Background
The Ryan White CARE Act mandates that Planning Councils assess the efficiency of the administrative mechanism (i.e., how quickly the grantee and master contractor get Title I funds out to the community). The NY EMA's assessment has two components: 1) oversight of spending rates by the Finance Committee; and 2) a survey of providers that focuses on the procurement process to try to identify areas that might result in a delay in allocating Title I funds. [As reported at the June 2004 Planning Council meeting, the Finance Committee was very pleased with the record spending rate for FY 2003 and commended DOHMH and MHRA for their exemplary work.]
In 2003, Community Co-chair Noemi Nagy headed a sub-committee to revise the survey, which was subsequently approved by the Executive Committee. This year's survey focused on the FY 2004 RFP, which was released in December 2003. The survey was sent to all agencies that received notification of the RFP. 120 RFPs were picked up from MHRA and 51 proposals were submitted. The survey asked about the clarity of the RFP, the helpfulness of the pre-proposal conference, the helpfulness of the master contractor during the RFP process, the amount of time needed to respond to the RFP and knowledge of the grievance procedure for issues concerning the administrative mechanism.
The survey was mailed out in mid-June, and respondents had about one month to reply. 26 responses to the survey were received, of whom 13 had attended the pre-proposal conference and 8 responded to the RFP.
Summary of Results
Of the respondents, half had attended the pre-proposal conference. 31% of respondents submitted proposal, 87% of whom had submitted a Title I proposal previously.
The results of the survey show that, overall, the respondents were very satisfied with the clarity of the RFP, the helpfulness of the bidder's conference and MHRA's assistance, and the amount of time needed to respond.
On a scale of 1 ("not at all clear/helpful") to 7 ("extremely clear/helpful"), respondents rated at 5 or 6 all aspects of the RFP, the pre-proposal conference and the master contractor's assistance.
Only 13% of respondents to the RFP were aware of the procedure for filing a grievance related to the administrative mechanism, which suggests that the master contractors could make that information more explicit in future RFPs.
The survey allowed for individual comments, which provided some additional insights that we are sharing with the grantee and master contractor. In particular:
- The proposal evaluation process was not clear.
- Post-proposal feedback could be more helpful.
- Many potential proposers did not apply because they did not think that funds would be available, and writing a proposal is too time consuming. Of course, as it turned out, funding was available, and thus some providers lost the opportunity to apply.
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