Disability Consulting Services, Return to Work Programs and Job Analysis Assessments

BACKGROUNDThe City of Huntington Beach (City) is a municipality located along the coast of Southern California and serves a population of approximately 220,000. The City provides Municipal Services, Police, Fire and Marine Safety services to citizens. The City has approximately 909 full-time and 478 part-time employees represented by nine (9) bargaining units. The City’s Workers’ Compensation and Benefits Divisions oversee the day‐to‐day administration of employee leaves and benefits, which includes those employees on a protected leave. In such cases both Divisions work closely with City departments, health insurance agencies and Disability Service Providers, to ensure the needs of injured City workers (both industrial and non-industrial) are being met. These Divisions also monitor and maintain control over expenditures to ensure services are administered in the most appropriate manner to protect the City from liability and worker from incurring further injury. These Divisions work directly with physicians to obtain medical information pertaining to the injured worker so as to evaluate an employee’s disability, ability to return to work, the department’s ability to accommodate, and to ensure seamless communication between all parties. The City is committed to ensuring it complies with all protections afforded to applicants and employees under state and federal leave laws. The City communicates with its employees as part of a good faith Interactive Process to ensure that reasonable accommodation options are explored that best support employees in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). The City does not discriminate on the basis of disability in its hiring or regular employment practices. In this spirit, the City regularly holds discussions with injured workers regarding their current work status placed on them by their treating physician, which may preclude them from being able to return to work due to temporary or permanent work restrictions. Benefit changes and potential options available are also explored.The City of Huntington Beach Human Resources Department hereby solicits statements of Proposals from qualified Disability Service Providers to perform disability consulting services, that includes return to work program administration, ergonomic assessments, and job analysis assessments in accordance with Federal, State and local, laws and regulations. The City is seeking a qualified Disability Service Provider that can perform consultation, evaluation, and assessment in employment situations. The anticipated effective date of services for any contract resulting from this RFP process would be July 2024 (or, as soon as possible).The qualified Disability Service Provider must be able to demonstrate that all services will be performed in a manner commensurate with the highest standards of professionals in the industry to deliver “best in class” disability services in terms of services and features, technology, compliance, capabilities, reporting and fees. The Disability Service Provider will have a minimum of five (5) years’ experience administering disability and return to work programs, including job analysis, for a public entity that includes experience examining public safety (Police and Fire) personnel. The Disability Service Provider must also be capable of reviewing medical documents, other City forms, and producing specialized ad hoc reports, in addition to any reports required by any reporting entities, such as the Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) requirements.