Agency Human Services Dept

Contractor ICF Incorporated, LLC

SWIFT Contract Number 31502

Project Name Child care market rate survey date in MN

Project Number (if applicable) {Empty}

Summarize purpose of the contract, including why it was necessary: The Minnesota Department of Human Services, required a vendor to create data collection tools for the Minnesota Child Care Provider Business Update (Update) and conduct analysis of child care market rate data collected. The Update includes questions for licensed child care providers regarding rates, policies, hours of operation, available openings, educational approaches, and for family child providers – training and experience.
The vendor, through this contract, would:
- develop paper and online data collection tools for the Update, based on content provided by the State;
- provide a server to house program files and database associated with online data collection;
- support responders to the online tool and;
- analyze and report on child care market rate survey data generated by all data collection methods.

Project Duration

Start Date Wed, 09/14/2011 - 00:00

Original end date Sun, 07/31/2016 - 00:00

Actual end date Sun, 07/31/2016 - 00:00

Did project finish on time? Yes

Total billable hours utilized (if applicable) {Empty}

Contract Amounts

Original contract: $55827

Amendments $212134

Contract total $267961

Did project finish within budget? Yes

What was the funding source? Federal Child Care Development Funds

Is this a sole source contract? No

If this was a single source contract, explain why the agency determined there was only a single source for the services (if applicable) {Empty}

Evaluator Name Sheila Garceau

Evaluator Email Address Sheila.garceau@state.mn.us

Evaluate the contractor's timeliness The timeliness of the completed tasks was average. On occasion, timely communications could be improved. At times, it seems as if the vendor is managing multiple requests from multiple contracts. Clear communication describing requests and timelines helps manage this.

Evaluate the contractor's quality
The vendor produced three types of hard-copy materials for our work. Those included project management plans, hard-copy market rate surveys for licensed child care centers & licensed family child care providers, and data analysis documentation in plain language. All of these are considered living documents and subject to edits over time. The quality of this work was high.

Evaluate the contractor's cost Contractor’s cost was reasonable for the scope of this project.

Evaluate the contractor's overall performance
We were very happy with this vendor's service. Staff brought an excellent level of organization and project management to our work together. Staff performed very well when managing the project, scheduling regular touch-base conference calls during time periods of significant work. Staff brought a high level of technical skill to the analysis work portion of our contract and did a good job identifying clarifications to our data analysis requests.

The vendor was good to work with when needing to adjust funding between certain tasks or when amending the contract to add funds.

We were very satisfied with their project management and technical skills as well as an overall positive relationship with the vendor.

Would you engage the contractor's services again? Yes

Describe any negative action taken during the duration of this contract (i.e., termination, pursuit of suspension, etc.): {Empty}

Please rate the overall experience with the contractor 5 - very satisfied