RFB-758-2600000675-2 | Courier Service for Newborn Screening Samples

The Kentucky Office of Procurement Services is soliciting a courier service contract to transport newborn screening dried blood spot specimens from over 70 birthing hospitals, health departments, and one correctional facility across the state to the Division of Laboratory Services in Frankfort. The contract requires daily, year-round pickups Sunday through Friday with next-morning delivery by 7:00 AM EST, supporting approximately 53,000 annual live births and including occasional transport of Category A and B biological specimens. Packaging must comply with DOT regulations for hazardous materials where applicable, but dried blood spots are exempt from these requirements; specimens must not be sealed in air-tight bags and must be maintained under controlled conditions—temperatures not exceeding 80°F and humidity below 30%—with drivers authorized to reject improperly packaged samples. Couriers must wear uniforms or badges identifying them as official personnel, maintain electronic pickup logs, and use smartphone-based barcode scanning systems to document all transactions, with data accessible to state staff for reporting and invoicing. Award will be determined using a best value ranking approach, heavily weighted toward price with 80% of evaluation points allocated to Commodity Line 1—the base daily courier service—and 20% assigned to Commodity Line 2 for on-demand or route add-on services. There is no stated estimated contract value as pricing fields in the solicitation are left blank, with hypothetical examples used only for scoring purposes. The contract has a one-year base term with four optional two-year renewal periods subject to mutual written agreement. Vendors must provide proof of insurance with an AM Best B+ rating or higher, disclose any prior violations of tax or employment laws, and comply with Kentucky’s resident bidder preference program, which grants up to 20% preference to Kentucky Correctional Industries and 15% to Kentucky Industries for the Blind. Contractors are prohibited from using generative AI without prior written disclosure and are forbidden from using state data to train AI systems. Additionally, any loss of specimens triggering a breach of confidentiality requires the vendor to provide two years of credit monitoring to affected individuals. Proposals must be submitted electronically through the Kentucky Vendor Self Service portal by the deadline of July 14, 2026, and must include state-specific certifications such as the Kentucky Tax Registration Application and an annual affidavit of compliance with state law; federal identifiers like UEI or CAGE codes are not required. Payment will be processed within 30 working days after invoice submission to the Office of Procurement Services at 2