Single Source Procurement: Health Workforce Retraining Program Extensions

Pursuant to New York State Finance Law § 163.10(b), The New York State Department of Health is presenting the following summary of relevant circumstances, and material and substantial reasons why a competitive procurement was not feasible.

The New York State Department of Health (DOH), Office of Primary Care and Health Systems Management, Division of Workforce Transformation, requests approval to award single source contract cost extensions to 22 Health Workforce Retraining Program contractors for 3 or 6 months to continue to provide training to health care workers under their current contract agreements.

In September, 2013, Request for Applications (RFA) #1308090430 was released for the Health Workforce Retraining Program, also known as the Health Workforce Retraining Initiative (HWRI). The HWRI supports the training and retraining of health and public health industry workers with the skills necessary in the public health and health care market today. Since its inception, the program has awarded nearly $352 million to 500 grantees and trained or retrained over 170,000 health care workers.

The 2013 solicitation allowed contractors to choose from varying contract start dates of January 1, 2014, April 1, 2014 and July 1, 2014, resulting in contract end dates of December 31, 2015, March 31, 2016 and June 30, 2016. DOH expects to issue the new RFA in 2016 with contracts expected to start in late 2016 or early 2017. The contract cost extensions extend the contract ending December 31, 2015 and March 31, 2016 until June 30, 2016, to minimize disruption to current contractors who provide ongoing training programs.

All contractors whose current contracts ended on either December 31, 2015 or March 31, 2016 were given the opportunity to ask for a time and cost extension until June 30, 2016 for ongoing training programs. Twenty of the 22 contractors whose contracts ended on these dates required additional time or funding and requested the extensions. Those that did not request the extension had completed their training programs and did not need additional time or funding.

Contractors were awarded contracts as a result of the competitive procurement process. This is a 3-6 month extension of the contracts (varies by contract) under the same terms, conditions, and pricing authorized under the existing contract(s). The single source extension period will allow for the continuation of critical services pending outcome of a new competitive procurement to obtain these services.

Procurement / Program Name	Health Workforce Retraining Program Extensions
Contractor Name(s)	Multiple – Please See Attached.
Contract Period	1/1/2016 – 6/30/2016
Contract Number(s)	Multiple – Please See Attached.