Sole Source - Inclusive Career Advancement Program

The Oregon Department of Human Services Office of Contracts & Procurement has issued a sole-source determination for a contract with Cornell University effective October 1, 2026, with no competitive bidding opportunity — this is a notice-only posting, not an open solicitation.

The contract funds data collection, analysis, and completion of final evaluation and performance reports for Oregon's Inclusive Career Advancement Program (ICAP), a federally-funded Career Advancement Initiative Model Demonstration Project that interconnects services across 17 urban, suburban, and rural community colleges in Oregon, the Vocational Rehabilitation Services program, state Self-Sufficiency programs, employers, and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) partners. Work covers close-out activities for the project, which originally began October 1, 2021.

The estimated contract value is $245,000 for a two-year close-out period, funded through an anticipated supplemental grant award from the U.S. Department of Education (Grant Award H421C210026). Cornell University, located at 373 Pine Tree Road, Ithaca, New York, is designated as the sole contractor based on its five-year partnership with Oregon VR and its exclusive possession of the national evaluation design, data schema, analytic framework, and multi-state baseline data required for the project's final evaluation. The determination cites Oregon Revised Statutes 279B.075(2)(c) and (2)(d), noting that contractor replacement would breach continuity of the national evaluation and violate federal requirements for unified, comparable datasets. Protests must be submitted within seven calendar days of posting on OregonBuys.