RFP #13-9414-4CS

April 19, 2013

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

ANNUAL CONTRACT for ONLINE PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR SCHOOL FEES

HENRICO COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Your firm is invited to submit a proposal to providea web based vendor hosted online payment system for school fees in accordance with the enclosed specifications. The submittal, consisting of the original proposal and seven (7) additional copies marked,Online Payment System for School Fees", will be received no later than 2:30p.m., May 17, 2013, by:

IN PERSON OR SPECIAL COURIERU.S. POSTAL SERVICE

County of HenricoCounty of Henrico

Department of General ServicesDepartment of General Services

Purchasing Office ORP O Box 90775

1590 E. Parham RoadHenrico, Virginia 23273-0775

Henrico, Virginia 23228

This RFP and any addenda are available on the County of Henrico website at: The Bids and Proposals link is listed under the Henrico Business Section on the home page. To download the (IFB or RFP), click the link and save the document to your hard drive. To receive an email copy of this document, please send a request to:

Time is of the essence and any proposal received after 2:30 p.m., May 17, 2013, whether by mail or otherwise, will be returned unopened. The time of receipt shall be determined by the time clock stamp in the Purchasing Office, Department of General Services. Proposals shall be placed in a sealed, opaque envelope, marked in the lower left-hand corner with the RFP number, title, and date and hour proposals are scheduled to be received. Offerors are responsible for insuring that their proposal is stamped by Purchasing Office personnel by the deadline indicated.

Nothing herein is intended to exclude any responsible firm or in any way restrain or restrict competition. On the contrary, all responsible firms are encouraged to submit proposals. The County of Henrico reserves the right to accept or reject any or all proposals submitted.

The awarding authority for this contract is the Director of General Services.

Technical questions concerning this Request for Proposal should be submitted to Cecelia H. Stowe via email no later than May 1, 2013.

Very truly yours,

Christopher L. Winstead, P.E.

Director of General Services

Cecelia H. Stowe, CPPO, C.P.M.

Purchasing Manager

1590 E. PARHAM ROAD/P O BOX 90775/HENRICO VA 23273-0775

(804) 501-5660 FAX (804) 501-5693

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

ONLINE PAYMENT SYSTEM FOR SCHOOL FEES

HENRICO COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

I.INTRODUCTION:

The intent and purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP), and the resulting annual contract, is to obtain the services of a qualified firm toprovide for the furnishing, delivery, installation, and implementation ofa web based vendor hostedonline payment system for schools feesin accordance with the Scope of Services section of the solicitation.

II.BACKGROUND:

HCPS is a large metropolitan school district with over 48,500 students in 73 schools for the 2013-14 school year. This includes 46 elementary schools, 12 middle schools, 9 high schools, 2 technical centers, 3 program centers and one preschool. Each location maintains a separate bank account. HCPS estimates they conduct over 200,000 transactions annually in all schools with respect to School Activity Fund Accounting, including cash receipts, disbursements and transfers, and approximately 125,000 transactions related to secondary schools receipt book system. All Elementary schools are currently using manual receipt books. All Secondary schools are currently using an online teacher receipt book system developed in house using File Maker Pro.

III.SCOPE OF SERVICES:

The Successful Offeror shall provide all supervision, labor, material and equipment necessary to provide the following:

  1. General Requirements
  1. A web based vendor hosted on-line payment system that will allow parents/guardians the ability to pay student fees by credit card and other payment methods (e.g.ACH, eCheck, and pin-less debit cards). Fees include, but are not limited to:Program fees, yearbook, prom, field trips, fines, etc.
  1. The on-line payment system must be available 24/7.
  1. All refunds for school fees will begin at the individual school. The proposed solution must have the ability to process a refund back to a credit card or other payment method only when authorized by the school. HCPS will only be responsible to refund the amount of the school fee and not any transaction or service fees charged by the provider or credit card company.
  1. The Successful Offeror shall provide a branded website at the district level and then broken out by school.
  1. A parent/guardian should be able to pay for multiple children at different schools during one transaction.
  1. All online payers should receive an email copy of receipt immediately to include a transaction number or confirmation number.
  1. Student data fields required in the online payment system include: the student name, id, homeroom, grade, and school location. This data will be provided in a format suitable for being imported into an online payment program.
  1. The payer will need to enter the student ID in the online system which will need to validate to information previously loaded in the online payment system.
  1. Receipt data fields required in the online payment system include: Student name, id, homeroom, grade and school location, fee name, amount, account, date and transaction or confirmationID. This data could be provided in a format suitable for being imported into an online payment program.
  1. Student fees paid online will need to be exported in a format suitable for loading into the receipt book program daily.
  1. Data exchange will occur daily at a minimum.
  1. It is preferred that Online payments be deposited ineach school’s bank account the business day following the transaction date. The total deposit information shall be sent to the school on the day of deposit.
  1. Summary and Detailed reports should be available to HCPS for student fee history and activity fee history, for a specific time range. These reports should minimally include transaction number, amount and date, name on credit card, student name, id, homeroom, grade, school location and fees paid.
  1. The Successful Offeror must provide the automated credit card payment collection at no cost to HCPS. Any transaction or convenience fees charged by the Offeror will be paid by the customer and will be charged as a separate item to the customer directly. The amount of any add on fee will be made clearly known to customers when they use the service so they are aware of the added cost before completing the transaction. The Offeror will notify HCPS in writing at least 60 days prior to making any changes to the fee schedule being charged to HCPS customers.
  1. The Successful Offeror must provide capability for HCPS to retrieve the data from their system at the end of the contract and provide proof that the data has been removed at no additional cost to HCPS.
  1. All data that is uploaded to the vendor or created during a payee’s visit to the vendor web site is the property of HCPS and will remain so indefinitely.
  1. Technical Specifications
  1. The Successful Offeror shall provide a mechanism for allowing payment of school or district related fees associated with a student. The Successful Offeror’s response will describe in detail how the solution addresses the following:
  • Provide a mechanism for maintaining the fee structure for both district level (fees all students are required to pay) and school level fees (those determined by the school).
  • Maintain the outstanding fees associated with an individual student requiring payment
  • Maintain general ledger account information associated with a fee and school
  • Extracts data received from payments into formats accessible by standard data management utilities (e.g. Oracle, Excel, Access and Filemaker Pro)
  • Imports data into the payment system from common data formats (e.g. comma delimited, XML)
  • Provides mechanism to send and receive data between other applications and systems in the County (e.g. the Student Information System, Receipt Book system)
  • Provides a secure platform for ensuring the integrity, privacy and protection of HCPS students, staff and parents.
  1. The successful offeror must agree to use the collected information in compliance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations, including, without limitation, those governing online privacy and use of credit card data (i.e. using credit card information only for purposes authorized by the cardholder); and IAW applicable Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards.
  1. The Successful Offeror shall specifically state the minimum requirements of the approved web browser that will ensure the successful operation of the application. The browsers currently used internally by HCPS are:
  • Internet Explorer – version 8 and version 6,
  • Firefox version 3.6.3.
  • Chrome version 19.0 and
  • Safari version 4.0.5.

The application must support these browsers at a minimum but should show support for other common browsers that may be in use by parents.

  1. The Successful Offeror shall specifically state the support their tool has for form responses to be completed on common mobile devices (e.g. devices using iOS, Android or Windows 8)
  1. HCPS’ implementation for the Online Payment System is a web based vendor hosted solution.
  1. Training–
  1. Detailed training for bookkeepers for up to 100 and staff as needed based on. Technical support for all users of online school payment program. Offers shall include detailed information regarding the options available for training (i.e. classroom setting, online demos, video training, etc.)
  1. Implementation
  2. The system needs to be fully tested and operational no later than August 1, 2013

IV.ANTICIPATED SCHEDULE:

The following represents a tentative outline of the process currently anticipated by the County:

Request for Proposals distributedApril 19, 2013

Advertised in newspaperApril 20, 2013

Receive written proposals2:30 p.m., May 17, 2013

Conduct oral interviews with Offerors June 6, 2013

Negotiations completed June, 2013

Contract/installation begins July 1, 2013

V.GENERAL CONTRACT TERMS AND CONDITIONS:

A.Annual Appropriations

It is understood and agreed that the contract resulting from this procurement (“Contract”) shall be subject to annual appropriations by the County of Henrico, Board of Supervisors. Should the Board fail to appropriate funds for this Contract, the Contract shall be terminated when existing funds are exhausted. The successful offeror (“Successful Offeror” or “contractor”) shall not be entitled to seek redress from the County of Henrico, Virginia (the “County”) should the Board of Supervisors fail to make annual appropriations for the Contract.

B.Award of the Contract

1.The County reserves the right to reject any or all proposals and to waive any informalities.

2.The Successful Offeror shall, within fifteen (15) calendar days after Contract documents are presented for signature, execute and deliver to the Purchasing Office the Contract documents and any other forms or bonds required by the RFP.

  1. The Contract resulting from this RFP is not assignable.

4.Upon making an award, or giving notice of intent to award, the County will place appropriate notice on the public bulletin board located at the following locations:

Purchasing OfficeEastern Government Center

North Run Office Complex3820 Nine Mile Road

1590 East Parham RoadHenrico VA 23223

Henrico VA 23228

Henrico Government Center

4301 E. Parham Road

Henrico VA 23228

Notice of award or intent to award may also appear on the Purchasing Office website:

C.Collusion

By submitting a proposal in response to this Request for Proposal, the Offeror represents that in the preparation and submission of this proposal, said Offeror did not, either directly or indirectly, enter into any combination or arrangement with any person, Offeror or corporation or enter into any agreement, participate in any collusion, or otherwise take any action in the restraint of free, competitive bidding in violation of the Sherman Act (15 U.S.C. § 1 et seq.) or Section 59.1-9.1 through 59.1-9.17 or Sections 59.1-68.6 through 59.1-68.8 of the Code of Virginia.

D.Compensation

The Successful Offeror shall submit a complete itemized invoice on each delivery or service that is performed under the Contract. Payment shall be rendered to the Successful Offeror for satisfactory compliance with the Contract within forty-five (45) days after receipt of a proper invoice.

E.Controlling Law and Venue

The Contract will be made, entered into, and shall be performed in the County of Henrico, Virginia, and shall be governed by the applicable laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia without regard to its conflicts of law principles. Any dispute arising out of the Contract, its interpretations, or its performance shall be litigated only in the Henrico County General District Court or the Circuit Court of the County of Henrico, Virginia.

F.Default

1.If the Successful Offeror is wholly responsible for a failure to perform the Contract (including, but not limited to, failure to make delivery of goods, failure to complete implementation and installation, and/or if the goods and/or services fail in any way to perform as specified herein), the County may consider the Successful Offeror to be in default. In the event of default, the County will provide the Successful Offeror with written notice of default, and the Successful Offeror shall provide a plan to correct said default within 20 calendar days of the County’s notice of default.

2.If the Successful Offeror fails to cure said default within 20 days, the County, among other actions, may complete the Contract work through a third party, and the Successful Offeror shall be responsible for any amount in excess of the Contract price incurred by the County in completing the work to a capability equal to that specified in the Contract.

G.Discussion of Exceptions to the RFP

This RFP, including but not limited to its venue, termination, and payment schedule provisions, shall be incorporated by reference into the Contract documents as if its provisions were stated verbatim therein. Therefore, Offerors shall explicitly identify any exception to any provisions of the RFP in a separate “Exceptions to RFP” section of the proposal so that such exceptions may be resolved before execution of the Contract. In case of any conflict between the RFP and any other Contract documents, the RFP shall control unless the Contract documents explicitly provide otherwise.

H. Drug-Free Workplace to be Maintained by the Contractor (Va. Code § 2.2-4312)

1.During the performance of this Contract, the contractor agrees to (i) provide a drug-free workplace for the contractor’s employees; (ii) post in conspicuous places, available to employees and applicants for employment, a statement notifying employees that the unlawful manufacture, sale, distribution, dispensation, possession, or use of a controlled substance or marijuana is prohibited in the contractor’s workplace and specifying the actions that will be taken against employees for violations of such prohibition; (iii) state in all solicitations or advertisements for employees placed by or on behalf of the contractor that the contractor maintains a drug-free workplace; and (iv) include the provisions of the foregoing clauses in every subcontract or purchase order of over $10,000, so that the provisions will be binding upon each subcontractor or vendor.

2.For the purposes of this section, “drug-free workplace” means a site for the performance of work done in connection with a specific contract awarded to a contractor in accordance with the Virginia Public Procurement Act, the employees of whom are prohibited from engaging in the unlawful manufacture, sale, distribution, dispensation, possession or use of any controlled substance or marijuana during the performance of the contract.

I.Employment Discrimination by Contractor Prohibited

1.During the performance of this Contract, the contractor agrees as follows (Va. Code § 2.2-4311):

(a)The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age, disability, or other basis prohibited by state law relating to discrimination in employment, except where there is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the contractor. The contractor agrees to post in conspicuous places, available to employees and applicants for employment, notices setting forth the provisions of this nondiscrimination clause.

(b)The contractor, in all solicitations or advertisements for employees placed by or on behalf of the contractor, will state that such contractor is an equal opportunity employer.

(c) Notices, advertisements and solicitations placed in accordance with federal law, rule or regulation shall be deemed sufficient for the purpose of meeting the requirements of this section.

2. The contractor will include the provisions of the foregoing subparagraphs (a), (b), and (c) in every subcontract or purchase order of over $10,000, so that the provisions will be binding upon each subcontractor or vendor.

J.Employment of Unauthorized Aliens Prohibited

As required by Va. Code § 2.2-4311.1, the contractor does not, and shall not during the performance of this agreement, in the Commonwealth of Virginia knowingly employ an unauthorized alien as defined in the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

K.Indemnification

The Successful Offeror agrees to indemnify, defend and hold harmless the County (including Henrico County Public Schools), and the County’s officers, agents and employees from any claims, damages, suits, actions, liabilities and costs of any kind or nature, including attorneys’ fees, arising from or caused by the provision of any goods and/or services, the failure to provide any goods and/or services and/or the use of any services and/or goods furnished (or made available) by the Successful Offeror, provided that such liability is not attributable to the County’s sole negligence.

L.Insurance Requirements

The Successful Offeror shall maintain insurance to protect itself and the County (including Henrico County Public Schools) from claims under the Workers' Compensation Act, and from any other claim for damages for personal injury, including death, and for damages to property which may arise from the provision of goods and/or services under the Contract, whether such goods and/or services are provided by the Successful Offeror or by any subcontractor or anyone directly employed by either of them. Such insurance shall conform to the Insurance Specifications. (Attachment A)