Added: May 22, 2008 3:25 pm
This is a Pre-solicitation Notice to provide a synopsis of a proposed contract solicitation to interested parties. This Notice does not require a response from interested parties nor does it commit the Government to solicit or award a contract.
Background
The Rural Development area within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the lead federal entity in rural economic and community development. Rural Development accomplishes its mission by providing assistance to rural America through a network of 47 state offices and numerous other field office locations covering 50 states, plus the Pacific Trust Territories, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Rural Development s headquarters is located in Washington, District of Columbia, with additional operations in St. Louis, Missouri.
Synopsis
USDA Rural Development (Agency) intends to obtain technical support services to provide maintenance support and enhancement development to one of its official accounting and financial management systems - Automated Multi-housing Accounting System (AMAS). The Agency, as part of supporting its overall role in providing agricultural credit and rural development assistance for the Multiple Family Housing (MFH) loan and grant program, has initiated activities to develop and enhance Agency information management. The continued shift from internal Agency automated systems used by USDA employees to a combination of internal, intranet and internet systems serving our varied customers mandates improved and responsive automation support.
The AMAS loan portfolio contains approximately 21,000 loans with an outstanding principal balance in excess of $11.8 billion. AMAS currently consists of about 400 COBOL (600,000 lines of code) programs and 9 subsystems. The on-line system is written primarily in ADS-0 with some usage of DC-COBOL, and is made up of about 300 maps and dialogs. There are approximately 300 Job Control Language (JCL) members. Structured programming techniques have been used. The choice of development tool set and architecture will be determined by the Contracting Officer s Technical Representative (COTR) using the suite of tools approved by the Agency. The various automated components, which support the Agency loan programs, are at different stages of development effort in an attempt to meet E-File/GPEA mandates. The architecture of these components is evolving from a pure block-mode, mainframe environment to one of web-enabled intranet, extranet, and internet capabilities interfacing with some legacy processes. Common processes are being shared between programs where feasible to reduce maintenance overhead. All new development is aimed at re-usability among programs.
Rural Development requires software maintenance and enhancement support for AMAS. This may include supporting documentation modifications and/or improvements, designing and/or developing software maintenance/enhancements, testing, supporting data base changes, and supporting any new technologies that are introduced. Various requests for data occur sporadically through the year, coming from Office of Inspector General (OIG), General Accounting Office (GAO), or Congressional requests. These requests must also be fulfilled as part of the work duties assigned. Additionally, the Agency direct loan and grant program s automated components must comply with OMB Circular A-129 performance goals, the Treasury Financial Manual, Circular A-123 guidance for internal control systems, Circular A-127 guidance for financial management systems, and Circular A-130, guidance for security requirements. Consideration must also be given to the JFMIP Government-Wide systems automation requirements and the E-File/GPEA initiatives.
Acquisition will be conducted in accordance with FAR Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items procedures. Full and Open competition will be exercised. The Government intends to award a single contract to the offeror who provides the best value to the Government. The contract will be for one (1) base year with four (4) option years to be exercised by the Government if found to be in its best interest. The approximate solicitation release date is May 27, 2008. The solicitation will be available and distributed solely through the Federal Business Opportunities website: http://www.fbo.gov . All future information about this acquisition, including solicitation and any amendments, will be distributed solely through the website listed. Interested parties are responsible for monitoring this site to ensure they have the most up-to-date information about this acquisition. Offerors must obtain a DUNS number and register in the Central Contractor Registration (CCR) (www.ccr.gov ) in order to transact business with USDA.
Inquiries will only be accepted by email to the Point of Contact listed below.
Interested parties shall submit proposals containing relevant pricing and service information as specified in the solicitation. Proposals must be received by 2:00 pm ET on June 13, 2008, and should be submitted electronically as instructed in the solicitation.
