The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is the Federal Executive Branch Agency with primary responsibility for the Federal Government's human resources management policy and structure. As part of its basic mission, OPM administers the Civil Service Retirement System, Federal Employees Retirement System, Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program, Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance Program, and the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program. OPM also exercises a leadership role in the development of new benefit programs for Federal employees. At the direction of the President, OPM implemented a Health Insurance Premium Conversion Plan in October 2000 for approximately 1.6 million Executive Branch employees. OPM also conducted a study of design and pricing options for implementation of medical and dependent care flexible spending accounts (FSAs) across the Executive Branch. These accounts, also referred to as reimbursement accounts, provide tax advantages authorized under the Internal Revenue Code and are widely used by both private and public employers in the United States. In the years since their development, flexible spending account programs have become an expected benefit that is popular among employees. From the employee's perspective, FSAs offer an attractive opportunity to convert some health care and dependent care expenses from an after-tax expense to a pre-tax expense or to provide for benefits that may not be provided on a pre-tax basis through the employer's benefit program. On benefit attitude surveys for individual employers, the robustness of the employer's health benefit package regularly ranks in the top two or three factors in importance of employee attitudes toward FSAs relative to other benefits. Why is it important for the Federal Government to provide FSAs for likely participants? The demographics of the Federal workforce show that we can anticipate substantial retirements in the next few years. The Federal Government must compete energetically to recruit high-quality workers and to retain gifted and experienced workers. With so many Federal employees eligible to retire by the year 2020, the Government must be able to attract and keep an excellent high performing workforce. Many private and public sector employers have offered FSAs and other pre-tax benefits to their employees for years and now consider health care and dependent care FSAs an integral component in making their benefits packages attractive to both prospective and current employees. Employees who have worked in the private sector or in parts of the public sector have come to expect that FSAs for medical and daycare expenses will be available. The Federal Executive Branch must remain competitive with private employers and state and local governments. Continuing to offer pre-tax spending accounts as a component of the Federal benefits package will help us to recruit and retain the top-performing employees the Government needs. This procurement is intended to procure third party administration services for the Federal Flexible Spending Accounts Program (FSAFEDS) to allow OPM to continue offering this benefit to Federal employees. The successful offeror must provide the following services: (1) Reports, (2) Administration and Systems, (3) Customer Service, (4) Claims Administration, and (5) Education, Marketing, and Enrollment. We will procure the proposed acquisition using full and open competition procedures. All responsible sources may submit a proposal, which we will consider. The proposed contract is expected to be fixed-price with prospective price redetermination. The performance period for the proposed contract is expected to be five years and might be a multi-year contract or contain a base period with option years. OPM intends to issue a request for proposals (RFP) around August 29, 2014. The RFP and all documents relating to this requirement will only be available on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website at https://www.fbo.gov. Interested parties are responsible for monitoring the FBO website for release of the RFP and all other documents relating to this requirement. We encourage interested parties to register on the FBO website for e-mail notification of all actions relating to the RFP and for the interested vendors list. After we release the RFP, we will give interested parties the opportunity to ask questions. We will include all questions and answers in an amendment to the RFP and post the amendment on the FBO website. Proposals will be due around October 17, 2014. We anticipate awarding the proposed contract around February 28, 2015. The current contractor for FSAFEDS is ADP Benefit Services KY.
