Independent Review Contractor shall provide the Secretary of ADS/CIO an independent expert review of any Agency recommendation for any information technology activity when its total cost is $1,000,000.00 or greater or when CIO requires one. The State has identified two sub-categories for Independent Reviews, Standard and Complex. The State will identify in the SOW RFP the sub-category they are seeking. State shall not consider bids greater than the maximum value indicated below for this category. Standard Independent Review $25,000 Maximum Complex Independent Review $50,000 Maximum Per Vermont statute 3 V.S.A. 2222, The Secretary of Administration shall obtain independent expert review of any recommendation for any information technology initiated after July 1, 1996, as information technology activity is defined by subdivision (a) (10), when its total cost is $1,000,000 or greater or when required by the State Chief Information Officer. Documentation of this independent review shall be included when plans are submitted for review pursuant to subdivisions (a)(9) and (10) of this section. The independent review shall include: • An acquisition cost assessment • A technology architecture review • An implementation plan assessment • A cost analysis and model for benefit analysis • A procurement negotiation advisory services contract • An impact analysis on net operating costs for the agency carrying out the activity In addition, from time to time special reviews of the advisability and feasibility of certain types of IT strategies may be required. Following are Requirements and Capabilities for this Service: • Identify acquisition and lifecycle costs; • Assess wide area network (WAN) and/or local area network (LAN) impact; • Assess risks and/or review technical risk assessments of an IT project including security, data classification(s), subsystem designs, architectures, and computer systems in terms of their impact on costs, benefits, schedule and technical performance; • Assess, evaluate and critically review implementation plans, e.g.: • Adequacy of support for conversion and implementation activities • Adequacy of department and partner staff to provide Project Management • Adequacy of planned testing procedures • Acceptance/readiness of staff • Schedule soundness • Adequacy of training pre and post project • Assess proposed technical architecture to validate conformance to the State’s “strategic direction.” • Insure system use toolsets and strategies are consistent with State Chief Information Officer (CIO) policies, including security and digital records management; • Assess the architecture of the proposed hardware and software with regard to security and systems integration with other applications within the Department, and within the Agency, and existing or planned Enterprise Applications; • Perform cost and schedule risk assessments to support various alternatives to meet mission need, recommend alternative courses of action when one or more interdependent segment(s) or phase(s) experience a delay, and recommend opportunities for new technology insertions; • Assess the architecture of the proposed hardware and software with regard to the state of the art in this technology. • Assess a project’s backup/recovery strategy and the project’s disaster recovery plans for adequacy and conformance to State policy. • Evaluate the ability of a proposed solution to meet the needs for which the solution has been proposed, define the ability of the operational and user staff to integrate this solution into their work.