SLED Opportunity · WASHINGTON · CITY OF SEATTLE
AI Summary
The City of Seattle seeks proposals for on-call data modernization and analytics consulting services to support Seattle Public Utilities' five-year initiative to modernize data management across utility services. Expertise in data platforms, analytics, governance, and change management is required. Proposals due April 15, 2026.
The City of Seattle is seeking proposals for REBID On-Call Data Modernization and Analytics Consulting Services. Proposals are due no later than 1:00 pm on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. All questions are to be submitted through the e-procurement portal at https://procurement.opengov.com/portal/seattle no later than 5:00 pm on Friday, May 1, 2026.
Purpose and Overview
Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) is seeking qualified consultant teams to support a multi-year Data Modernization Initiative. This solicitation is a rebid of a previously issued RFP. This initiative will modernize how SPU manages, governs, integrates, and uses data across its water, wastewater, drainage, and solid waste lines of business. The work will strengthen SPU’s ability to make consistent, data driven decisions and advance the goals of the 2025–2030 Strategic Business Plan and the Shape Our Water Community Vision.
SPU’s current data environment relies on multiple legacy and operational systems—including Maximo, Oracle Financials, SCADA, CCB, GIS platforms, AMI, billing, customer service, and various cloud and on premises environments—that operate independently with limited integration. These conditions create challenges in data quality, reporting, analytics, and enterprise insight generation.
Through this solicitation, SPU intends to establish a pool of consultant teams with expertise across three major capability tracks:
Track 1: Strategy & Governance
Track 2: Platform & Architecture
Track 3: Analytics & Insights
Consultants may propose for one, two, or all three tracks.
Background and Organizational Context
SPU is a public utility operating within a complex regulatory, equity, and ratepayer funded environment. All work—whether technical or strategic—must be transparent, auditable, and aligned with SPU’s commitments to public accountability, environmental stewardship, and equitable service delivery. SPU’s organizational culture values collaboration, clear communication, and practical, sustainable solutions that can be adopted and maintained by staff.
SPU’s data and technology landscape is federated and multi system, with no single system serving as a universal source of truth and data ownership distributed across business units. This environment requires coordinated governance, consistent data practices, and solutions that work across organizational boundaries. Proposers must demonstrate experience working within federated data environments and should avoid approaches that assume centralized control, uniform data quality, or a clean slate architecture.
SPU is actively modernizing its data, analytics, and platform capabilities, but this work is occurring alongside ongoing operations—not in a greenfield environment. Modernization efforts must integrate with existing systems, processes, and constraints. Staff capacity varies across teams, and successful delivery requires approaches that are incremental, maintainable, and grounded in SPU’s operational realities.
SPU’s work is highly collaborative. Projects typically involve multiple business units, IT partners, and operational stakeholders. Effective engagement, plain language communication, and thoughtful change management practices are essential to adoption and long term success. Proposers should demonstrate how their approaches account for user enablement, stakeholder coordination, and the practical realities of staff who will own and maintain solutions after consulting engagements conclude.
This current state shapes SPU’s expectations for strategy, governance, platform, architecture, analytics, and user enablement work. Proposers should demonstrate an understanding of this environment and tailor their approaches accordingly. Proposals that do not reflect a clear understanding of this environment will not be considered competitive.
Describe your team’s qualifications and relevant experience for the specific track. Include:
Relevant expertise and capabilities
Experience performing similar work
Key personnel and their roles
Capacity and availability to support SPU
Provide past performance examples that demonstrate your experience delivering services similar to those in the selected track. Include:
Project descriptions
Outcomes and results
Roles of proposed team members
Describe your approach to delivering services within the selected track. Include:
Methods, tools, and processes
Approach to managing scope, schedule, risks, and quality
Approach to stakeholder engagement and communication
Understanding of SPU’s organizational context
All proposers must submit a standalone section (up to 2 pages total) addressing the following crosscutting expectations. These expectations apply to all tracks.
A. Knowledge Transfer & Capability Building
Describe your approach to building SPU’s internal capabilities and ensuring sustainable knowledge transfer, including:
How you train, mentor, and coach SPU staff
How you embed knowledge transfer throughout engagements
Documentation standards and handoff processes
How you design solutions that SPU can sustain without longterm consultant dependence
Examples of past capabilitybuilding successes
B. Technical Innovation & Emerging Technologies
Describe how you evaluate and apply emerging technologies in a way that is practical, responsible, and aligned with SPU’s operational environment, including:
Your framework for assessing new technologies and determining fit for utility operations
Experience with AMI, IoT/sensor data, and realtime analytics
Experience applying AI/ML to utility use cases (e.g., predictive maintenance, demand forecasting, anomaly detection)
How you balance innovation with operational stability and risk management
Examples of innovative solutions that delivered measurable value
All proposers must submit a WMBE Inclusion Plan describing how your firm will pursue meaningful subcontracting opportunities with Women and MinorityOwned Business Enterprises.
Your plan should address:
Fair and equitable outreach strategies
Support for WMBE firms, including mentoring or capacitybuilding
Partnership development, including how you identify and engage WMBE firms
Intentional subcontracting practices that reflect inclusive, transparent decisionmaking
Expected WMBE work areas (if proposing as a Prime)
The City uses B2GNow to track payments to subconsultants and WMBE utilization. SPU pays Primes within 30 days of receiving an accurate invoice and expects the same for subcontractors.
This response is mandatory. The determination you have achieved all minimum qualifications is made from this section alone, and therefore, the Evaluation Committee is not obligated to check references or search other materials in your proposal to make this decision.
For each Minimum Qualification listed below, please describe how you meet the minimum qualification.
Minimum Qualification #1
Proposers must be legally established and operating within the United States. SPU will not consider proposals from firms located outside the U.S.
Please download the below documents, complete, and upload.
Upload your pricing proposal here.
Please download the below document, complete, and upload.
Provide information to the extent this information is available. If your response is incomplete or requires further description, the City may request additional information within a specified deadline, or may determine the missing information is immaterial.
Make requested changes to the Contract language using track changes and upload here.
Are there qualifications the Consultants must have to even be considered? Minimum qualifications should ONLY be those that the Consultant must meet to have their proposal considered, meaning you will toss the proposal out in full if the Consultant cannot meet the minimum qualifications. If none, delete the paragraph and say there are no minimum qualifications. Minimum qualifications can sometimes be important, such as a professional license. If you require a Minimum Qualification, ensure it is fair, appropriate and reasonable. Consultants can protest these if they seem exclusionary and unnecessary. In addition, some federal requirements may restrict or prohibit the use of such qualifications. Review the terms of the grant to ensure compliance with all such requirements. For instance, for FTA funded projects, the use of geographical preferences is prohibited or extremely limited under certain circumstances. See the Sidebar Supplement for more information. Minimum Qualifications are only for factual yes/no items which can be easily proven as a matter of fact and on the face of the RFP/RFQ response. These are NOT subjective such as “Company needs to be experienced” or “needs to have good references.” These are instead hard and fast criteria we check off “yes or no,” and we will toss them out without further consideration if they say no.
If background checks are not required, select "may"
Note to department – All non-federally funded contracts above $395,000 require an Inclusion Plan. If potential work, including all phases, is above $395,000, retain the Inclusion Plan as a required submittal. The Mayor’s 2010 policy requires you to score the WMBE response, for no less than 10% of total points.
Departments are encouraged to list the core Scope of Work items that the department has determined to be available for subcontracting.
Contracts with FEDERAL FUNDING may require different or additional social equity requirements, such as federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) requirements, which are required for US DOT funded projects, such as FTA projects.
Exceptions: Exceptions to the Inclusion Plan requirement are rare. Departments must notify their WMBE IDT representative and PC for a review and written approval of an exception. An exception does not relieve the Consultant of its responsibilities to seek WMBE inclusion if changes to the contract provides opportunities for WMBE inclusion.
For assistance, contact Miguel Beltran at Miguel.Beltran@Seattle.gov or 206-684-4525.
SLED stands for State, Local, and Education. These are solicitations issued by state governments, counties, cities, school districts, utilities, and higher education institutions — as opposed to federal agencies.
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