SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- Payroll Support Services
- Notice Date
- 2/2/2004
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- Contracting Office
- Department of Health and Human Services, Program Support Center, Division of Acquisition Management, Parklawn Building Room 5-101 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD, 20857
- ZIP Code
- 20857
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-HHS-COPHS-01
- Response Due
- 2/17/2004
- Archive Date
- 2/17/2004
- Point of Contact
- Hector Vega, Contract Specialist, Phone 301-443-7077, Fax 301-443-8488, - Jackie Jones, Contracting Officer, Phone 301-443-6413, Fax 301-443-2761,
- E-Mail Address
-
hectorgvega@psc.gov, jjones@psc.gov
- Description
- This is a Sources Sought Notice to determine the ability of vendors that can provide commercial of the shelve (COTS) package and services to provide payroll support for the Commissioned Officers of the United States Public Health Service (PHS). There are currently 6,000 health professionals on active duty entitled to the same pays and allowances as members of the other United States uniformed services. They are stationed throughout the United States and overseas. They work for agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services such as the Indian Health Service, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, etc., as well as other federal agencies such as the Coast Guard and Bureau of Prisons. The staff of the Commissioned Corps Systems Branch (CCSB) currently provides payroll IT services (in-house). The CCSB staff use two software systems and an interface system that connects them. This potential acquisition will require vendors to replace the first system, which collects data from source documents. Vendors may opt to replace the second system, which performs the gross-to-net operations as well. Alternatively, the second system could be retained but a new interface would have to be provided. The first software system is a legacy COBOL application running on a WANG minicomputer. It provides for data input from personnel and payroll source documents. The transactions are edited at point of origin and then combined with any other input documents for that employee to determine all changes since the last instance. Pay determination is by exception only; the default is to receive the same pay as the previous (monthly) cycle. In addition to proactive changes, the system is able to detect changes due to longevity milestones. These longevity changes occur for both base pay and several types of specialty pay to which an officer may be entitled. The system also stores large tables provided by DOD to determine the amount of housing allowance officers are entitled to based on their grade, dependent status, and duty station zip code. Since officers can be called to duty, transferred, or separated at any point during the payroll cycle, the system must be able to determine prorated earnings for all categories of pay. Since supporting documentation may arrive after the fact (i.e., change in marital status), the system must be able to perform retroactive adjustments for, at a minimum, all pay cycles in the current tax year. Contemplated system requirements will include: (1) compliance with existing CCSB standards and processes, (2) the system should be web-based using modern tools according to accepted standards, (3) it must allow for different levels of roles and responsibilities, (4) certain transactions that do not effect an officer?s gross pay (i.e. tax withholding, payroll address, savings allotment, etc.) should be self-service, (5) transactions that require review and approval (i.e. dependent certification) should be initiated by the officer and forwarded to a payroll specialist before being finalized, (6) other transactions (i.e. bonus pays) are initiated and/or approved by members of the officer?s organization prior to being forwarded to the payroll specialist (7) the system should display an earnings statement on the web that shows each element of pay, both current and year-to-date, indicate whether it is taxable or non-taxable, and each deduction and allotment to gross pay and (8), before the end of January each year, the system should display the officer?s W-2 statement. Both of these documents should be available for printing. The data base engine should be accessible for standard an ad hoc reports using commercially available packages. The second software system runs on an IBM mainframe. It stores all the data necessary to perform gross-to-net calculations. It accepts 80-column input transactions according to specialized formats to create and update information for an officer. It keeps track of both taxable and non-taxable earnings. It performs federal, state, and local tax calculations using tables provided by a third-party vendor. It creates output files for EFT transactions to banks, insurance companies, Thrift Savings Plan, charities, U.S. Savings Bonds, tax entities, etc. It provides output data in a format suitable for auditors and historical review. It does not dispense funds but rather provides data to the U.S. Treasury in predefined formats. If the vendor were not providing a gross-to-net solution, then it would have to develop an interface to take the transactions generated by the first system and convert them to meet the requirements of the mainframe software. Potential vendors must possess extensive knowledge of the CCSB payroll systems, subsystems, and program processes as well as expertise in the data & system reliability, maintainability and data quality assurance. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFQ), INVITATION FOR BID (IFB), REQUEST FOR APPLICATION (RFA) OR AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF A SOLICITATION AND DOES NOT OBLIGATES THE GOVERNMENT TO AWARD THE CONTRACT. No solicitation exists; therefore, do not request a copy of the solicitation. If a solicitation is released, it will be synopsized in FedBizOpps. It is the offeror responsibility to monitor this site for any solicitation and synopsis. Interested offerors/vendors having the required capabilities to meet the above requirement should submit a capability statement of 5 pages or less indicating the ability to perform all aspects of the effort described herein. Responses must include the following: name and address of firm, size of business, average annual revenue for past 3 years and number of employees; ownership; whether they are large, small, small disadvantage, 8(a), HUBZone, woman-owned, Historically Black College or University and/or Minority Service Institute; number of years in business; affiliate information: parent company, joint venture partners, potential teaming partners, prime contractor (if potential sub) or subcontractors (if potential prime); list of customers covering the past five years (highlight relevant work performed, contract numbers, contract type, dollar value of each procurement; and point of contact - address and phone number). Additional documentation such as company literature, brochures, and references are welcome. Please submit your capability statements or questions about this document to Hector G. Vega, phone (301) 443-7077, email Hvega@psc.gov, or mail: Department of Health and Human Services, Program Support Center, Division of Acquisition Management, Parklawn Building Room 5-101, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville MD 20857. Responses are due no later than 15 days from the date of this notice. Capabilities statements will not be accepted after the due date.
- Place of Performance
- Address: Washington D.C.
- Record
- SN00514126-W 20040204/040202211813 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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