HOLLY L. WOLCOTT CITY CLERK GREGORY R. ALLISON EXECUTIVE OFFICER City of Los Angeles CALIFORNIA % OFFICE OF THE CITY CLERK ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DIVISION 200 N. SPRING STREET, ROOM 224 LOS ANGELES, CA 90012 (213) 978-1100 FAX: (213) 978-1107 00 ERIC GARCETTI MAYOR GLENN R. ROBISON DIVISION MANAGER clerk.lacitv.org Honorable Members Los Angeles City Council Room 395, City Hall 200 No. Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90012 SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL FOR RECORDS MANAGEMENT SERVICES / RECOMMENDATION OF CONTRACT AWARD SUMMARY The City Clerk issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) on June 24, 2014 for storage of City records in commercial records storage facilities and for the related services associated with records storage. Five (5) proposals were received in response to the RFP and a review panel consisting of staff from the Office of the City Clerk, Housing Department and LAPD reviewed all of the proposals. Presentations were provided to the evaluation panel by each vendor, which were subsequently scored in accordance with the evaluation criteria described in the RFP. This report includes a description of the background justifying the need for this service, a description of the RFP process, a discussion of the protests and how they were addressed, and a recommendation of the award for this contract RECOMMENDATION That the City Council: 1. Approve the recommendation of the City Clerk to award the contract for City-wide Records Management Services to Storetrieve, LLC for a term not to exceed 10 years with 3 one-year extensions, and in an amount not to exceed $10 million; and 2. Authorize the City Clerk to execute the contract on behalf of the City
Page 2 of 6 BACKGROUND The City Charter provides that the City Clerk serve as the Manager of Official City Records for the City of Los Angeles. The City Records Center is located at Piper Technical Center. This location also houses the City Archives, which includes documents and items of City historical significance going back to the 1800 s. The City Records Center currently houses over 190,000 boxes of City documents from various City Departments. These documents are available for review at any time during regular business hours by City Departments, historians and the general public. In addition to the records at the City Records Center, the City also has a contract with Iron Mountain, Inc. for the storage and inventory of an additional 190,000 boxes of City documents. These services are currently provided to 18 different City Departments, who pay Iron Mountain directly through a City-wide contract. The original contract was executed in 2010 for a term not to exceed 3 years, and has subsequently been extended pending the award of the subject contract. The total annual expenditure on the City of this service from all 18 City Departments is approximately $500,000 annually. In 2013, the City Clerk advertised an RFP to execute a new contract with a term not to exceed three (3) years and was cancelled for the benefit of the City. The subject RFP was re-issued in June 2014 with an extended projected term of 10 years in the hope of attaining more competitive pricing and services. REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL The general specifications of the RFP calls for the City Clerk s Office to be the holder of the contract and of the master account with the selected vendor. City Departments using this contract will do so under sub-accounts. The departmental representatives will authorize all transfers to storage and related services relative to their sub-accounts and will be invoiced individually. The City Clerk s Record Management Officer shall have access to all sub-accounts and inventory databases for viewing the inventory database and invoices of the sub-accounts. We anticipate approximately 18 City departments will establish sub-accounts. Each department will have their own contacts and delivery sites. The proposers were asked to provide information related to their specific project costs in areas of standard records storage, vault storage, retrievals, returns, delivery, permanent removals and destruction, etc.; company financial information; assigned personnel; and optional materials and services. The intent of the RFP was to award a contract for a period up to 10 years beginning with the date of the award, and up to three additional one-year periods. Each proposer was rated based on the following six (6) evaluation factors:
Page 3 of 6 1. Proposed level of Fees 2. Experience of the Proposer on scope of services 3. Experience and qualifications of key personnel assigned 4. Past performance of the firm on contracts of similar size and scope 5. Overall Quality and Responsiveness of the Proposal 6. Organizations financial stability RFP Responses The City Clerk received proposals from five (5) companies, Corodata, File Keepers, GRM, Iron Mountain and Storetrieve. RFP Evaluation Panel The RFP Evaluation Panel consisted of the City Records Manager from the City Clerk, the Records Coordinator for the Housing Department, and the Records Coordinator for the Los Angeles Police Department. Each proposer was invited to give a presentation in support of their RFP submission and provide any clarification to the panel if necessary. PROPOSAL SELECTION Each proposal was evaluated based on the six (6) evaluation factors provided in the RFP. Below is an excerpt of the final scoring sheet that indicates the evaluation factor, top value for each factor, and incremental value for each factor. You will note that in several areas, the proposers earned a tie score in 3 of the factors; however, in the end, Storetrieve received the highest overall score of 84 and is the recommended contractor for this RFP. A draft contract is attached for your review.
Page 4 of 6 Ranking and Scoring Factor Value Increment* Corodata File- Keepers GRM Iron Mountain Storetrieve Level of Fees 30 30, 24, 18,12, 6 12 24 18 6 30 20, 16, 12, 8,4 Experience Qualifications 10 (Personnel) Past Performance Overall Quality 15 Financial Stability Totals 20 12 16 12 20 12 20 5 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 20, 16, 12, 8, 4 15,12, 9, 6,3 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 6 10 6 6 6 12 20 16 20 20 3 9 6 12 15 3 4 2 5 1 48 83 60 69 84 * Incremental values were provided to the raters as an advisory range of scores for evaluating the proposers, but not required. The increments were based on 20% increments of the top score for each respective factor. In several instances, proposers earned the same score. PROTESTS On July 21, 2015, the City Clerk notified all of the proposers that Storetrieve was the contractor/consultant with the best combination of price, experience, and quality of service delivery, and that it was the intent of the City Clerk to recommend the award of the contract to City Council. Each proposer was also informed of their rights to file a protest to the recommendation, and that any protest was to be made in writing within 10 days, a hearing would be held within 5 working days of the protest, unless waived by the proposer. It should be noted that two protests were received from competitive proposers, File Keepers and Iron Mountain (the current contractor). Iron Mountain Protest Iron Mountain did not file a protest within the allotted 10 days of notification. The City Clerk notification letter was mailed and scanned and emailed to the contact at Iron Mountain. Sometime after the protest period expiration, the City was contacted by Iron Mountain, who was unaware of the notification of intent to award letter, indicating that the Iron Mountain contact to whom the letter was addressed was no longer employed at Iron Mountain. In the interest of fairness, City Clerk staff extended Iron Mountains protest period another 10 days.
Page 5 of 6 Iron Mountain s protest letter was received by the City Clerk on September 22, 2015, which cited discrepancies and flaws in the bid evaluation and award process. Iron Mountain asserted that based on the six (6) evaluation criteria in the RFP, that they were the best proposer as it had the best combination of price, experience and quality of service delivery. They also indicated that, while the other respondents may have also met the requirements outlined in the RFP, Iron Mountain believes that their combination of resources and experience bring the best value to the City. The City Clerk responded to Iron Mountain indicating that all six (6) evaluation factors were considered in our final scoring of all the proposers and that scores were provided by our panel of three (3) experts on our evaluation committee. An excerpt of the final evaluation scoring sheet was supplied to Iron Mountain indicating how well they scored in the 6 categories. Unfortunately, they did not receive the overall highest score; and therefore, were not being recommended as the contractor. Iron Mountain indicated that they had more comments and would get back to City Clerk staff by October 30, 2015. No communication was provided by that date. Subsequently, Iron Mountain has transmitted an additional letter requesting information regarding the method of scoring, how the incremental scoring was determined, and further clarification on the scoring of Past Performance, which have been addressed in the Proposal Selection section of this transmittal above. File Keepers Protest File Keepers also indicated that they would like to protest the award and requested a protest hearing. A protest hearing was held on August 22, 2015. At the hearing, File Keepers presented the following concerns: 1. What was their score compared to the recommended contractor and did the recommended contractor receive a higher score for experience? 2. 3. 4. Is the City considering the local business enterprise preference ordinance (LBE) in their recommendation? How is a subsidiary of an out-of-state company considered local? File Keepers believes that they are the lowest cost to the City. Why was the previous RFP cancelled? In our response on September 24, 2015, File Keepers was informed that they scored second overall, and that they did score higher than Storetrieve in the experience category. They were also informed that the City Clerk is considering the LBE preference in their award, and that Storetrieve had filed for their LBE certification with the Bureau of Contract Administration/Office of Contract Compliance (BCA/OCC), which was approved. The City Clerk also provided LBE protest instructions, if File Keepers wished to protest the LBE certification finding. File Keepers claim, that their proposal was ultimately the lowest cost, was based on their evaluation criteria of a lower number of estimated boxes destroyed annually than what was included in the criteria posted in the
Page 6 of 6 RFP. The City Clerk contends that a new criteria in the estimated number of boxes destroyed cannot be changed after the proposals submission date. Finally, the City cancelled the previous RFP in accordance with the Section 2.9 of the RFP for the good of the City. In light of the City s lengthy RFP process, the City Clerk cancelled the previous RFP which had anticipated a 3 year contract, and increased that term in the present RFP for 10 years in hopes of attaining more competitive pricing and services. Subsequent to receipt of the protest response, File Keepers did file a protest with the BCA/OCC questioning how a subsidiary of an out-of-state company can be considered local. The BCA/OCC considered this protest and confirmed their previous determination citing the provisions of the Local Business Preference Ordinance. File Keepers continues to disagree with this finding, as well as, why the City Clerk has allowed Storetrieve to file an LBE certification after the RFP due date. File Keepers asserts that since they were the only contractor with a certified LBE certification on file with the City at the proposal due date, then they should be the only proposer receiving the 8% preference in the evaluation process. File Keepers asserts that it was unfair to allow their competitor to file for their LBE certification after the proposal due date and the preliminary scores were given. The department disagrees with this assertion, as the requirement for LBE certification at the time of proposal was not a requirement of the RFP. CONCLUSION After all factors were considered and all protests evaluated, the City Clerk recommends that the City Council approve the execution of the offsite storage contract with Storetrieve, LLC. FISCAL IMPACT STATEMENT No additional general funds are allocated as a result of the execution of this contract. The chosen vendor will absorb the costs of the transfer of files from the current vendor. Individual departments will continue to utilize their existing contractual services funds to utilize this citywide contract. Annually, approximately $500,000 is expended accumulatively by the user departments. c>-<k Y Holly L. Wolcott City Clerk Attachments