To: Board of Supervisors
From: Marc Shorr, Information Technology Director
Report Title: Contract Amendment with Robert Half International, Inc.
☒Recommendation of the County Administrator ☐ Recommendation of Board Committee
RECOMMENDATIONS:
APPROVE and AUTHORIZE the Chief Information Officer, or designee, to execute a contract amendment with Robert Half International, Inc. to increase the payment limit by $750,000 to a new payment limit of $12,750,000 to provide temporary technical support staffing and extend the term through October 31, 2024.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The cost will be charged to County departments that utilize the services of this contract. 100% User Departments.
BACKGROUND:
Over the last several years, the Department of Information Technology (DoIT), as well as other County departments, have utilized Robert Half International, Inc. to provide contracted temporary help to augment staffing shortages due to high vacancy rates within the information technology classifications throughout the County workforce. To comply with County purchasing policies and procedures, DoIT has been working with the Purchasing Division of the Public Works Department to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit bids from staffing agencies who also provide temporary staffing services and are interested in partnering with Contra Costa County. The RFP was issued on March 29, 2024, and had an initial closing date of April 19, 2024. The Department and the Senior Buyer from Purchasing assigned to assist DoIT with this RFP, responded to approximately 150 questions posed by interested bidders. The response to this RFP was so overwhelming that the closing date was extended by an additional week to allow staff time to respond to the voluminous number of questions and to allow the bidders an opportunity to incorporate this information into their proposals. When the bid officially closed on April 29, 2024, the County received fifty-five (55) responses.
A qualifications evaluation committee has been convened and is undertaking the task of evaluating each response. The criteria the committee is focusing on includes areas such as availability of qualified candidates in all areas of the County, the proposer’s understanding of the work to be completely, the responsiveness to the RFP, cost, and the experience and ability to provide the requested service. While these criteria will be useful to pare down the number of qualified responses, it will be necessary to invite the firms that have risen to the top of the list to make a formal presentation to the committee to further highlight their qualifications and to demonstrate their ability to successfully provide the County with the qualified candidates. This will also allow the evaluation committee the ability to ask follow-up questions to assist in their difficult rating task.
The Department had planned to have a recommendation to this Board for approval for one (1) to three (3) new vendors to support the County with their temporary help needs, however, due to the volume of the responses to this RFP and the additional oral presentation step, the Department requesting approval for a four (4) month extension to the current contract.
CONSEQUENCE OF NEGATIVE ACTION:
If this request is not approved, County departments will continue to function understaffed and have no available option for temporary staffing which will negatively impact countywide projects, service delivery for daily operations, and may impede critical monitoring activity to guard against cyber-attacks.