Response to Offeror Questions document.docx
DOCX document 31 KB Posted
- Solicitation number
- 26RFP19832
- Issued by
- Harding County, South Dakota
About this file
Summary
This is a Response to Offeror Questions document for RFP #26RFP19832 issued by the South Dakota Unified Judicial System regarding Sixth Circuit Court Transcription Services. The State seeks a qualified vendor to provide court transcription services for FTR-recorded proceedings across thirteen counties with five judges and four computer-assisted court recorders. The service must deliver transcripts with a minimum 95% accuracy rate, support multi-channel audio processing, handle speaker identification across up to four channels, and provide secure delivery mechanisms for sensitive and sealed cases. The State anticipates approximately 110-120 hours of audio per month (around 420 transcript requests annually with roughly 35 per month), with average proceeding lengths of two hours and maximum recordings of seven hours. Vendors must propose tiered service levels for standard, expedited, and same-day/rush transcripts, as the State has not yet formalized definitions for these categories. The proposal submission deadline is June 15, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. Central Time, with oral presentations potentially scheduled for the week of June 22, 2026, and an anticipated contract award in July 2026 with commencement on August 1, 2026. The contract term is one year with renewal options subject to re-evaluation.
Pricing must align with South Dakota IP Rule 2020-02 mandatory rates for Computer-Assisted Court Recorder-produced transcripts, and vendors should submit transparent per-minute or per-hour pricing structures with volume discounts. There is no incumbent vendor as South Dakota does not currently have transcription services in place, and no maximum contract value has been established by the State. The solution must integrate with the existing FTR 7.7 software infrastructure, support secure electronic delivery with role-based access controls and encryption in transit and at rest, comply with NIST and CJIS security frameworks, and maintain data residency within the continental United States. The State requires correction of transcripts falling below the 95% accuracy threshold at no additional cost and expects 24-hour turnaround for corrections. No hard copies, CDs, or removable storage devices are required; all deliverables must be electronic. The State will handle quality review responsibility in coordination with vendor recommendations and reserves the right to conduct independent accuracy audits against official court audio recordings.
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| File | Type | Posted |
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| RFP Document.pdf |
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Text version
Sixth Circuit Court Transcription Services RFP South Dakota Unified Judicial System
RFP: 26RFP19832
| Q: | Approximately how many hours of audio per month are generated across the five judges and four court recorders in the thirteen counties? | |
| A: | Approximately 110-120 hours | |
| Q: | What is the average length of court proceedings being submitted for transcription? A: | Approximately 2 hours |
| Q: | How many transcript requests are anticipated annually, and is there significant seasonal variation during court sessions? | |
| A: | Around 420 annually with no seasonal variations. | |
| Q: | Are all thirteen counties expected to generate similar volume, or are certain courthouses significantly higher volume than others? | |
| A: | There will be a varying range of volume. Hughes County will be significantly higher than the other counties. | |
| Q: | Which version(s) of FTR software are currently in use across the courthouses? | |
| A: | FTR 7.7 | |
| Q: | Are the recordings mono or multi-channel, and does channel count vary by location? | |
| A: | Most recordings are multi-channel | |
| Q: | Will recordings be uploaded to the vendor, or does the vendor need to integrate directly with the court's FTR system for file retrieval? | |
| A: | South Dakota is willing to explore either option | |
| Q: | What turnaround times are currently expected for standard, expedited, and rush transcripts? | |
| A: | The State has not yet established formal definitions for the standard, expedited and rush transcript requests. As part of this RFP, vendors should propose recommended service levels for each request type. The State will evaluate the vendor recommendations and may finalize transcript definitions during contract negotiations or implementation planning. | |
| Q: | Are there specific deadlines tied to court filing requirements that the vendor must accommodate? | |
| A: | Transcripts will be sealed for 48 hours after being prepared. | |
| Q: | Is same-day turnaround ever required, and if so, how frequently? | |
| A: | Same-day turnaround is not currently defined as a standard service level requirement. In rare occasions, the State may encounter urgent transcript needs. Vendors should describe their ability to support same-day requests. | |
| Q: | How will the 95% minimum accuracy rate be measured and by whom — will the state conduct independent audits, or rely on the vendor's own reporting? | |
| A: | Through a combination of vendor reporting and State validation. The vendor will provide accuracy metrics and documentation for quality assurance. The State reserves the right to conduct independent audits of accuracy against the official court audio recording and human-reviewed transcript. Audio quality, overlapping speech, inaudible portions and non-standard terminology must be clearly identified and may be considered separately from transcription errors. | |
| Q: | What happens in the event a transcript falls below the 95% threshold — is there a correction protocol or financial penalty? | |
| A: | The vendor must correct it at no additional cost to the State or requesting party. The vendor must document the cause of the deficiency and any corrective actions taken. The State may require reprocessing and human review. | |
| Q: | Is there an existing transcript request portal currently in use that the new vendor should integrate with, or is the state looking for a vendor to provide a new solution from scratch? | |
| A: | South Dakota does not currently have a portal. | |
| Q: | Who currently handles payment collection for transcript requests — the court, an existing vendor, or individual requestors paying the court directly? | |
| A: | Handled by individual court reporters as a separate business transaction. | |
| Q: | Are there preferred payment methods (credit card, ACH, etc.) the portal must support? | |
| A: | Credit cards, ACH | |
| Q: | Does the state have a specific data classification policy or security framework (NIST, CIS, etc.) that vendors must align with? | |
| A: | The State would require alignment with NIST and CJIS. | |
| Q: | Where must data be stored — does the state require data to remain within the United States, or within South Dakota specifically? | |
| A: | Data must remain within the continental United States. | |
| Q: | What is the state's preferred method for data deletion upon contract termination — secure wipe certification, destruction logs, or something else? | |
| A: | The preferred/required deletion approach is NIST 800-88-aligned sanitization, using purge or destroy based on the data’s confidentiality classification, with high-confidentiality State data requiring destruction unless the contract or law requires the vendor to retain it. | |
| Q: | Is there a current vendor providing these services, and if so, is this a re-compete? | |
| A: | South Dakota does not currently have these services. | |
| Q: | What is the anticipated contract length and are the three renewal years automatic or subject to re-evaluation? | |
| A: | One year contract length with renewals subject to reevaluation. | |
| Q: | Is there a maximum contract value the state has budgeted for this engagement? | |
| A: | No. | |
| Q : | Who is the incumbent ? | |
| A : | South Dakota does not currently have this service. | |
| Q: | What is the contract value? | |
| A: | Vendors are expected to submit their pricing based on the scope of work in the RFP. | |
| Q: | What is the expected duration of the contract? | |
| A: | One year contract length with renewals subject to reevaluation. | |
| Q: | What is the estimated total monthly volume of recordings across all 13 courthouses? | |
| A: | Approximately 110 hours of audio per month | |
| Q: | What is the average length of a single proceeding? | |
| A: | Approximately 2 hours | |
| Q: | What is the frequency of proceedings per courthouse? | |
| A: | Varies from one time a month to around 15 per month | |
| Q: | What is the number of transcript requests expected per month | |
| A: | Around 35 transcripts per month | |
| Q: | How are recordings currently transferred or made available — via network share, cloud storage, physical media? | |
| A: | Currently they are available through a network share for employees in the FTR User Group | |
| Q: | What is the average and maximum length of a single court proceeding recording? | |
| A: | Average length is about 2 hours and the max (within the last two months) was 7 hours | |
| Q: | Who is responsible for quality review? | |
| A: | Responsibility for quality review has not yet been assigned. As part of the proposal, vendors should identify the quality review responsibilities they will perform and any responsibilities they recommend the State perform. | |
| Q: | How many speakers are typically present in a single proceeding? | |
| A: | FTR Supports 4 channel recordings | |
| Q: | Is there a preferred naming convention for speaker labels? | |
| A: | The current recording software supports up to four-channel recording and vendors should describe their recommended approach to identifying and labeling speakers in the transcript. | |
| Q: | How should the vendor handle unknown or unnamed speakers? | |
| A: | When a speaker cannot be identified, the vendor should use a neutral naming convention rather than guessing the speaker’s identity. Vendors should propose how unknown speakers are labeled and flag for review. | |
| Q: | What is the expected turnaround for corrections after a transcript is flagged as inaccurate? | |
| A: | 24 hours | |
| Q: | What is the historical breakdown between standard, expedited, and same-day requests? | |
| A: | The State has not yet established formal definitions for the standard, expedited and rush transcript requests. As part of this RFP, vendors should propose recommended service levels for each request type. The State will evaluate the vendor recommendations and may finalize transcript definitions during contract negotiations or implementation planning. | |
| Q: | What are the specific turnaround time expectations for each delivery tier? | |
| A: | The State has not yet established formal definitions for the standard, expedited and rush transcript requests. As part of this RFP, vendors should propose recommended service levels for each request type. The State will evaluate the vendor recommendations and may finalize transcript definitions during contract negotiations or implementation planning. | |
| Q: | What is the preferred method of delivery? | |
| A: | Vendors should propose available secure delivery options and should support timely access, appropriate user permissions, tracking of delivery date/time and protection of confidential court information. | |
| Q: | What access controls are expected specifically for confidential recordings? | |
| A: | Vendors should propose a security structure that limits access to authorized personnel only and supports role-base permissions, encryption in transit and at rest, and the ability to restrict viewing, downloading, printing, or sharing of confidential records. | |
| Q: | Are there State-mandated data residency requirements? | |
| A: | Data must reside within the continental United States | |
| Q: | Does the State use a case management system the solution must integrate with? | |
| A: | Not at this time. | |
| Q: | Do you require hard copies? If so, how many do you require and where will we be mailing the documents? | |
| A: | The State does not plan to require hard copies. | |
| Q: | Do you require CD’s or Hard Drives, or anything stored on removable storage sent to you? | |
| A: | The State does not plan on needing data on removable storage devices. | |
| Q: | Are files preferred electronically? | |
| A: | Yes. | |
| Q: | What is the audio volume? How much do you expect to transcribe a week? A month? | |
| A: | Approximately 35 transcripts per month | |
| Q: | What is the average audio length? Is there an average audio length? | |
| A: | Approximately two hours | |
| Q: | Are there any third-party requestors, who need to purchase the transcripts, as well? | |
| A: | The State anticipates that third-party requestors may need the ability to request and purchase transcripts, subject to applicable court rules, confidentiality restrictions, and authorization requirements. Third-party requestors may include attorneys, parties to a case, government agencies, media, or members of the public, where permitted. Vendors should describe how their solution supports third-party transcript requests, payment collection, request tracking, and access controls. | |
| Q: | What is the invoicing/payment method of your dept? PCard, SFS, CC, Invoice Net 30? | |
| A: | This is currently handled by individual court reporters as a separate business transaction. | |
| Q: | Is there a busy and slow season? | |
| A: | No. | |
| Q: | What percent are expedited? What percent are standard turnaround? | |
| A: | The State does not currently track transcript requests by standard, expedited, or rush turnaround categories and therefore cannot provide reliable percentages for each request type at this time. | |
| Q: | What are you currently paying for this service? | |
| A: | South Dakota does not currently have this service | |
| Q: | Are you happy with your current vendor? Where is there room for improvement? | |
| A: | South Dakota does not currently have this service | |
| Q: | What languages are required besides English if any? Pricing would be upon request for other languages and are different from the English pricing. | |
| A: | None. | |
| Q: | Please clarify, you are a looking for an automated system to do all of the work – or you are looking for a company who has a streamlined system utilizing humans, to do the work? | |
| A: | Would consider both models. | |
| Q: | Is the State the end user or are there specific divisions or departments? | |
| A: | The State is the end user. | |
| Q: | Is the pricing page rate mandatory as defined by IP Rule 2020-02 for CACR-produced transcripts? | |
| A: | Yes. | |
| Q: | Will the certified transcripts be prepared by Computer-Assisted Court Recorders employed by the Sixth Judicial Circuit? | |
| A: | Yes primarily. They may be shared for preparation by other recorders statewide or court reporters as work is divided. | |
| Q: | Is the vendor required to facilitate the creation of certified transcripts pursuant to IP Rule 2020-02? | |
| A: | No. | |
| Q: | Is the Recording Solution required to capture the video along with the audio from the remote participants for storage, playback/access purposes or just the audio from the video remote participants for storage, playback/access purposes? | |
| A: | Audio only. |
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