Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Management Software

The City of New Haven, Connecticut is requesting proposals for a secure, cloud-based Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request Management Application with proposals due September 22, 2026 at 11:00 a.m., and questions due by September 11, 2026 at 5:00 p.m.

The solution must centralize intake, tracking, redaction, and fulfillment of public-records requests; support compliance with Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC) requirements; and integrate with the City's OnBase Content Management System and Microsoft environments, including Azure AD/Entra ID single sign-on capability. Required functionality includes a public intake and requestor portal with guided request wizards, automated acknowledgments, secure file delivery, multi-department routing, native redaction tools for PDFs, images, video, and audio files, optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities, de-duplication logic, automated compliance reporting, and data export in non-proprietary formats. The vendor must demonstrate SOC 2 Type II compliance, AES-256 encryption at rest, and TLS 1.2+ encryption in transit.

The initial contract term is one year with two optional one-year extension periods subject to the Purchasing Agent's sole discretion. Board of Alders approval is required for contracts exceeding one year. Vendors must provide a three-year total cost of ownership including implementation, licensing, annual subscription, and support costs, with clear disclosure of all licensing assumptions regarding named users, concurrent users, departmental users, public requestors, storage, API transaction limits, OCR consumption limits, and redaction-processing thresholds. The City applies local-vendor preference provisions favoring city-based businesses with bid preferences ranging from 6–15% depending on contract value. A living-wage ordinance applies to contracts exceeding $25,000 with labor performed within the City.

Evaluation weights technical functionality at 30 points, vendor qualifications and implementation focus at 30 points, user experience at 15 points, security and compliance at 15 points, and cost and value at 10 points. Cost is evaluated using a "Reward Low Cost" formula under which the lowest proposal receives maximum points and higher-cost proposals receive proportionally fewer points. Vendors must provide proof of General Liability insurance ($1,000,000 per occurrence/$2,000,000 aggregate), Excess/Umbrella Liability ($1,000,000 each), Cyber Liability/Data Compromise ($5,000,000), and Technology Error & Omissions ($5,000,000) coverage, with the City named as additional insured. Proposals must be submitted in two parts—technical proposal (containing no pricing) and separate price proposal—via the City's eProcurement Portal. Required submissions include notarized Disclosure and Certification Affidavit, Current Workforce Demographic Form, Statement of Qualifications, Non-Collusion Affidavit, Ban the Box Agreement acknowledgment, and Certificate of Non-Arrearage.