COUNTY COUNCIL OF BEAUFORT
Beaufort County Purchasing Department
Post Office Drawer 1228
Beaufort, South Carolina 29901-1228
Telephone (843) 255-2353 ¨ FAX (843) 255-9437
David L. Thomas, CPPO, CPPB
Purchasing Director
E-Mail:
To: All Proposers
From: Dave Thomas, CPPO, CPPB
Beaufort County Purchasing Director
Date: July 8, 2011
Subject: Addendum 1, RFP # 3961/120702 Banking, Credit Card Processing Services, E-checking, and Investment Services for Beaufort County
TREASURER’S ADDENDUM TO BANKING RFP
The intent of this RFP is to provide information from qualified vendors to the Beaufort County Treasurer regarding better, most cost effective, state of the art general banking services available in a competitive market environment.
Ideally it would be, all encompassing, running the full gambit of banking services available. We realize that this might not be in the best interest of the taxpayers of Beaufort County and therefore must be open to the possibility of breaking this down into smaller sections such as; credit card processing (although we would prefer that a processor subcontract for a bank and perhaps be able to offer a better rate and product); additionally brokerage or investment services may lend itself to being stand alone.
My goal is develop a close relationship and especially in the area of a bank being receptive to the acceptance of current personal property taxes at the local branches.
We hope that the bids will be all encompassing but understand if that is not possible for your institution. Just be mindful that if the proposals are not acceptable, we will come back and bid out the RFP in different sections.
1. Please change the closing date from July 6, 2011, 3:00 P.M. to August 2, 2011, 3:00 P.M.
2. The following questions have been submitted by vendors:
1. Is the county currently holding funds in any of the other allowable investment types other than collateralized deposits or overnight repos?
Yes, Brokerage accounts.
2. Are there funds where the liquidity timing is something beyond 60 - 90 days where proper utilization of the yield curve might increase earnings?
Yes, occasionally, depending on the funds.
3 If so, is there an available projected liquidity outlook that would show dollar amounts to be needed at specific times?
For example, $8mm to be available as of 3/30/12, $20mm available 6/30/12, etc.
We are currently working on this process.
4. Will Beaufort County bid out credit card processing separately from the Banking RFP?
This will remain an option. We recommend that credit card processing firms team up with Banks who are submitting proposal as a subcontractor.
5. Does Beaufort County want to incur the additional expense of a Controlled Disbursement Account (CDA) vs. a regular checking account with ZBA functionality?
We are deleting the Controlled Disbursement Account (CDA) requirement from the RFP.
6. Do you currently use a CDA?
No.
7. Would you please provide Account Analysis Statements and Bank Statements for each bank account?
Monthly account analysis is available upon request. The County can not disclose bank statements, but refer to the RFP for 2/28/11 bank balances.
8. Would you please provide merchant services statements if available?
Summaries of merchant services statements are available upon request.
9. Would you please provide a copy of your county tax payment bill that is mailed to residents? We will provide a copy and put on the web.
10. What vendor currently provides printing services for these coupons / tax bills? Southern Imaging, Florence, South Carolina
11. What specific data from a resident’s tax bill is required to post these payments? Specifically, what numbers are being keyed into Manatron by Beaufort County today for posting? We enter the taxpayer’s Alternate Identification Number (AIN).
12. Which departments of the County are using MUNIS software and which are using Manatron?
MUNIS: Finance, Emergency Medical Services, Treasurer, Business License, Sheriff’s Office, Building Codes
Manatron: Assessor, Treasurer, Auditor, MIS
13. If on file, would you provide an illustrated diagram of your bank accounts?
Not available.
14. Would you provide the Broker Dealer Questionnaire referenced on page 64 so that we may complete? We are not requiring proposers to complete this questionnaire.
15. Would you provide statements for your investment and brokerage accounts? We won’t disclose specific bank statements, but refer you to the February 28, 2011 bank balances in the RFP. These bank accounts average between 30 and 130 million during the fiscal year.
16. Do you have any special compliance reporting tools relative to your investments (such as Clearwater analytics)? No.
17. What is average maturity/duration of money currently be managed.
Our average maturity for the County is .194 years. The average duration of the investment is .26 years.
18. What are typical liquidity or cash flow needs for managed funds?
Need to match 90 days of County expenses.
19. Who currently manages funds? Treasurer utilizing Bankers and Bank Investments.
20. Would you provide merchant services statements if available? If not available, can you quantify the volume data for your mail-in credit card payments? We will provide a summary of monthly merchant services activity upon requests.
21. Due to the tight time-frame between the projected date when answers/addendums will be issued and the current due date, would the County consider extending the due date? To allow for a proper response we would respectfully request that the due date be extended a minimum of ten (10) business days beyond the date when all clarification questions are answered by the County. The new closing date is now August 2, 2011 at 3:00 pm.
22. Does the County convert over-the-counter check payments to electronic check payments today? Yes.
23. Please provide details of any County-owned hardware and software that is currently in place for Credit, Debit, or E-Check processing? We will provide upon request from the Treasurer and MIS.
24. Hardware – Terminal manufacturer and model number(s)
Check scanners for transmissions to bank: Make-Panini, Model-My Vision X.
Receipt printers for debit and credit card transactions: Make-Star, Model-TPS650.
25. Software – Manufacturer and version number(s)
BB & T software for Panini check scanners.
26. Does the County intend to continue utilizing the current hardware and/or software in the future or is the County interested in upgrading hardware/software? Depends on the proposers offer.
27. If upgrading, what additional functionality would the County like to gain?
Increased accuracy and efficiency. Reporting functions should be easy and quick.
28. If hardware terminals are in place today, are most transactions authorized/settled via dial-up or IP-based communication?
County does not have hardware terminals.
29. Please expand upon the current system, Equity Payment Inc, and the current (11) card readers in place:
Not sure on what they would like to know from this request.
30. What payment gateway is in place currently? The County uses a payment processor (Equity Payment) for processing electronic payments. It is unclear what is meant by “payment gateway”.
31. What hardware (card swipe, receipt printers, etc.) are in place today?
Answered in question 24.
32. How is data and payment transactional flow integrated between the County and Equity?
Equity Payment receives payments made through our website. Equity Payment notifies eGov (Manatron) that payments have been made. Manatron sends the County the prior day payments for processing the collections.
33. Please expand upon the following requirement:
34. The system should allow for matched taxed payments, payments directly tied to live data and be able to validate the amount and identifiers to the live data.
Yes, real time amount due. Prior to payment the amount due is real time through a reach-in server to the data. Once payment is made the balance due will not be reflected until data processing takes place the next business day.
35. Please clarify the integration/live data requirements.
None known of except as explained in question 34.
36. Please expand upon this requirement:
37. Describe your systems computability with Microsoft’s Internet E-Commerce software package (or other software).
The County does not use Microsoft’s Internet E-commerce software package.
38. How is the County utilizing this product today and/or how will it be implemented in the future?
The County does not use Microsoft’s Internet E-commerce software package nor is there any intent to use it in the future.
39. Visa and MasterCard require all acquirers to enter into contracts containing specific provisions with its merchants, provisions which are not included in the form contract and/or which provisions conflict with the terms and conditions of the RFP. Therefore, will the County agree to include the acquirer's standard terms and conditions as a part of the contract? We understand that there are requirements for credit card processing companies and Banks. We will review the terms and conditions as provided by each Bank or offerer as presented with their proposal.
3. If you have any questions, please email or call me at or 843-255-2353. We look forward to your response by the due date and appreciate your interest in doing business with Beaufort County, SC.