U.S. Department of Labor, 200 Constitution Avenue, NW, Room N-5416, Washington, DC 20210

70 -- DEVELOP AND OPERATE AN IMAGING AND OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION SYSTEM TO PROCESS FORM 5500 REPORTS SOL RFP L/A 98-01 POC Charles E. Greer, Jr., Contract Negotiator, (202) 219-6445, Phyllis R. McMeekin, Contracting Officer, (202) 219-6445 The U.S. Department of Labor's Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration (PWBA) has a requirement to develop and operate a turnkey system to process approximately 1.2 million reports filed each year by private employee benefit plans. The system must be able to receive the annual reports, image the reports, and convert the data to machine readable format. Output from the system will be used by DOL, IRS, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, and the Social Security Administration. Processing the reports currently relies on manual key entry. The system must be capable of subjecting the data to a series of edit tests for completeness and consistency and produce communications with filers to obtain additional or corrected data. The system must be capable of verifying the filer's identity and linking the current year's filing to previous filings. The forms to be processed are the Form 5500 required by the provisions of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA.) DOL has recently proposed astreamlined Form 5500 for plan year 1998 filing. These forms would be the first to be processed in the new system starting in August of 1999. The RFP was previously announced and issued as a Request for Information RFI T.N. 96-15 and Request For Comments RFC L/A 97-06. There is a revised draft now available on the Internet at: http://www.dol.gov/dol/pwba/public/whatsnew/ The revised draft provides for the award of two contracts to develop fully functional prototype systems capable of operating at minimal volume levels. The government expects to exercise the option year in one of the contracts to process the forms for the first year of the new system. The successful contractor will be required to mount an aggressive campaign to encourage electronic filing of the forms and must provide a user-friendly system to encourage electronic filings. Comments on this draft will be accepted via Internet or by mail, but to be considered, comments must be received no later than September 17, 1997 at 7:00am Washington, D.C.time. Comments sent by e-mail should contain the name, title, affiliation, address, and telephone number of the person sending the comments. The e-mail address is for receipt of comments only and shall not be used for any other correspondance. Comments submitted by fax or mail should be addressed to: U.S. Department of Labor, Procurement Services Center, Room N-5416, Washington, D.C., 20210, Attn: Mr. Charles E. Greer, Jr. or (202) 219-6853 (fax). Following the issuance of the final RFP, the government will conduct a pre-proposal conference to address questions and provide supplemental information. The conference date and time will be included with the final RFP. All requests for a copy of the solicitation must be in writing and received within fifteen (15) days. Requests may be mailed or faxed. Please do not follow up a fax request with a mailed request. (0252)

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