Citywide Digital Accessibility Compliance Platform

The City of St. Petersburg, Florida (located in Pinellas County) is issuing Request for Proposal (RFP) No. 26-178 to procure a comprehensive, cloud-based digital accessibility compliance platform with professional services. The platform must provide automated monitoring and remediation guidance for web accessibility, document accessibility review and processing, compliance reporting, governance and policy development assistance, and structured training programs for multiple city departments. Key deliverables include automated accessibility scanning with weekly updates for the city's website and microsites aligned with WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards, manual testing support with assistive technology guidance, PDF and document accessibility tools with bulk processing capabilities for approximately 250,000 documents, role-based reporting dashboards with citywide and department-level visibility, third-party application evaluation support, and comprehensive training through live sessions and self-paced learning modules for website editors, content contributors, IT staff, and ADA/legal personnel. The solution must support compliance with ADA Title II, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Florida accessibility regulations while building sustainable accessibility capacity across the organization. Required qualifications include a minimum of three years of experience delivering comparable services to public-sector clients, current client references, a dedicated account manager and support staff available during business hours, and defined service level agreements with response times ranging from 30 minutes for Severity 1 issues to 8 hours for lower-severity issues. The RFP was released on April 8, 2026, with a deadline for questions on May 11, 2026, and a response deadline of May 19, 2026, at 3:00 p.m., submitted electronically through the OpenGov Procurement portal. Evaluation will be scored on a 100-point scale weighted across five criteria: Qualifications and Experience (20 points), Project Approach (35 points), Cost Analysis (15 points), Schedule (20 points), and Business Enterprise Program Outreach and Utilization (10 points). Proposals must be submitted as a single PDF file limited to 50 pages and must include a transmittal letter, detailed qualifications and experience, project approach methodology, comprehensive cost analysis, project schedule, and business enterprise outreach information. The initial contract term is one year with two optional one-year renewal periods at the mutual agreement of both parties.

No specific set-asides or restrictions limiting eligible organizations are identified; however, the RFP strongly encourages participation by Small Business Enterprises (SBE), Women Business Enterprises (WBE), Veteran Owned Businesses, and Minority Business Enterprises (MBE), with vendors required to submit a Subcontractor Utilization Plan demonstrating efforts to engage diverse business participation, though no minimum participation level is mandated. Vendors must be registered with the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations, comply with Florida's E-Verify system, acknowledge Florida public records laws, and obtain required insurance coverage including commercial general liability of at least one million dollars per occurrence and two million dollars aggregate, along with technology errors and omissions insurance of one million dollars. The vendor must also comply with comprehensive technology requirements including cloud hosting within the contiguous United States with redundant secondary facilities, four-hour backup intervals, and annual business continuity and disaster recovery testing. The City reserves the right to negotiate with the most qualified firm, reject any or all responses, cancel the solicitation, and award on a split-order, lump-sum, or individual item basis. The estimated first-year platform cost is $75,000 with anticipated annual maintenance costs of approximately $70,000 for subsequent years, funded through Operating Fund 5019; no incumbent vendor or existing infrastructure requiring integration is identified in the procurement documents.