USDA FNS RFQ: Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) Application and Support

Notice ID:  12314424Q0041

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food Nutrition Service (FNS) as need to hire a contractor to create and administer an online Summer EBT application on behalf of states and tribal organizations. Section 502 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (PL 117-328) created a new, permanent Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (Summer EBT) program that will begin in summer 2024. The Act authorizes states and tribal organizations (referred to as states for simplicity) to operate the program with responsibilities including program oversight, determining participant eligibility, maintaining eligibility lists, and processing and distributing EBT cards to eligible children.

The application’s design and administration is expected to be analogous to that of the various National School Lunch Program applications that are commercially available today.   Alternatively, the government invites vendors with no prior NSLP experience to provide a quote to administer and provide support for an application currently in development by United States Digital Response (USDR).

Developing the application

• The contractor will build a fully functional online household application for Summer EBT benefits.
• The contractor will develop the application’s user interface according to USDA’s specifications. With only minor necessary exceptions, the contractor shall replicate the interface of USDA’s model web-based application for school meal benefits. The contractor shall replicate all of the major design elements and functionality described in the USDA model web-based application’s User’s Guide. Elements and functionality of particular importance include:
  • The application’s “income interview.” This includes the questions on income sources, the sequence of those questions, and the skip pattern. It also includes requiring positive confirmation from applicants for each income category and/or sub-category; no default responses and no drop-down lists to select income sources. (See pages 13-17 of the User’s Guide).
  • Adherence to the UX standards contained in the U.S. Web Design System to the extent that they are discussed in USDA’s web-based application User’s Guide. See, in particular, pages 25-28 of USDA’s User’s Guide. o Pop-up and slide-out help (pages 12-13 of the USDA User’s Guide).
  • True mobile-friendly design that reconfigures pages for the appropriate screen size (just like USDA’s web-based model application). See the Digital.gov mobile design principles.
• Compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
• Support for multiple languages. USDA will provide all content for the application in English and Spanish at the time of contract award. The application will support those two languages through the end of school year 2024-2025 (June 30, 2025). The application must be designed to accept additional language files (also provided by USDA) for school years beginning on or after July 1, 2025 if USDA exercises the contract options for summer 2026 and summer 2027.

Learn more here.

🔊 Listen to Story