RFO 25-002 Accela

The California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) has issued Request for Offer (RFO) #25-002 to procure Accela software maintenance and operations services through the Department of General Services Software Licensing Program (SLP). The procurement seeks a qualified contractor to provide configuration, maintenance, and implementation services for two Accela platforms that support the DCC's cannabis regulatory licensing systems. Core deliverables include defect resolutions, system enhancements, analysis, development, deployment, testing, and knowledge transfer aligned with statutory and regulatory changes. The contractor must maintain a minimum of four full-time equivalent staff dedicated to Accela Managed Application Services, with additional Professional Services engineers available as needed, providing a minimum of 640 service hours per month. Mandatory qualifications require a minimum of two years' experience configuring Accela for government-regulated professional and business licensing systems and minimum one year in hybrid-agile development environments; Professional Services engineers must possess five years' software implementation experience and a Bachelor's degree in an IT-related field. Desirable qualifications include cannabis-specific licensing implementation experience and Agile-based maintenance and operations system development experience. Award will be made based on best value scoring: client references (54 points), respondent qualifications (100 points), staff qualifications (275 points), and project cost (800 points), totaling 1,429 possible points. The amended due date for proposals is February 24, 2026, at 5:00 PM PST (per Addendum 2), with a proposed contract start date of March 10, 2026, or upon contract execution, whichever occurs later. The base contract term is two years with one optional one-year extension at the State's discretion.

Only firms currently holding valid SLP agreements that include the required labor categories—Engineer (Professional Services) and Accela Managed Application Services for SaaS—are eligible to respond. No set-aside designations or restrictions specific to disadvantaged enterprises are identified in the available documentation. The procurement does not disclose information regarding incumbent vendors or current contractors managing these services. Pricing structure is based on two SLP labor categories with monthly billing for Accela Managed Application Services; the cost worksheet establishes a maximum unit price of $41,265 per month for Accela Managed Application Services and a maximum hourly rate of $245.63 per hour for Implementation Services (Professional Services engineering hours). Professional Services work requires advance authorization via Work Order Authorization forms with specified not-to-exceed costs, and service credits apply if monthly hours fall below the 640-hour minimum threshold with shortfalls exceeding 5 percent. The contract encompasses support for the DCC's two Accela instances over the base two-year term with optional extension, encompassing 36 monthly units for managed application services and 1,020 engineering hours in both Year 1 and Year 2, with identical allocations for the optional year.