RFP for Database Maintenance and Development Services

Background
The Washington State Housing Finance Commission (the “Commission”) is requesting proposals/bids from qualified database, software, and web developers to provide on-going custom database and software maintenance, development and support services for its Web-Based Annual Reporting System (WBARS). The Commission finances the construction of affordable rental housing, community facilities and other projects. WBARS is used by dozens of Commission staff as well as nearly 1,000 external stakeholders.
Staff annually review report data submitted in WBARS by stakeholders to ensure compliance with state and federal requirements. WBARS data is also exported for the purposes of informing regional, legislative and national affordable housing research.

Work Details
The scope of work involved will be, in general, the upkeep and enhancement of the current WBARS system. Contractors will be expected to perform regular performance analysis and optimization commensurate with scaling up of data and users, maintenance tasks, security checks, domain/SSL updates, respond to users with support requests, fix bugs in regular releases, do quality assurance and regression testing on all builds, and provide consistent project management of all tasks.
Contractor must provide dedicated project manager to meet weekly with the Commission and be able to send staff to Seattle on a periodic basis (no more than quarterly, in general) for status and/or planning meetings, or to develop use cases and gather user feedback. Contractors should be prepared to implement enhancements to WBARS based on user feedback and long-term use strategy, as well as changes to applicable federal or state regulations. For new enhancements, Contractor is expected to create use cases and write requirements to clarify all aspects of new functionality and confirm expectations. Specific tasks Contractor is required to complete each year will be mapped out in yearly Scope of Work amendments to the Master Agreement and will be further detailed and tracked in the weekly status meetings.

Period of Performance
The initial term of the contract will be for a two-year period beginning July 1, 2024 and terminating on June 30, 2026 with an option to renew for an additional one-year or a maximum two-year period, at the sole discretion of the Commission.

Place of Performance
The geographic location(s) where the services will be performed include Seattle, Washington.