Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Hillsborough County holds pre-bid for $7.4 million incident-management staffing contract
Loading...
Summary
Hillsborough County officials outlined requirements for ITB-26-00132, a three-year, $7,401,240 contract to supply incident management team staffing during emergency activations; questions are due March 17 and bids close March 27 at 2 p.m.
Hillsborough County procurement officials and emergency management staff held a nonmandatory pre-bid meeting on March 3 to review ITB-26-00132, a three-year solicitation seeking incident management team (IMT) staffing to support the county’s Emergency Operations Center during prolonged or multiple activations.
"The only way you can submit is through Unit," James Wonderly, a procurement official with Hillsborough County, told attendees, reiterating that all solicitation questions and proposals must go through the county’s electronic bidding platform. Sarah Petrone, procurement and contract manager for the Hillsborough County Office of Emergency Management, summarized the purpose of the solicitation: "The goal of this ITB is to essentially contract an incident management team, staffing support team for us during activations."
Why it matters: the county is seeking supplemental qualified staff to relieve subject-matter experts and fill critical roles — from incident commander to operations, logistics, multilingual translators and an unmanned aircraft system remote pilot — when local staffing is overstretched. The county estimated the solicitation’s total value at $7,401,240 for the three-year term and listed an estimated 1,512 hours per position for that full term.
Key details and deadlines outlined at the meeting: - Solicitation: ITB-26-00132 for IMT staffing services, three-year term; estimated value $7,401,240. - Question deadline: March 17; bids close March 27 at 2:00 p.m.; submissions only through the county’s Unit procurement portal. - Pricing and quantities: the county requires all-inclusive hourly rates (transportation, lodging, PPE, supplies, overhead) quoted to the nearest quarter hour and said the solicitation currently lists 1,512 hours per position for the three-year term as the estimated quantity. - Activation and response: contractor personnel must be available to respond to activation requests (county cited a 24-hour report-for-duty expectation) and to perform work during standard business hours and 24/7 during declared emergencies. - Qualifications: the solicitation lists minimum qualifications by line item; staff noted an incident-commander position requires substantial experience (the document cites a seven-year minimum) and that some positions are task-booked or position-specific. - Contract terms: insurance is required and the county directed bidders to the insurance attachment in the procurement portal; no bid, performance or surety bonds are required. E-Verify applies. The county warned that proposing material deviations to indemnification language may result in rejection. - Invoicing and payment: contractors must submit invoices at least weekly; project managers have 15 days to review invoices and accounting typically has 30 days under the prompt payment act, producing an approximate 45-day timeline from invoice submission to payment.
Staff said they will issue at least one addendum: Petrone told attendees the team will remove a Florida-driver’s-license requirement from the minimum qualifications because some needed subject-matter experts may be out-of-state. Wonderly also said the county could modify estimated hours if the county experiences an unusually active emergency season.
Attendees asked several operational questions, including whether higher-level or task-book positions could qualify for specified line items, how deployments and rotations would be managed (staff noted 14-day rotations are common, with extensions as needed), and whether lodging and overtime are billable (county staff said the hourly rate must be all-inclusive). Wonderly reported market interest metrics from the procurement portal — about 116 document downloads and 13 firms indicating intent to bid — but cautioned those intent flags are not guarantees of submitted proposals.
Next steps: bidders must submit written questions through the Unit messaging system by March 17; the county will post answers and any addenda in Unit. The solicitation closes March 27 at 2:00 p.m., and the county will evaluate proposals based on the terms stated in the ITB. The pre-bid meeting concluded with the procurement official thanking attendees and formally adjourning.
