30-24206R-DSS County Administration Reimbursement System Modernization Project (CARS)

Agency:	State Government of North Carolina
State:	North Carolina
Type of Government:	State & Local
NAICS Category:	541511 - Custom Computer Programming Services 541512 - Computer Systems Design Services 541519 - Other Computer Related Services 541611 - Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services
Posted Date:	Jan 30, 2026
Due Date:	Feb 20, 2026
Solicitation No:	Doc1673920222
Original Source:	Please Login to View Page
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Solicitation Number:	Doc1673920222
Project Title:	30-24206R-DSS County Administration Reimbursement System Modernization Project (CARS)
Description:	This is a Reissued RFP for the NC CARS Implementation Project. The original RFP was issued on 10/30/24. The bids were opened on 1/21/25. The RFP was cancelled on 8/3/25. The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to solicit Offers from qualified vendors for a software development solution (“Solution”) that will allow the NC Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS or Agency) to develop and maintain a secure and HIPAA-compliant county administration reimbursement system. Our goal is to develop a replacement system, addressing various shortcomings and risks of the current systems and processes.
Opening Date:	2/20/2026 2:00 PM
Posted Date:	1/31/2026
Status:	Open
Department:	DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - DHHS


Solicitation Number * Doc1673920222	Department DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - DHHS	Status Reason Open
Opening Date 2026-02-20T14:00:00.0000000	Posted Date * 2026-01-30T22:30:41.0000000Z	Commodity Code Software or hardware engineering
Mandatory Conference/Site Visit — —	Special Instructions —	Solicitation Type * Select RFP IFB RFI
Owner Katherine Hens
Description This is a Reissued RFP for the NC CARS Implementation Project. The original RFP was issued on 10/30/24. The bids were opened on 1/21/25. The RFP was cancelled on 8/3/25. The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to solicit Offers from qualified vendors for a software development solution (“Solution”) that will allow the NC Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS or Agency) to develop and maintain a secure and HIPAA-compliant county administration reimbursement system. Our goal is to develop a replacement system, addressing various shortcomings and risks of the current systems and processes.

Attachments RFP - 30-24206R_CARS_1.29.26_ISSUE.pdf (2.83 MB)

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STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

Department of Health and Human

Services

Refer ALL inquiries regarding this RFP to:

Eve Hens

eve.hens@dhhs.nc.gov

585-297-4954

REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL NO. 30-24206R-DSS

Offers will be publicly opened: February 20, 2026 at 2:00PM

Issue Date: January 30, 2026

Commodity Number: 81111509

Description: Internet or intranet client application

development services

County Administration Reimbursement System

Modernization Project (CARS)

Purchasing Agency: NC Department of Health and Human

Services

Requisition No.: RQ223002

OFFER

The Purchasing Agency solicits offers for Services and/or goods described in this solicitation. All offers and

responses received shall be treated as Offers to contract as defined in 9 NCAC 06A.0102(12).

EXECUTION

In compliance with this Request for Proposal, and subject to all the conditions herein, the undersigned offers and

agrees to furnish any or all Services or goods upon which prices are offered, at the price(s) offered herein, within

the time specified herein.

Failure to execute/sign offer prior to submittal shall render offer invalid. Late offers are not acceptable.

OFFEROR:

STREET ADDRESS:

P.O. BOX:

ZIP:

CITY, STATE & ZIP:

TELEPHONE NUMBER: TOLL FREE TEL. NO

PRINT NAME & TITLE OF PERSON SIGNING:

FAX NUMBER:

AUTHORIZED SIGNATURE:

DATE:

E-MAIL:

Offer valid for three hundred and sixty-five (365) days from date of offer opening unless otherwise stated here:

______ Days

ACCEPTANCE OF OFFER

If any or all parts of this offer are accepted, an authorized representative of Purchasing NC Department of Health

and Human Services shall affix its signature hereto and any subsequent Request for Best and Final Offer, if issued.

Acceptance shall create a contract having an order of precedence as follows: Best and Final Offers, if any, Special

terms and conditions specific to this RFP, Specifications of the RFP, the Department of Information Technology

Terms and Conditions, and the agreed portion of the awarded Vendor’s Offer. A copy of this acceptance will be

forwarded to the awarded Vendor(s).

FOR PURCHASING AGENCY USE ONLY

Offer accepted and contract awarded this date _______________as indicated on attached certification, by

(Authorized representative of Purchasing NC Department of Health and Human Services).

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Ver. 2023.08.01

Table of Contents

1.0 Anticipated Procurement Schedule ............................................................................................. 2

2.0 Purpose of RFP...........................................................................................................................2

2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 2

2.2 Contract Term ............................................................................................................................ 3

2.3 Effective Date ............................................................................................................................. 3

2.4 Contract Type .............................................................................................................................. 3

2.5 Agency Background .................................................................................................................... 3

2.6 Contract Phases.........................................................................................................................4

3.0 RFP Requirements and Specifications........................................................................................5

3.1 General Requirements and Specifications ................................................................................. 5

3.2 Security Specifications ............................................................................................................... 6

3.3 Enterprise Specifications............................................................................................................7

3.4 Business and Technical Requirements ...................................................................................... 8

3.5 Business and Technical Specifications ...................................................................................... 8

3.6 Management Specifications ..................................................................................................... 13

4.0 Cost of Vendor’s Offer...............................................................................................................23

4.1 Offer Costs ............................................................................................................................... 23

4.2 Payment Schedule ................................................................................................................... 24

5.0 Evaluation ..................................................................................................................................... 24

5.1 Source Selection ...................................................................................................................... 24

5.2 Evaluation Criteria .................................................................................................................... 25

5.3 Best and Final Offers (BAFO) .................................................................................................. 25

5.4 Possession and Review ........................................................................................................... 25

6.0 Vendor Information and Instructions ......................................................................................... 26

6.1 General Conditions of Offer......................................................................................................26

6.2 General Instructions for Vendor ............................................................................................... 27

6.3 General Instructions for Offer Submission................................................................................30

7.0 Other Requirements and Special Terms ................................................................................... 32

7.1 Vendor Utilization Of Workers Outside of U.S. ......................................................................... 32

7.2 Financial Statements................................................................................................................33

7.3 Financial Resources Assessment, Quality Assurance, Performance and Reliability................33

7.4 Vendor’s License or Support Agreements................................................................................33

7.5 Resellers .................................................................................................................................. 33

7.6 Disclosure of Litigation ............................................................................................................. 34

7.7 Criminal Conviction .................................................................................................................. 34

7.8 Security and Background Checks ............................................................................................ 35

7.9 Assurances .............................................................................................................................. 35

7.10 Confidentiality of Offers...........................................................................................................35

7.11 Project Management...............................................................................................................36

7.12 Meetings ................................................................................................................................. 36

7.13 Recycling and Source Reduction (RESERVED) ..................................................................... 37

7.14 Invoices...................................................................................................................................37

7.15 Special Terms and Conditions ................................................................................................ 37

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Ver. 2023.08.01

Attachment A: Definitions....................................................................................................................39

Attachment B: Department of Information Technology Terms and Conditions.................................... 46

Attachment C: Agency Terms and Conditions .................................................................................... 71

Attachment D: Description of Offeror .................................................................................................. 78

Attachment E: Cost Forms .................................................................................................................. 80

Attachment F: Vendor Certification Form ............................................................................................ 84

Attachment G: Location of Workers Utilized by Vendor - Disclosure Statement ................................. 85

Attachment H: References .................................................................................................................. 87

Attachment I: Financial Review Form ................................................................................................. 88

Attachment J: Quality specifications for Project Management and O&M Deliverables.......................90

Attachment K: Business Associate Addendum ................................................................................. 131

Attachment L: Context Diagrams ..................................................................................................... 134

Attachment M: Process Flow Diagrams (As Is/Current State).......................................................... 136

Attachment N: HHS ACF OCSE Required Federal Clauses and Provisions .................................... 152

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Ver. 2023.08.01

1.0 ANTICIPATED PROCUREMENT SCHEDULE

The Agency Procurement Agent will make every effort to adhere to the following schedule:

Action

Responsibility

RFP Issued

Agency

Pre-Offer Conference

Written Questions Deadline

Agency’s Response to Written Questions/

RFP Addendum Issued

Offer Opening Deadline

Public Bid Opening Microsoft Teams Link:

Microsoft Teams meeting

Join: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/22169634200202?p=

fyTLGm7i1lue8FP4mh

Meeting ID: 221 696 342 002 02

Passcode: SS2G4Ag3

Dial in by phone

+1 984-204-1487,,607830528# United States, Raleigh

Find a local number

Phone conference ID: 607 830 528#

Offer Evaluation

Agency

Potential

Vendors

Agency

Vendor(s)

Agency

Selection of Finalists

Agency

Negotiations with Finalists

Best and Final Offers Deadline from Finalists

State Approval to Award

Agency

designees and

selected

Vendor(s)

Selected

Vendors

Agency

Federal Approval to Award

Agency

Contract Award

Agency

Protest Deadline

Responding

Vendors

Date

1/30/26

2/5/26 at 2:00PM ET

2/6/26 at 5:00PM ET

2/11/26

2/20/26 at 2:00PM ET

2/21/26-3/20/26

3/23/26

3/23/26-4/14/26

4/21/26

5/21/26

7/21/26

8/1/26

15 days after award

2.0 PURPOSE OF RFP

2.1 INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to solicit Offers from qualified vendors for a software

development solution (“Solution”) that will allow the NC Department of Health and Human Services

(NCDHHS or Agency) to develop and maintain a secure and HIPAA-compliant county administration

reimbursement system. Our goal is to develop a replacement system, addressing various shortcomings and

risks of the current systems and processes.

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Ver. 2023.08.01

From a technical perspective, the project will unify the functionality of the existing legacy systems of the

County Administration Reimbursement System (CARS), Services Information System (SIS) Daysheets, and

potentially all or some of the NC County Reimbursement Ledger Suite (NC-CoReLS) under a single system

capable of integrating with current and future stakeholder systems such as county DSS systems and the

North Carolina Financial System (NCFS). NCDHHS is open to consider a Solution that either leverages

and/or modernizes NC-CoReLS or replaces NC-CoReLS as long as the proposal conforms to all business

specifications.

The Solution strategy will focus on web based, cloud deployed systems that will afford the State the greatest

amount of configuration and autonomy of maintenance. The vision is for the Solution to be procured from the

Vendor and configured by State IT personnel to meet the needs of the Office with support provided by the

Vendor. Hosting options, either State-hosted or Vendor-hosted, for the platform and data can be proposed

by the Vendor based on the optimal Solution the Vendor plans to offer. While NCDHHS prefers cloud-based

Solutions that can be operated and maintained by the Department, Vendors may propose alternative

development approaches according to their business model and technical delivery approach.

2.2 CONTRACT TERM

A contract awarded pursuant to this RFP shall have an effective date as provided in the Notice of Award.

The term shall be three (3) year(s) and will expire upon the anniversary date of the effective date unless

otherwise stated in the Notice of Award, or unless terminated earlier. The State retains the option to extend

the Agreement for two (2) one-year renewals at its sole discretion.

2.3 EFFECTIVE DATE

This solicitation, including any Exhibits, or any resulting contract or amendment shall not become effective

nor bind the State until the appropriate State purchasing authority/official or Agency official has signed the

document(s), contract or amendment; the effective award date has been completed on the document(s), by

the State purchasing official, and that date has arrived or passed. The State shall not be responsible for

reimbursing the Vendor for goods provided nor Services rendered prior to the appropriate signatures and the

arrival of the effective date of the Agreement. No contract shall be binding on the State until an encumbrance

of funds has been made for payment of the sums due under the Agreement.

2.4 CONTRACT TYPE

Definite Quantity Contract - This request is for a closed-ended contract between the awarded Vendor and

the State to furnish a pre-determined quantity of a good or service during a specified period.

The State reserves the right to make partial, progressive, or multiple awards: where it is advantageous to

award separately by items; or where more than one supplier is needed to provide the contemplated

specifications as to quantity, quality, delivery, service, geographical areas; and where other factors are

deemed to be necessary or proper to the purchase in question.

2.5 AGENCY BACKGROUND

County agencies administer Social Services, Income Maintenance, and Child Support programs. The costs

incurred by agencies are reported each month and allocated to each program/funding stream based on the

staff’s reported time and full-time equivalent (FTE) count. Counties that claim administrative costs support

approximately forty-five (45) different programs. Administrative claiming averages $190M month statewide

from over forty (40) unique funding sources. Currently, a large majority of these processes include keeping

daily timesheets for assigning these costs.

Under federal regulations and the General Statutes of North Carolina, funds are appropriated from federal,

State and county sources for providing social services and financial assistance to needy individuals. For

reimbursement purposes, social services are divided up into four parts: Services, Income Maintenance, Child

Support, and Administration. Counties track their employees’ daily time – coded to SIS activity and SIS

program codes – on Daysheets, which are uploaded to the NC DSS Daysheets application on the SIS

Mainframe.

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This page summarizes the opportunity, including an overview and a preview of the attached documents.

* Disclaimer: This website provides information about bids, requests for proposals (RFPs), or requests for qualifications (RFQs) for convenience only and does not serve as an official public notice. Individuals who wish to respond to or inquire about bids, RFPs, or RFQs should contact the relevant government department directly.

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30-24206R-DSS County Administration Reimbursement System Modernization Project (CARS)

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