Water Technical Access Portal (WaterTAP) 2. 0

The California Department of Technology is soliciting proposals on behalf of the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) for design, development, implementation, and maintenance of WaterTAP 2.0, a cloud-based SaaS solution to consolidate drinking water compliance data and workflows across multiple legacy systems, with Phase 1 proposals due December 2, 2026.

The solution must integrate eight primary data systems (SDWIS, CLIP, SABL, OnBase, eAR, SAFER Clearinghouse, Water Quality Management, and Child Care Lead) totaling over 540 GB across migration rates from zero to 100 percent, support approximately 65,000 total active users including 7,200 water system administrators and 35,000 external users, and operate on Salesforce Cloud with either Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services within SWRCB's existing tenants. The platform must deliver configurable business rules engines, automated workflow routing, compliance decision support, role-based access control, geospatial data management, and integration of disparate spreadsheets and databases into a single system of record for all drinking water reporting.

The base contract term runs three years: 21 months for design, development, and implementation (DD&I), followed by three months of product stabilization and final system acceptance, then 12 months of maintenance and operations (M&O). The State may exercise one no-cost time-only extension for implementation completion plus up to two additional one-year M&O extensions, for a maximum six-year term. All work must be performed within the continental United States during business hours (7:00 AM–5:30 PM Pacific Time, Monday–Friday) with key staff available for on-site meetings in Sacramento. The contractor is responsible for all software licensing, data conversion, security controls, and testing; the State provides system access, infrastructure, and project oversight.

Bidder qualifications include mandatory experience requirements: seven years managing large-scale systems implementation projects within the past ten years; five completed successful implementations; demonstrated capability with the proposed primary software solution on two distinct projects; implementation of configurable business rules engines on two projects; organizational change management on two similarly scaled projects; no performance-related early terminations within ten years; and API integration implementation on two projects. Large-scale projects must include at least two of the following: 500+ system users, relevant client industry, integration of ten or more information systems, or minimum $10 million project costs excluding hardware, licensing, and hosting.

Key staff positions (Engagement Director, Project Manager, Senior Data Architect, Senior Software Solutions Architect, Senior Business Analyst, Training Lead, Senior Test and Validation Lead, Technical Lead, Organizational Change Management Lead, GIS Solution Expert) carry specific mandatory experience requirements documented on separate qualifications forms; all experience must have occurred within twelve years of the October 2, 2026 solicitation release date. Bidders must submit matching reference forms for each key staff member, with references limited to client organization personnel who held management or supervisory roles on cited projects; only one reference from the SWRCB is permitted.

Phase 1 evaluation covers administrative compliance, bidder qualifications and references, functional and non-functional requirements responses, key staff qualifications and references, and cost; up to three bidders advance to Phase 2 narrative responses (due January 28, 2027) addressing proposed solution approach, product-solution requirements and architecture, user experience, data management, testing approach, and development framework across a maximum 125 pages. Phase 3 negotiations occur March 8–29, 2027, with contract award anticipated by May 20, 2027.

All proposed equipment and software must demonstrate productive use with a paying customer for specified timeframes before proposal submission. Bidders must complete an electronic vendor application of qualifications (eVAQ) by December 2, 2026, submit all proposals on a fixed-price deliverable basis, and comply with California state IT security policies (NIST 800-53 v5, FIPS Publication 199, SAM, SIMM guidelines) and six mandatory information security policies (acceptable use, identification and authentication, endpoint security, security awareness training, access control, data security and destruction).

Optional bidding preferences include Small Business Preference (5%), Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise (DVBE) incentive (waived as set-aside but available as optional incentive above 3% participation), Non-Small Business Subcontractor Preference (5%), and Target Area Contract Preference Act (TACPA) preference. Subcontractors claiming SB, MB, or DVBE status must satisfy commercially useful function (CUF) requirements. Mandatory administrative submissions include Intent to Bid Form, Cover Letter Form, eVAQ confirmation, Bidder Declaration GSPD 05-105, Confidentiality Statement Form (pre-award), Follow-On Disclosure Form under Public Contract Code Section 10365.5, Workers' Compensation Certification, Administrative Requirements Response Form, and cost workbook completion.