HomeMy WebLinkAboutNYSED Letter 12/2011T~IE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT/THE UNIVERSITY (DF THE STATE OF NEW YORK/ALBANY q¥ 12234
December 16, 2011,
Certified Mail - Return Receipt Requested
Ms. Elizabeth Neville
Town Clerk
Town of Southold
53095 Main Road
S~.,utho!d, NY ! 'qVl
Dear Ms. Neville:
]'he appeal of the Town of Southold of the State Education Department's decision not to
award a grant for the Local Government Records Management Improvement Fund (LGRMIF) for
the 2011-12 program year funding was considered by an appeal committee consisting of staff of the
Department's Office of Counsel, Contract Administration Unit, and the Grants Administration Unit
of the New York State Archives. This letter is to inform you of the:results or,that consideration.
The appeal committee reviewed your LGRMIF application and the arguments contained in
your letter of December 5, 2012. The committee noted the application lost significant points in the
"Sta~emen~ of the Problem" section (max. 20 points), the "Plan of Work" section (max. 30 points),
and th~ "Bridget Narrative and Forms" section (max. 25 points). Our review of the raters' scores
revealed that your application scored lower than other applicants in these three secfiqns. Of the
maximum points, the application received only 13, 22 and 15 points respectively. A more specific
explanation and point loss is explained below:
Under the Statement of the Problem section of the grant proposal, one of the essential records
management requirements of any application was to identi .fy fully the records involved in the prqiect.
The reviewers noted that the Town provided a comprehensive list of records involved, but that list
h~cioded £ew da~es; did not iis~ the size of ~he records series (whicil was inrportant, in this case to
determine technological needs); or the retention periods for tl~ese records. The application also did not
make clear what some of the records were or clearly distinguish between records of the Town and
Village versus other data necessary for the GIS but not official records of the municipalities.
Additionally, while the application provides a list of problems to be addressed by the proposed grant,
these problems are not records - management focused. The listed problems involve efficiency issues in
business process, instead of records management issues. The only records management issue in this list
is access, but the list does no/ include references to record management concerns such as vital records
protection and disaster marragement, preservation~ confidentiality; security, compliance with FO!~ and
other records law~; or tlae legal admissibility of information. As a result, the Statement of the Problem
section received a score 6 out of a possible 10 points fbr ptu~, Ia, 4 out of 5 points for part 1 b, and 3
out of 5 points ~br part lc.
The Plan of Work narrative section of the grant application noted that the Town's IT staff
would be involved in the project, but did not provide a detailed breakdown of the activities, the time
needed, or the reasons why the Town believed that the IT staffcould add this project to their current
work schedules given the significant size and complexity of this proposal. Those details were
essential to provide the reviewers with the assurances that this project could be successful. Without that
detail in the application, the reviewers could not be confident of the ability of the Town to complete the
project as scheduled. Additionally, the plan of work itself describes the records management
improvements intended by the application, but does not demonstrate the specific work plan steps to
achieve those in:provements. As a result, this section of the narrative scored less than other
applications that pi'ovided a more detailed discussion of the plan of work specifics, as required by
thc RFP. The Plan of Work section received a score 12 out of a possible 15 points for part 3a, 6 om
of 10 points for part 3b, and 4 out of 5 points for part 3c.
In the Budget Narrative and Forms section, the Town's reasoning for moving to ESRI software
is completely sensible. The issue here, however, is not with the soundness of the decision but with the
eligibility of the expense under the recent stricter grant roles governing the purchase of software
purchase of ESRI software functions as an upgrade because the Town is replacing Maplnfo GIS software
with ESRI software for improved general performance. The fact that this is an initial purchase of a
particular software product does not negate the fact that GIS capability was in place and that this new
purchase is designed to be an improvement and upgrade to that capability. Additionally, the large
number of software and networking requests sought to be funded in the proposal, including thc, se for
support and backup, were ones that reviewers noted should be the responsibility of the Town since they
support the general operations of the town. As a result, the Budget Narrative and Forms section
received a score 15 out of a possible 25 points for part 5.
After a thorough review, the Committee concurs with the raters' comments and scoring, and
sees no basis for a change in scoring.
Your appeal and this response will be submitted to the Office of the State Comptroller with
the rest of the procurement record in the award of the LGRMIF awards. If you have any questions
please feel free to contact Richard Duprey at (518) 486-1588.
c: Frank Campione
William Artini
Sincerely,
l~e~, Clerkjn
Assist~ t,.)Coun~