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Questions and Answers for the Managed Print and Copy Services RFP, 2022-001, Union Public School District, Neshoba County School District, Lowndes County School District

Question: On pages 11, 12, and 13, regarding the pricing pages, and how the pricing is being requested, must we break down each piece of equipment as listed on your grid? If so what about the volumes? \

District Response: The equipment chart provided on Page 4 of the RFP document is to allow respondents to better understand the current print/scan/copy capacities and needs of the District. The pricing proposal on Pages 11-13 specifically states that the respondent may provide one combined monthly cost for all equipment in the respondent's proposal. It is not necessary to provide the individual lease cost for each piece of equipment in the respondent's proposal.

Question: Please give thought to the following:

The purpose of issuing a cooperative bid among school districts is to create an economy of scale by combining quantity of equipment and volume. The idea is the equipment price can be reduced by quantity discounts issued by manufacturers and there is more volume to spread the cost over which will reduce the cost per image. This economy of scale allows the school districts to receive a better price than they would otherwise be able to receive if they issued RFP’s separately. When the pricing is requested to split out equipment costs from the CPI and on different pricing sheets based on each school district, it possibly negates the purpose of the cooperative bid and achieving economies of scale by allowing the vendors to weight the pricing for each school district where one or more school districts would get better pricing than other based on quantity of equipment and volume from individual school. Based on this information and assumptions, it is recommended to change the pricing worksheets to include only requesting one Cost-Image-Image (CPI) price for mono pages and one CPI price for color pages with minimum volumes combined across the three school districts. An example is provided below.

This pricing structure will not only give the school districts equal and better pricing, but will also allow for easy price (apples to apples) comparison among the participating vendors.

VENDOR PRICING

FORM

Based on the list of devices requested in the matrix on page 4, please submit cost-per-image prices for each of the following annual minimum volume options:

CPI Rate for Annual

Minimum Volume

CPI

Overage

Rate

Proposed Cost-Per-Image Based on the Annual Minimum Guaranteed Volume of 28,400,000 monochrome pages

Proposed Cost-Per-Image Based on the Annual Minimum Guaranteed Volume of 1,082,000 color pages.

Bid responses must include two cost-per-image pricing units, one for a mono cost-per-image, and one for a color cost-per-image. Pricing structure for both the mono and color cost-per-image (CPI) shall include all services and components (i.e.

installation, equipment, service, labor, parts, consumables -excluding paper and staples, monitoring, software, etc…) to provide Managed Print Services to the school districts.

District Response: The District will not consider replacing or modifying the pricing schedule provided in the RFP. Vendors are specifically cautioned to provide pricing only as requested in the RFP document. Mississippi state public purchasing rules require all competitive bids to be compared using an identical presentation. For this reason, alternative pricing presentations will be disqualified.

Question: If the pricing pages, will not be changed as requested in question 3, please clarify the following:

By stating, “may provide a combined total monthly price for equipment,” is the vendor allowed to list all the equipment and only put one monthly price for the total of all equipment.

District Response: Please note the instructions at the top of the Pricing section, which state:

Respondents should provide pricing for all elements of their proposed solution in the following format. Respondents should list all proposed equipment separately, but may provide a combined total monthly price for equipment.

Question: If the answer to question a is yes, then is the vendor allowed to put one CPI rate for all mono pages and one CPI rate of all color images and a total base volume for all pages.

District Response: Respondents should provide the price per print/image for both monochrome and color scans/copies.

In the column entitled CPI Rates and Limits/Annual Base Mono Images, multiply the cost per image by the base guaranteed monochrome images for the District, found on page 5 of the RFP. This will produce the vendor's total annual price for the District's guaranteed base monochrome image commitment.

In the column entitled CPI Rates and Limits/Annual Base Color Images, multiply the cost per image by the base guaranteed color images for the District, found on page 5 of the RFP. This will produce the vendor's total annual price for the District's guaranteed base color image commitment.

In the column entitled CPI Overage Rates/B&W, per image, list the per-image cost for monochrome prints that exceed the annual base guarantee for monochrome images.

In the column entitled CPI Overage Rates/Color, per image, list the per-image cost for color prints that exceed the annual base guarantee for color images.

This will leave your pricing sheet with a long list of equipment, but a single line of pricing, which should include:

The monthly cost for leasing all equipment in the bid The per-image and annual cost for monochrome images The per-image and annual cost for color images.

The per-image cost for prints in excess of the District's monochrome image annual base guarantee The per-image cost for prints in excess of the District's color image annual base guarantee.

Question: On page 3, the RFP specifies, “that any proposed solution must be 100% compatible and integrate, and provide support for PaperCut, the print management software platform in use at Lowndes County School District. How is PaperCut at Lowndes County School being used?

District Response: PaperCut tracks, manages, and accounts for prints and scans at the device level.

Question: Is Lowndes County School District the only school district planning to utilize PaperCut?

District Response: Yes.

Question: This PaperCut compatibility requirement may limit the number of vendor responses to this RFP or put a vendor at a price disadvantage if certain components of PaperCut are required to be provided by the awarded vendor. Would the school district/s allow an alternative to PaperCut to be proposed if the alternative product will meet the needs of the school district that PaperCut will be fulfilling?

District Response: No. The District has already licensed and implemented PaperCut.

Question: Which version of PaperCut does the school district plan to use with the award of this RFP?

MF or NG?

District Response: The District currently uses PaperCut MF version 19.1; however, since LCSD is under support contract through a PaperCut authorized partner, it has the ability to upgrade to the latest version (v22.0 at this writing) or anything in between if warranted.

Question: What components and features of PaperCut does the school district plan to use with the award of this RFP and describe the problems/issues/needs that PaperCut is solving?

District Response: PaperCut tracks, manages, and accounts for prints and scans at the device level.

Question: Is the awarded vendor required to provide any part of PaperCut to the school district or will the school district be purchasing and providing, outside the scope of this RFP, all necessary components of PaperCut?

District Response: No, the selected vendor will not be required to provide any part of PaperCut.

Question: To what extent will the awarded vendor be required to, “integrate and provide support” for PaperCut?

District Response: The vendor's proposed print and copy solution must be compatible with PaperCut and may not limit, frustrate, or interfere with PaperCut's print/scan tracking, charging, and management functions.

Question: If PaperCut is being provided by a vendor that is not the awarded vendor, will “integration and support” be provided by the vendor from which PaperCut was purchased and therefore not require the awarded vendor to provide integration and support accept for providing any needed access to the devices for providing the integration and support?

District Response: Lowndes County School District self-supports PaperCut;

however, the added benefit of the hardware vendor having had done PaperCut integrations before is preferred as there are nuances that are typically known by the hardware vendor for their own hardware that the software application vendor isn’t always aware of.

Question: Integration and support can be provided directly by PaperCut’s US distribution partner. If the school district is not purchasing PaperCut and any needed components through this RFP from the awarded vendor, would the school district confirm that they are purchasing the integration and support services through PaperCut’s US distribution partner, ACDI or through another vendor.

District Response: Lowndes County School District has a support contract for PaperCut.

Question: On page 6, in regard to the “Extension of the Award to any other District” specification, please clarify the intent of this specification. Does “term of this contract” mean to include the pricing awarded through this RFP? It is requested to remove this specification from the RFP as the pricing and terms awarded through this RFP are specific to the equipment and volume needs of the school districts in this RFP. The awarded pricing and terms of this RFP may or may not be advantageous to other school districts or fit their needs.

District Response:

The intention of the requirement is to extend the selected vendor's pricing and proposed equipment to any other K-12 school district in the State of Mississippi that may want managed print/copy services in their district, and wishes to adopt a contract that has already been competitively bid. At this writing, the District is not aware of any such interest in the State of Mississippi. The District will not remove the requirement.

Question: Can you please address the discrepancy in the Question deadline stated in the RFP (11/29/2022) and the Question deadline stated on the Notice of Invitation for Bids Schedule (12/2/2022) ?

District Response: The District extended the Question response date to 12/2/2022 when it published the RFP electronically. The RFP consultant will accept questions until it is no longer practical to respond. Post-deadline question responses will be distributed only to those firms that have submitted a completed Intent To Respond form, found on the second page of the RFP document.