Opportunity Review Commission approves housing authority answering-services contract and multi-prime task-order pool

The Opportunity Review Commission on April 20 approved two housing authority procurement plans: a $102,000 professional services contract for authority-wide answering services with New Orleans Teletransport and a plan to rotate work under a $5.7 million task-order pool among six prime contractors.

The actions matter because commissioners said the procurements aim to distribute work among local subcontractors and to meet the city's MBE/WBE participation goals. Commissioner Barnett pressed staff for finer detail on how MBE and WBE participation would be tracked in task orders.

Rick (housing authority representative) presented the answering-services contract, describing it as "a professional services contract, for a hundred and 2,000." He said New Orleans Teletransport was the lowest, most responsive bidder and identified the vendor as a certified minority- and woman-owned business. LeMaya Sanchez, a vendor representative, was on the call for questions. Rick told commissioners that the authority posts solicitations on its website and conducts outreach to certified firms.

During the presentation Rick said the submission shows "93%, WBE." When commissioners sought clarification, staff said the prime is being submitted as an MBE and that the vendor is certified for both MBE and WBE status. Commissioner Barnett asked, "Is there some way, you know, as we move forward that we could see that percentage broke down, between the MBEs and WBEs?" Staff responded that for RFPs they will provide that breakdown but, because the second item is a task order, subcontract-level percentages may fluctuate by work order.

Commissioner Hall moved to approve the answering-services contract and Ron Porter seconded. The commission approved the contract by roll call. Commissioners recorded as voting aye included Commissioner Conley; Commissioner Dr. Hall; Commissioner Dr. Sweet Cushman; Commissioner Siegel; Commissioner Barnett; Commissioner Porter; Commissioner Tracy McCance Lewis; and Commissioner Angela Williams.

The commission then considered a second housing authority plan covering multiple task orders distributed among six prime contractors. Staff said the housing authority intends to rotate work among the six primes and their subcontract teams from a budget pool of approximately $5,700,000. Staff emphasized that many subcontractors listed on the teams are local and that the primes include a cross mix of MBE and WBE firms. Because the item is structured as a task order program rather than a single fixed-scope RFP, staff said subcontract participation percentages will "fluctuate depending on what the work order is."

Commissioner Barnett reiterated the request for clearer MBE/WBE splits when feasible. Ron Porter moved to approve the multi-prime task-order plan; Commissioner Nicholas seconded. The commission approved the plan by roll call with the same commissioners recorded as voting aye.

The commission recorded no opposing votes during the two housing items. Both plans were adopted and staff said they would proceed with contract execution and task-order administration.

The meeting then moved to ITQ updates.