MODIFICATION
R -- Income and Employment Verification Services
- Notice Date
- 11/22/2002
- Notice Type
- Modification
- Contracting Office
- Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Procurement and Contracts (OPC), Administrative Support Division, NCA, 451 Seventh Street, S.W. Room 5256, Washington, DC, 20410
- ZIP Code
- 20410
- Solicitation Number
- Q3QACCA0004
- Response Due
- 12/3/2002
- Archive Date
- 12/18/2002
- Point of Contact
- Patricia Holliday, Contracting Officer, Phone 202-708-1772, Ext. 7153, Fax 202-708-2933 , - Amelia McCormick, Support Branch Chief, Admin Support Div, Phone 202-708-1772 x7127, Fax 202-708-2933,
- E-Mail Address
-
Patricia_L._Holliday@hud.gov, Amelia_E._McCormick@hud.gov
- Description
- This is a modification to the combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice. This announcement constitutes the only amendment to the solicitation; quotations are being requested and a written amendment will not be issued. A copy of the provision at 52.212-3, Offeror Representations and Certifications Commercial Items must be included with offers. Quotes shall be received no later than 12:00pm EST on December 3, 2002. The following are responses to questions received as a result of this synopsis/solicitation: (1)Will HUD provide the Contractor with copies of HUD Form-9886 (Auth. for Release of Information) with tenants' signature? No, As an alternative, HUD can provide verifiable assurances to the contractor that each request made about tenants, is authorized by the tenant having signed a HUD form 9886.(2)What is a reasonable time that HUD is willing to accept if contractor does not submit data within the 48 hr. timeframe? Two Business Days (3)How much personal info will HUD provide about a tenant for income & employment verification? HUD will provide the following: (a) social security number, and (b) name. (4)Why would HUD want FEIN? HUD will use the data from the contractor to supplement data from other third party sources. A comparison of income sources reported by tenants will be made against income sources reported by the third-party sources, which includes the contractor's data. The comparison of FEIN facilitates such comparisons of income sources more reliably than the mere names of the employers. (5)Will multiple contracts be awarded? No (6)What states or cities locations will this information are needed? More importantly, what is the percentage of tenants in each Region as well West, North, South, East etc.? Information will be needed for the entire nation. The exact percentage of tenants in each Region is not available. (7)Will we receive the record information on a monthly basis, daily or how would the request be distributed? Requests may be transmitted via the Internet, to the contractor, in batches. The range of frequencies can be daily to monthly. (8)Is the solicitation set-aside for small business? No (9) Will HUD accept a quote from a large business? Yes (10)Is this work currently being performed? No (11)Is there a preferred place of performance for this work? No (12)Does verification require contacting the tenant or the employer for the verification? No, the contractor is expected to satisfy the request from its own database of income-related data compiled from information received a priori from employers nationwide. (13)Does HUD require a hard copy of income and employment verification? Or can this be sent electronically? HUD expects the exchange of information (request and response) to be transmitted electronically. (14)The solicitation mentions that HUD plans to develop an income verification system (UIV) in the near future, can you provide an estimated time this will be available? The system is expected to be available to users in March of 2003. (15) The solicitation states that it is okay to transfer the files via the Internet. Is it okay to send batched data in one of the following formats: An excel spreadsheet or Access database or Word document? Excel, Access - Yes. Word - No. ASCII is preferable. (16)Is IBM compatible PC and LAN networks acceptable as hardware for collecting and storing tenant income and employment information? The hardware used to perform this requirement is at the contractor's discretion. (17)Is there a specific Internet service that HUD requires the Contractor to use? No (18)Does HUD require that the contractor keep a hard copy of income and employment verification on file or is an electronic copy, with proper security protection, sufficient? No (19)Is there anyway for my company to respond with chance if my company does not have the previous contract experience. In case an offeror without a record of relevant past performance or for whom information on past performance is not available, the offeror will not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance. (19)What type of equipment and or software currently used to verify income? Public housing agencies across the nation - approximately 4,000 agencies - use a variety of computer and manual systems to verify the income of tenants and applicants for assisted housing. HUD does not currently provide any system of employment data for public housing agencies to use for income verification. (20)Is there restriction on destination of contractor? Yes. The contractor must be located within the United States. (21)When are the income verification request and by what agency? Requests for information for income verification will be made by the 4,000+ public housing agencies (PHA) located in the United States to HUD at or before the time when tenants' eligibility and levels of assistance must be re-certified or re-examined. (22)What if Contractor's best efforts to locate employer information fail to produce the required results? How should this be returned to HUD? If the data are not available in the contractor's database, then the contractor will indicate so for each tenant for whom a request for information was made. (23)The solicitation indicates that quotes may be received via fax or mail. Is it acceptable for us to ship our quote via priority overnight delivery service such as UPS? Yes (24)Under STATEMENT OF WORK, it says, "The Contractor shall provide at a minimum..." and then lists the types of data the Contractor will be required to provide to HUD. "At a minimum" appears to imply that HUD would be amenable to receiving more types of data than those listed in the solicitation. Is that correct? No (25)Will HUD be providing a copy of all bidders' questions and HUD's answers to all bidders? Relevant questions received within the 5-day limit are hereby answered within this notice. (26)How will HUD be using the information provided by the selected Contractor? HUD will make the data available to public housing agencies nationwide to be used by public housing agencies to verify the income of tenants. HUD will use the data to measure the extent of reduction in the subsidy payment errors in the assisted housing programs funded by HUD. (27)As the Contractor works to obtain the requested information, is the Contractor allowed to state they are requesting the information on the behalf of HUD? No (28)Will the selected vendor be verifying employment information provided by tenants and passed to the vendor or will the selected vendor be required to locate employment information based upon the tenant's name and SSN? The selected vendor will be expected to provide information based on the tenant's social security number and name. Vendors who require other personal identifiers should submit their bids. (29)Will small businesses have an advantage over large businesses? The requirement will be awarded to the contractor that offers the best value to the Government. (30)What is the proposal evaluation criterion? Technical capacity, past performance and price (31)The winner may not have a match for every record. What level of performance is expected from the winning offeror with respect to being able to match records? The scope of the vendor's database is expected to be national. Vendor's with databases that fall short of being national in scope should state clearly the scope and limitations of the population covered in their databases. (32)Does the 200,000 records required in the RFQ mean HUD is looking for the contractor match 200,000 records per year OR conduct an unlimited number of matches until 200,000 valid hits are received? HUD is expecting the contractor to match an amount not to exceed 200,000 records per year. (33)Are there a set number of records required to be matched each month? No (34)Is there a minimum number of records the Department will forward to the contractor for matching purposes? No (35)Will all of HUDs portfolio be matched in the first 12 months? No (36) The Department indicates this RFQ is, "being solicited on an unrestricted basis. The NAICS code is 561990 and the small business size standard is $6 million. Does this mean the Department intends to award this contract to a small business. No, the NAICS code is given so that Contractors can properly certify in provision 52.212-3, their business size.
- Place of Performance
- Address: Nationwide
- Record
- SN00209778-W 20021124/021122213153 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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