Chapter 29 - Award and Post-Award of IT Contracts

29.1.0 Before award

Upon completion of negotiations, if applicable, and before awarding any information technology (IT) contract, the assigned procurement lead must validate the supplier is in compliance with the following critical or statutory requisites:

• Properly registered with eVA. 
• Commonwealth compliance: no sales tax delinquency with the Commonwealth (Irms.Support@Tax.Virginia.Gov) and not included on the Commonwealth’s Debarment List: (https://logi.cgieva.com/External/rdPage.aspx?rdReport=Public.Reports.Report9020_Data).  
• In Federal compliance: not listed on the Federal government’s Excluded Parties List (https://sam.gov/content/exclusions), if federal funds are used to fund any portion of the project or acquisition. 
• In Commonwealth compliance: is registered with the State Corporation Commission (SCC) and authorized to transact business in the Commonwealth (http://www.scc.virginia.gov/clk/bussrch.aspx). 
• Is not prohibited for use on federal systems by the Department of Homeland Security in accordance with § 2.2-5514 of the Code of Virginia. 

Unless exempted through legislation, before awarding any IT contract valued at $250,000 or greater, or a contract for a major project, agencies must obtain required VITA reviews and approvals. Additionally, the Procurement Governance Review (PGR) process must be followed for any technology investment valued at $250,000 or greater. 

The procurement file must also include “High-Risk” identification and mitigation planning and reporting, as well as approvals by the Office of Attorney General (OAG) and VITA, in accordance with § 2.2-4303.01. If the procurement is a Cloud procurement, the procurement file must include the required ECOS Security Assessment approval, and any VITA Security contractual requirements or security exceptions. The ECOS Security Assessment and security exceptions may be considered supplier proprietary and not available for public disclosure, therefore a redacted version of the contract may also be required for such purposes. Prior to posting notice of award, the procurement file and contract must be prepared to be available for review by other suppliers. 

Evaluation team members are requested to complete and submit the evaluation team survey in Appendix A at the close of each procurement where an evaluation was conducted. The procurement’s lead or single-point-of-contact should provide team members with the survey form and submission details. VITA SCM is collecting and sharing lessons learned. 

Commonwealth IT procurement professionals and project managers may contact scminfo@vita.virginia.gov if interested in obtaining and/or sharing evaluation team lessons learned.