DATE: June 18, 2019
TO: Board of Supervisors
SUBMITTED BY: Robert W. Bash, Director, Internal Services/Chief Information Officer
SUBJECT: Agreement with MetaSource, LLC.
RECOMMENDED ACTION(S):
TITLE
Approve and authorize the Chairman to execute an Agreement with MetaSource, LLC. for archival digitizing services, effective June 18, 2019, not to exceed five consecutive years, which includes a three-year base contract and two optional one-year extensions, total not to exceed $800,000.
REPORT
Approval of the recommended action will execute an agreement with MetaSource, LLC. to start the process of digitizing the physical archives for the County, beginning with the Public Defender’s 10,500 boxes of documents. This item is countywide.
ALTERNATIVE ACTION(S):
If the recommended action is not approved, the County will be unable to digitize the large number of physical records kept by various County departments. This will result in continued expenses related to storing physical records.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no increase in Net County Cost associated with the recommended action. Costs associated with this agreement are estimated not to exceed $800,000 for the total possible 5-year term of this agreement. Sufficient appropriations and estimated revenues for the FY 2018-19 costs associated with this agreement are included in the Department’s Information Technology Services Org 8905 FY 2018-19 Adopted Budget. ISD-IT will pass through charges from this agreement to user departments. The Public Defender’s FY 2018-19 budget includes unexpended funds for this project in the amount of $190,000. Ongoing costs for the remaining term of the agreement will be included in future budget requests.
DISCUSSION:
On January 9, 2019 the County of Fresno, on behalf of the Public Defender’s Office, issued Request for Quotation (RFQ) No. 19-040 for Conversion of Paper Documents to Electronic Data Files to 433 vendors registered in Public Purchase. The purpose of the RFQ was to award a contract to the lowest responsible bidder. The response period closed on February 7, 2019, and 13 vendors responded. Metasource, LLC. submitted the lowest, most responsive bid.
After the close of the RFQ, the Public Defender’s Office reached out to the Internal Services Department - Information Technology Division (ISD-IT) for technical assistance on the disposition of the files once converted. As a result of these consultations, both the Public Defender’s Office and ISD-IT determined that it would be a better fit for ISD-IT to manage the agreement to better accomplish the digitizing. ISD-IT administers the County’s digital document storage systems, and is in a better position to ensure that all digitized documents comply with the needs of that system. This will also provide the opportunity for additional County departments to utilize this solution in the future. If additional services are required for other departments, ISD-IT will return to your Board with appropriate amendments.
This agreement will allow the County to begin the process of digitizing the tens of thousands of boxes of documents that the County currently stores in a variety of locations, beginning with the approximately 10,500 boxes of records currently stored by the Public Defender’s office. This digitization will both lower the cost of retaining these records, and allow County departments, beginning with the Public Defender’s office, more efficient access to their historical documents. Part of the conversion process includes Optical Character Recognition (OCR), which will make these documents digitally searchable by appropriate County staff. In addition, the County will be able to more easily implement and automate appropriate retention schedules on record archives.
The not-to-exceed dollar amount in this agreement exceeds the bid total by $96,920, which is approximately ten percent. This accounts for two additional costs that were not directly addressed in the RFQ: potential storage costs for documents during an extended review process, and the bidding process was based upon estimates of the number of boxes and pages per box, whereas the pricing methodology is almost entirely on a per-page basis, so additional funds are included to address potential variation in those estimates.
ATTACHMENTS INCLUDED AND/OR ON FILE:
On file with Clerk - Agreement with MetaSource, LLC.
CAO ANALYST:
Yussel Zalapa