Black Hills VABHCS Document Destruction Services Sources Sought

The Black Hills VA Healthcare System requires document destruction services in accordance with the draft Statement of Work (SOW) below. This is a sources sought/proof of capability solicitation looking for vendors to perform the services per the SOW for market research purposes. No awards of a contract will be made from this announcement. If you are a vendor that can complete the work described in the SOW with competitive pricing, please send your contact and organization information with a descriptive proof of capability to: Jeffrey.Brown8@va.gov on or before June 7th, 2026. Only emailed responses will be considered. Additionally, please provide answers as appropriate to the following questions in the table below with your response to this sources sought. Failure to respond to the following questions may affect the acquisition strategy. Question # Questions Vendor Responses 1. Identify your organization's socio-economic category. 2. State whether any of the requested services may be ordered against a government contract awarded to your organization (e.g Federal Supply Schedule (FSS), General Services Administration (GSA), etc.). 3. State if subcontracting is contemplated for this requirement, what percentage of the work will be subcontracted and for what tasks. *If applicable, VAAR 852.219-75 VA Notice of Limitations on Subcontracting Certificate of Compliance for Services and Construction, will apply to the potential solicitation if set-aside for Veteran Owned Small-Businesses or Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small-Businesses.* *If applicable, FAR 52.219-14 Limitations on Subcontracting, will apply to the potential solicitation if set-aside for Small-Businesses.* DRAFT STATEMENT OF WORK DOCUMENT DESTRUCTION AND DISPOSAL BLACK HILLS VA HEALTH CARE SYSTEM GENERAL: The Contractor shall provide all labor, personnel, equipment, supplies, secured vehicles, materials, supervision, and other related services necessary to provide commercial document destruction and disposal services for these 3 campuses: Fort Meade VA Campus, VA Black Hills Health Care System s main hospital, located at 113 Comanche Road, Fort Meade, SD 57741. Hot Springs VA Campus, VA Black Hills Health Care System s main hospital, located at 500 N. 5th st., Hot Springs, SD 57747 Rapid City CBOC, located at 2165 Promise Road, Rapid City, SD 57701 This service shall be performed once per week at a specified time, as agreed to by the Contractor and Contracting Officer Representative (COR). The agreed time must fall between 7:00am 3:30pm, Monday through Wednesday. Federal Holidays. Service days that fall on a Federal Holiday or any other day specifically declared by the President of the United States as a Federal Holiday will need to be rescheduled to the day before or after the Federal Holiday. The ten guaranteed Federal Holidays observed by the VA are: New Year s Day Martin Luther King s Birthday Memorial Day Independence Day Labor Day Columbus Day Veterans Day Thanksgiving Day Christmas Day The Contractor will provide bins to be positioned onsite at each location, for the documents to be stored in until destruction. The bins should be approximately 96-gallon wheeled containers that have an attached lid and are lockable. Console keys shall only be provided to authorized VA employees at the discretion and approval of the VA COR. The COR shall maintain a listing of authorized VA employees. These containers will consist of VA records and other material that may contain sensitive information. These records may include, but not limited to paper, carbon paper, binders, folders, DVD s, CD s, VHS tapes, prescription bottles with labels, and other non-paper materials. The Contractor will shred paper material in accordance with VA Directive 6371 of Temporary Paper records. Guidelines require shredders to have cross-cutting capabilities which produce particles that are 1x5 millimeters in size, or disintegrator devices with a 3/32-inch security screen. If on-site mobile shredding equipment does not shred documents to meet the 1x5 millimeters in size, the Contractor or it s sub-contractor must complete the destruction process by pulverization, bleaching, pulping, or other means, approved in advance by the COR that will fully destroy the data to final destruction. Final destruction is defined as being non-readable and non-reconstructable to any degree. The Contractor will shred all floppy disks, Reel and Cassette Format Magnetic Tapes according to appropriate guidelines. CD s and DVD s must be incinerated or shredded to a particle size with nominal edge dimension of 5mm and a surface area of 25mm(squared). Prescription bottles with labels will be shredded to meet the requirement of Final Destruction as defined in VA Directive 6371. The Contractor will service up to 8 bins total for all 3 locations, weekly and provide extra bins for overflow of sensitive documents. The quantities of bins may increase or decrease by 15% at no additional charge to the VA. Estimated and/or historical weights provided by the Government are based on the best available information at the time of issuance of this solicitation. The Government does not guarantee these estimated weights to be factual. The weights are subject to change per the needs of the Government. For the fiscal year 2024, 72,000 pounds of documents were destroyed. The Contractor will provide, at the minimum, Interim Destruction onsite and Final Destruction offsite. If the Contractor is able to provide Final Destruction onsite, this is also acceptable. In any case, a Certification of Destruction will be provided to the COR. Please see definitions below for reference. The contractor shall complete a standard Business Associate Agreement (BAA) in accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) at the time of contract award. Onsite Contracting staff will read and sign TMS 20939 (VA Privacy Training for Personnel without Access to VA Computer Systems or Direct Access or Use to VA Sensitive Information). The COR will maintain this training documentation on file. The contractor shall maintain liability insurance for the duration of the contract. The contractor s employees performing these services must wear a company uniform while on Government property. All Contractor personnel who will perform services at the VA Facility must acquire VA identification through the VA s Personal Identification Verification (PIV) system. The Contractor personnel must wear visible VA Contractor Identification at all times while on VA premises. The documentation to obtain a PIV badge will be provided by VA to the contractor after award. Contractor personnel will be required to be fingerprinted to receive a PIV badge. Any cost associated with PIV cards (i.e. judication) is the responsibility of the Contractor. DEFINITIONS: Certificate of Destruction: Written documentation that attests to the completion of the destruction process after Final Destruction of the records. Certification of Destruction can be in the form of a letter, memo, or any formal document attesting to Final Destruction. This certificate is not considered valid if completed and submitted prior to the Final Destruction. If the Final Destruction is completed by a subcontractor, then the Certificate of Destruction can be completed by either the subcontractor or the main contractor (with assurance that the subcontractor completed the Final Destruction). Final Destruction: The process, through which temporary paper records are pulped, macerated, shredded, or otherwise destroyed to a degree that definitively ensures that they are not readable or reconstructable to any degree. If this Final Destruction is performed away from a VA facility, it must be performed by an information destruction contractor (or its subcontractor or third party) who has demonstrated that: Its destruction process constitutes final destruction as defined by VA Directive 6371; and It has implemented reasonable physical safeguards to protect VA temporary paper, and other VA records containing personal information during their transportation, transfer, or short-term storage prior to the completion of their final destruction. Long-term storage (more than 30 days) must be approved in advance and in writing by the VA organization that generated the temporary paper and other records containing personal information. Interim Destruction: Any physical destruction process that substantially reduces the risk that VA sensitive information (Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI), etc.) will be disclosed during transport and short-term storage (less than 30 days) of temporary paper and other personal records but does not meet the requirement of Final Destruction as defined in VA Directive 6371. Interim destruction is a reasonable physical safeguard that affords an additional layer of security for temporary paper records and other records containing personal information once they are identified for destruction. This may be while they are stored at a VA location awaiting Final Destruction or when they are removed from VA custody until Final Destruction is completed at an off-site location. It is generally accomplished through maceration, chopping, pulverization, or shredding where these processes do not render the material unreadable or where the material could be reconstructed. Readable: Printed data is readable when strategies can be used to assist with decoding (the translation of letters and/or into sounds or visual representations of speech) data and arriving at comprehension through the use of morpheme, semantics, syntax, and contextual clues to integrate the information they have read into their existing framework of knowledge in order to arrive at a meaning. Reconstructable: Printed data is reconstructable when methods can be employed to reassemble the various portions of material in such a fashion that data can be decoded as to make it readable so that meaning can be derived from the data found on the media. TASKS: Contractor shall arrive at a mutually-agreed upon time each week (must fall between 7:00am 3:30pm, Monday through Friday) to perform Interim Destruction to documents that have been stored in contractor-owned bins at a single location at each designated VABHHCS Campus. If the contractor is able to provide Final Destruction onsite, this is also acceptable. Contractor will submit one monthly bill through the Tungsten Network for all services during the billing period no more than 30 days after services have been rendered. Contractor will provide the COR with the weight(s) of destroyed material monthly with the invoice submitted through the Tungsten Network. Contractor shall deliver a Certificate of Destruction within thirty (30) days from day of pick up that includes the following: Location of pickup and/or Interim Destruction (VA Black Hills Health Care System) Date of pickup and Interim Destruction Name of Government COR, or VA employee, at pickup location Amount of destroyed documents in pounds Date of Final Destruction Location of Final Destruction Method of Final Destruction Name and Signature of person responsible for Final Destruction NON-DISCLOSURE OF SENSITIVE INFORMATION Contractor staff involved in this contract will have access to some privileged and confidential materials of the US Government. These printed documents are for internal use only and remain the sole property of the US Government. Some of the materials are protected by Privacy Act of 1974 (Amended) and Title 38. Unauthorized disclosure of Privacy Act or Title 38 covered materials, by any contractor or subcontracted staff, is a criminal offense. The contractor is responsible for actions of contract employees. The Contractor acknowledges that in the performance of this contract, the contractor will have access to sensitive information, including information provided on a proprietary basis by carriers, equipment manufacturers, and other private or public entities. The contractor agrees to safeguard these privileges and use the information exclusively in the performance of this contract. The contractor shall comply with applicable Government regulations regarding information document security to prevent disclosure of sensitive information to unauthorized individuals or organizations. Upon discovery of any known or suspected security/privacy incidents, or any unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information including that contained in system(s) to which the contractor has access, the contractor shall immediately notify the COR. The term security incident means an event that has, or could have resulted in unauthorized access to, loss, or damage to VA assets, or sensitive information, or an action that breaches VA security procedures. See VA Handbook 6500.6, Appendix C, paragraph 6a. MINIMUM STANDARDS FOR INFORMATION DESTRUCTION: Contractor and any subcontractor must be able to meet the following standards: Documentation and control of Employees Documentation of who has access to materials (minimum necessary access only is allowed) Documentation of background investigations (types and frequency) Documentation of citizenship, naturalization (no non-US citizens) Documentation of drug screen Documentation of re-evaluation of above items (at least every two years) Documentation and control of destruction equipment Type (Mobile or Plant-Based) Manufacturer and Model Serial Number Dates of non-operational downtime for repair Documentation and control of destruction and collection vehicles Vehicle make and model License plate number State/County of registration Acceptable overnight storage address and location Acceptable roadworthiness of vehicles Locks and security of vehicles Driver logs to show who has control of vehicle at any given time Documentation and control of all recipients of materials Name of individual/company Address where received Method of final disposition Certifications of destruction (general documentation acceptable as long as it is attributable to VA s data (e.g., bails shipped on were pulped on, date.) Written Policies and Procedures Contractor and any subcontractor must be able to meet the following standards ONLY IF FINAL DESTRUCTION IS COMPLETED OFFSITE: Physical and Operational Security Monitored Alarm System(s) that include the following Motion Detectors Door Contacts Battery Back-Up Monitoring Service Taped Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) monitors with the following Fully Functional Cameras Recording Devices Security Recording Tape Library Sufficient Lighting to allow CCTV Locks and Key Controls Visitor Logs Visitor In/Out Logs Visitor ID Badges All destruction will take place within the enclosure of the destruction facility, which consists of four solid walls and a ceiling, and meets all criteria related to physical building security. The only permissible uses of a mobile destruction vehicle will be within the enclosure of the destruction, on-site at the VA s premises, or at an off-site location if approved of in advance by VA and located within walking distance of the VA premises. A log is kept to record, the dates and times that the mobile destruction vehicle is operating with the destruction facility, which shall be made available to VA during an audit, by means of review of CCTV images. The mobile destruction vehicle will be made available to VA for audit, within the enclosure of the destruction facility, during the initial audit and during all scheduled re-audits, for demonstration purposes. INSPECTION: Representatives of the Government shall have the right to inspect the contractor s and subcontractor s facilities and operations provided for the performance of work under this agreement. Upon request, the contractor and/or subcontractor will provide the COR with samples of shredded records for both Interim (if applicable) and Final Destruction. CONTRACTOR QUALITY CONTROL: The contractor shall develop and maintain quality control programs to ensure destruction services are performed in accordance with mandated specifications, regulations and laws. The contractor shall develop and implement procedures to identify and prevent the occurrence of defective services. CONTRACTOR PERSONNEL BADGES AND PARKING: The contractor shall provide the COR with a list of contractor employees expected to perform any services on VA premises. While on VA premises, all contractor personnel shall comply with the rules, regulations, and procedures governing the conduct of personnel and the operation of the facility. A VA Employee must supervise the services performed onsite. Contractor staff must display identification while on VA premises that include Employee s name as well as the company that is performing the services. It is the responsibility of the Contractor s personnel to park in the appropriate designated parking areas. Parking information shall be coordinated with the COR. The VA Black Hills Health Care System does not validate or make reimbursement for parking violations of the Contractor s personnel under any circumstance.