Inmate Communications Service

Agency:	Sedgwick County
State:	Kansas
Type of Government:	State & Local
Posted Date:	Feb 20, 2024
Due Date:	Apr 9, 2024
Solicitation No:	24-2012
Bid Source:	Please Login to View Page
Contact information:	Please Login to View Page
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SEDGWICK COUNTY, KANSAS

DIVISION OF FINANCE

Purchasing Department

100 N. Broadway, Suite 610 ~ Wichita, KS 67202

Phone: 316 660-7255 Fax: 316 660-1839

https://www.sedgwickcounty.org/finance/purchasing/

requests-for-bid-and-proposal/

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

RFI #24-2012

INMATE COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES

February 20, 2024

This is a Request for Information (RFI) and it is neither a Request for Bid (RFB) nor a Request for Proposal (RFP).

This request is for information and planning purposes and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as any kind of

obligation on the part of Sedgwick County. A solicitation for services has not been developed yet, so please do not request

a copy of a solicitation at this time. This Request for Information (RFI) is intended to gain information from providers

regarding the services described in this document. Providers may also be contacted to discuss their responses.

Any information collected through this RFI process may or may not be used in the future to develop a solicitation for

proposals or bids. Providing a response to Sedgwick County does not in any way give an advantage to any particular

provider.

Sedgwick County will not award a contract on the basis of responses nor otherwise pay for the preparation of any

information submitted or the county’s use of such information from this request. Sedgwick County will not critique

responses and the RFI should not be used by interested parties to market their products/services. Proprietary information

is not being solicited; however, if proprietary information is submitted it will be subject to open records statutes.

Responses will be separated from and have no bearing on subsequent evaluations of proposals submitted in response to

any resulting RFB or RFP process.

Firms interested in submitting an e-mail response should do so by or before Tuesday, April 9, 2024 by 5:00 PM CST to

Lee Barrier at Lee.Barrier@sedgwick.gov. Late responses will not be accepted.

Sincerely,

Lee Barrier

Purchasing Agent

LB/ch

RFI #24-2012

Sedgwick County…Working for you

Table of Contents

About this Document

II. Background

III. Project Objectives

IV. Scope of Work

V. Required Response Content

RFI #24-2012

Sedgwick County…Working for you

I. About this Document

This is a Request for Information (RFI) and it is neither a Request for Bid (RFB) nor a Request for Proposal (RFP). This

request is for information and planning purposes and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as any kind of obligation

on the part of Sedgwick County. A solicitation for services has not been developed yet, so please do not request a copy of

a solicitation at this time. This Request for Information (RFI) is intended to gain information from providers regarding the

services described in this document. Providers may also be contacted to discuss their responses.

Any information collected through this RFI process may or may not be used in the future to develop a solicitation for

proposals or bids. Providing a response to Sedgwick County does not in any way give an advantage to any particular

provider.

Sedgwick County will not award a contract on the basis of responses nor otherwise pay for the preparation of any

information submitted or the County’s use of such information from this request. Sedgwick County will not critique

responses and the RFI should not be used by interested parties to market their products/services. Proprietary information

is not being solicited; however, if proprietary information is submitted it will be subject to open records statutes.

Responses will be separated from and have no bearing on subsequent evaluations of proposals submitted in response to

any resulting RFB or RFP process.

II. Background

Sedgwick County, located in south-central Kansas, is one of the most populous of Kansas’ 105 counties with a population

estimated at more than 508,000 persons. It is the sixteenth largest in area, with 1,008 square miles, and reportedly has the

second highest per capita wealth among Kansas’ counties. Organizationally, the county is a Commission/Manager entity,

employs nearly 2,800 persons, and hosts or provides a full range of municipal services, e.g. – public safety, public works,

criminal justice, recreation, entertainment, cultural, human/social, and education.

Sedgwick County invites responses to this Request for Information from qualified, experienced firms who can provide

reliable, cost-effective inmate communications service which meets or exceeds the requirements described in this RFI.

III. Project Objectives

Sedgwick County, Kansas (hereinafter referred to as “county”) is seeking a firm or firms to provide Inmate Communications

Service. The following objectives have been identified for this contract:

1. Acquire an Inmate Communications Service meeting the parameters, conditions and mandatory requirements

presented in the document.

2. Establish contract pricing for maintenance, support and professional service hours with the vendor that has the

best proven “track-record” in performance, service and customer satisfaction.

3. Acquire an Inmate Communications Service with the most advantageous overall cost to the county.

IV. Scope of Work

County requires a turnkey inmate calling solution which shall include, without limitation, collect, pre-paid collect, paperless

debit interface with the commissary provider, international collect calling, free calling to specific services, video visitation

service including an option for free on-site video visitation, inmate tablets, and electronic inmate request and grievance

system. Vendor shall install and operate inmate phones, video visitation devices, and related equipment. Vendor shall install

and operate inmate and visitation telephones and related equipment. Vendor shall, without cost to County, provide all wiring

for the inmate phones and video visitation equipment, install the inmate phones and video visitation equipment and the

related hardware and software specifically identified herein, to enable inmates at the Facilities to complete, without

limitation, local, long distance and/or international collect, pre-paid collect, debit and free calls as well as visitation sessions

from the Facilities.

RFI #24-2012

Sedgwick County…Working for you

Vendor shall supply details of Vendor’s proposed ITS which shall include, but not be limited to: system version (if Proposer

uses multiple ITS versions and/or releases), system design (centralized vs. premise-based), technical specifications,

software applications, hardware architecture and networking capabilities.

Include a description, as well as visual aids, of the inmate phones and video visitation equipment, inmate tablets,

electronic inmate request and grievance system, TDD units and cart/portable sets proposed for installation at the

Facilities.

A. System Architecture and Design

1. System Diagram

Provide a diagram of the proposed system architecture. The diagram should include an overall

representation of the servers, network, peripherals, workstations, mobiles, and interface points, as well as

a representation of the system environments (Production, Test, Training, and Disaster Recovery).

2. Proposed Hardware Configuration

Provide a listing or description of hardware configuration(s) recommendations based on use experience.

3. Performance and Reliability

Describe any impact to systems (e.g. interference to normal operations, system shutdown) that will occur

during server upgrades and/or expansions.

How will the Vendor ensure concurrent operation of all system components without degradation?

Describe the system response times that will be guaranteed during the lifetime of the system (both during

original warranty period and lifetime support). This is specifically referring to the transaction times

related to commands.

Describe how the Vendor will measure and ensure system performance over the lifetime of the system.

The County expects seven days a week, twenty-four-hour operation regarding the solution. Describe how

the Vendor will guarantee 99.999% availability both initially and during the life of any license and

maintenance contract.

What level of system availability is recommended for the solution?

Describe how the Vendor will guarantee this level of availability both initially and during the life of any

license and maintenance contract?

4. System Failover and Restoration

Provide a detailed description of the proposed backup environment.

Do operations automatically failover to the backup environment in the event of a failure in the production

environment? Describe any actions that must be taken by personnel to activate a backup environment.

How much time is required until operations commence in the backup environment when operations in the

production environment fail?

What steps, degree of user intervention, and time is required to return operations to the primary

environment?

RFI #24-2012

Sedgwick County…Working for you

5. Network Compatibility

What is the minimum actual network throughput and latency?

Describe how the system will work in an environment of intermittent mobile computer connectivity.

What is the slowest wired network connection speed that is required to support the system?

What is the slowest wireless network connection speed that is required to support the system?

6. System Software Application and Utilities

Provide the name, company, and release level of any additional third-party software required to support

the proposed solution.

7. System Backup

Describe the recommended approach for system backup.

How will the proposer’s recommended backup process affect live operation?

Are all system functions (inquiry and update) available during backup? If not, explain the level of

availability of system functions during backup and approximate time to perform backup.

Will the recommended approach enable full backup of the system?

Can the full backup be performed unattended?

Can full backup be scheduled to occur automatically?

Can the system perform incremental backup (i.e. only data/files updated since last backup)?

How long (estimated) will it take and what steps are involved to restore from a backup?

8. Data Conversion Plan

In this subsection, please provide a Conversion Plan and approach – Data from legacy systems must be

converted to the new system. The Data Conversion Plan must describe the strategy, approach, processes

and reference the appropriate specifications to convert data from the County’s legacy systems to the new

system.

9. Deployment/Implementation

In this subsection the Vendor must provide a detailed Deployment and Implementation plan which

documents the activities that must be performed to deploy the application to the production environment

and implement within the County. The plan must detail elements related to the critical activities that need

to be performed prior to launch. The plan must contain the detailed installation procedures and consider

the inter-application dependencies. The plan must include the step-by-step activities leading up to

deployment as well as the post-deployment activities related to reporting and clean-up. Additionally, the

plan must address the roles and responsibilities, Go/No-Go criteria and decision date, required resources,

assumptions, and risks related to implementation and Go-live.

RFI #24-2012

Sedgwick County…Working for you

RFB/RFP	Due Date	Description	Document	Pre-bid Conference
24-2012	4/9/2024 5:00:00 PM	Inmate Communications Service	RFI Addendum #1

Inmate Communications Service

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