RFP for Telephonic Interpretation Services

The State of Oregon Employment Department, Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH), is issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP S-47100-00015861) to procure pre-scheduled telephonic interpretation services for administrative hearings. The procurement seeks to award up to three contracts to qualified vendors who can provide certified and qualified spoken language interpreters for a minimum of ten mandatory languages: Spanish, Vietnamese, Russian, Amharic, Arabic, Farsi, Ukrainian, Cantonese, Oromo, and Mandarin, with preference for additional language offerings. Interpreters must be available Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific Time, with occasional availability for hearings scheduled outside standard hours, with hearings ranging from one-hour minimum to eight continuous hours or extending across multiple days. Vendors must demonstrate a minimum of three years' experience providing interpretation services in a legal environment within the last five years, maintain certified interpreters per Oregon law or qualified interpreters when certified interpreters are unavailable, and ensure all interpreters are located within the United States at the time of service. The evaluation will assess proposals on seven scoring categories totaling 700 points: language offerings (100 points), offeror qualifications (100 points), availability and resource capacity (100 points), service delivery processes (100 points), interpreter qualification procedures (100 points), reference checks (100 points), and cost (100 points), with cost evaluation limited to mandatory minimum languages only. Proposals are due February 11, 2026, at 9:00 AM Pacific Time, with questions due by February 4, 2026, at 10:00 AM, and the anticipated notice of award on February 25, 2026. The initial contract term is three years with renewal options for additional one-year periods, not to exceed five years total.

Participation by certified minority-owned, woman-owned, emerging small, and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses is encouraged but not required; the RFP includes a mandatory Certified Disadvantaged Business Outreach Plan attachment for offerors anticipating subcontracting opportunities. There are no incumbent preferences identified in this procurement. Vendors must provide comprehensive insurance coverage including workers' compensation, commercial general liability with $1,000,000 per occurrence limits, and professional liability with $1,000,000 per claim limits, and for contracts anticipated to exceed $150,000, must certify implementation of written policies preventing sexual harassment, sexual assault, and discrimination. Based on historical usage data from August 1, 2024, through August 15, 2025, OAH issued approximately 587 interpreter work orders totaling 1,084 billed hours; however, the State makes no representation or guarantee regarding minimum or maximum volumes of future work. Compensation is structured on an hourly rate basis with a one-hour minimum for hearings lasting one hour or less and 15-minute increments thereafter, with payment terms of net 45 days from invoice receipt. No specific contract value or budget range is disclosed in the procurement documents, though the sample contract reserves the State's right to extend the contract for an additional period up to four months total with a maximum value of $25,000, which appears to apply only to contract extensions rather than the full initial contract value.