highly configurable claims compensation and restitution system. The goal is to support the end-to-end processes within the claim compensation and restitution lifecycle. The solution should streamline, integrate, and automate process workflows for internal and external users to track and manage their claims, compensation and restitution. The ultimate resolution would be based on cohesive claims compensation and restitution business model with a single solution to effectively manage and monitor the claims, compensation and restitution. The system should be agile enough to accommodate CalVCB’s future business needs, updates to policy/process/procedure, and statutory or regulatory changes.

D. CURRENT CHALLENGES

Due to missing functionality and system limitations, external business processes and documentation practices have been created to accommodate needed workflows. When additional functionality is requested, updates often take several months due to coding requirements.

1. Lack of agility in making updates or additions to functionality within the current system. Changes are heavily dependent on coding, resulting in time consuming and less agile updates.

2. Lack of an adjustments module results in code updates to make required changes and dependency on external databases. (i.e., if a payment is returned, there is no automated way to add the money back to their available benefit)

3. Lack of appeals workflow resulting in external processes that are manually integrated into the system of record. (i.e., ability to create, track and document appeals status, documents and resolution)

4. No communication/correspondence engine. Not all letters and forms are available in the system, so the use of manual, offline, and custom letters is required. Updates to letters are all required to be hard coded. Multilingual correspondence is not available – only English and Spanish are supported.

5. Lack of attribute auditing throughout the claim; specifically, who took what actions at what phase.

6. Lack of integrated online application process. Current process links an external online process to system of record.

7. Data that is entered into the application as well as supporting documentation and bills cannot be renamed. The document must be uploaded a second time with the correct name.

8. Lack of integration between claim and provider information.

9. Separation of duties must be managed manually, and the system does not provide any warning or notification if someone violates the separation of duties.

The system can’t call out that someone might be processing a bill on an application that they allowed.

10. Lack of agility in customization of reports in a timely manner.

The current process results in:

• Higher number of phone calls and emails

• Increased escalations

• Lack of visibility into status or progress

• Inconsistent information across divisions, claimants, providers and advocates/representatives

• Increased time to approval and payment

• Manual document and recordkeeping development

• Inefficient workarounds

E. SUBMISSION OF QUESTIONS

Respondents seeking clarification on this RFI must contact CalVCB’s designated representative shown below. No other representative of CalVCB is authorized to communicate with Respondents with respect to this RFI. Questions must be submitted no later than the date provided in Table 1, Key Action Dates.

Name: Heidi Smith.

E-mail: ITAcquisitions@victims.ca.gov.

At its discretion, the State may contact Respondents to seek clarification of any inquiry received. Responses to questions submitted timely will be provided to all Vendors. Questions and answers will be posted on the California State Contracts Register (CSCR) at https://caleprocure.ca.gov. The parties submitting questions will not be publicized in the Response to Questions.

F. RFI RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS

Respondents shall submit written responses including RFI Response Worksheet (Attachment 1.) electronically by the date and time stated in Table 1, Key Action Dates.

RFI responses must be submitted to the RFI Contact:

ITAcquisitions@victims.ca.gov. CalVCB assumes no responsibility if the response is not received prior to the RFI submission deadline.

Respondents providing estimated costing models and budgetary range information in response to this RFI is for information planning purposes and is not represented as a proposal/bid from the Respondent. Any sizing assumptions or constraints that affect the estimated cost range/pricing model should be referenced. The estimated costs provided are non-binding and will be used for informational and planning purposes only.

G. SOLUTION DEMONSTRATION

CalVCB, at its own discretion, may invite selected Respondents to conduct a demonstration of their solution(s), presentation of their approach, and explanation of the costing model. Respondents invited will be notified by e-mail, according to Table 1, Key Actions and Dates. CalVCB may extend the demonstration schedule should the quality and quantity of responses warrant additional demonstrations.

After the Respondent’s response to this RFI is received by CalVCB, a demonstration of the solution(s) may be scheduled.

mailto:ITAcquisitions@victims.ca.gov https://caleprocure.ca.gov/ mailto:ITAcquisitions@victims.ca.gov

H. RFI KEY ACTION DATES

Listed below are the important key actions and dates. CalVCB may make changes to this schedule by posting changes to all interested parties on the CSCR at https://caleprocure.ca.gov.

Table 1: Key Actions and Dates

KEY ACTIONS DATE

RFI Release August 24, 2026 Last Day to Submit Questions September 2, 2026 Release of Response to Questions September 9, 2026 RFI Response September 24, 2026 - 2:00pm (PST) RFI Respondent Demonstrations* October 2026 - (Invites TBD)

*Please note that relevance of your RFI response will determine selection of vendors who will be invited to share demonstrations, please see Section 1. G., Solution Demonstration.

I. DISCLAIMER

This RFI is for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a competitive solicitation.

A response to this RFI is not an offer and cannot be accepted by CalVCB to form a binding contract. No award or contract will result from this RFI.

CalVCB is not responsible for any expenses associated with responding to this

RFI.

Responding to this RFI creates no obligation on the part of any Respondent to CalVCB. Conversely, issuing this RFI and considering responses creates no obligation on the part of CalVCB to any Respondent.

Respondents are advised that all documents submitted in response to this RFI become the property of the State of California and will be regarded as public records under the California Public Records Act (Government Code Section

7921.000 et seq.) and subject to review by the public.

The State does not request any proprietary information be submitted, nor shall it be liable for any consequential damages for proprietary information if submitted.

Any information submitted in response of this RFI is subject to disclosure under https://caleprocure.ca.gov/ the Freedom of Information Act, 5 USC 552 (a) and the California Public Records Act. CalVCB may, at its sole discretion, choose not to consider or evaluate any response, or any portion of a response because of this RFI.

Please read this RFI document thoroughly and adhere to the response submission instructions.

CalVCB reserves the right to invite Respondents who submit a qualified RFI to participate in demonstrations.

2. GENERAL PROVISIONS

The following terms and conditions, or their successor, will be incorporated into any solicitation resulting from this RFI. The State will not modify these terms and conditions. The following General Provisions are not included in hard copy but may be viewed at the website link provided below:

Department of General Services Procurement Division, INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY - GENERAL PROVISIONS CLOUD - COMPUTING SERVICES,

DGS PD 402-ITGP (Cloud)

Current Version (Revised and Effective 2/20/2025)

Department of General Services Procurement Division, INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY - GENERAL PROVISIONS - NON-CLOUD GOODS & SERVICES,

DGS PD 403-ITGP (Non-Cloud)

Current Version (Revised and Effective 2/20/2025)

3. ATTACHMENTS

A. ATTACHMENT 1 – RFI RESPONSE WORKSHEET

B. ATTACHMENT 2 – LINKS TO IT AND SECURITY GUIDELINES AND STANDARDS

https://www.dgs.ca.gov/-/media/Divisions/PD/Acquisitions/Solicitation-Document-Attachments/IT-General-Provisions-Cloud-DGS-PD-402ITGP-Revised-02202025.pdf https://www.dgs.ca.gov/-/media/Divisions/PD/Acquisitions/Solicitation-Document-Attachments/IT-General-Provisions-NonCloud-DGS-PD-403ITGP-Revised-02202025.pdf