Vendor shall provide court reporters experienced in verbatim dictation of various proceedings, meetings, conferences, etc. (collectively referred to as engagements), and provide the applicable governmental unit with a certified, typewritten-verbatim transcription of that same engagement including a record of appearances. Engagement of services for State Agencies may be requested through the State of Illinois e-Procurement system, electronically or by phone. State Agencies have the right to create a Statement of Work (SOW) with the vendor. This SOW will detail type of engagement, location, format, duration, and other logistical considerations. A SOW does not have to be created for every service. The SOW must be approved by the agency and the vendor in order to be active. The time frame for approvals to occur should be described within the SOW. Engagement of services by Non-State Agency governmental units may be requested electronically or by phone and may use their own purchase order system. The Vendor will be required to provide court reporting services with at least 24-hour advance notice. The Vendor will make reasonable efforts to fulfill court reporting service requests with less than 24-hours advance notice. Any governmental unit may set up court reporting services on a revolving or scheduled basis. If a Vendor is unable to identify a court reporter within 5 business days or within the mutually agreed upon timeframe between the vendor and the governmental units, the Request for Court Reporting form may be passed to alternate Vendor(s) for the county by the governmental unit. Governmental units reserve the right to recall a Request for Court Reporting form in the event a reporter declines an engagement prior to the start date but after the original allotted timeframe the Vendor had to fill the request. In such cases, the governmental unit may fill an engagement through an alternate Vendor. A court reporting engagement, some of which may extend multiple days, will cover a wide variety of topics that discuss up to and including but not limited to legal, medical, transportation, public utility and scientific technical terms and notations. The types of engagements include but are not limited to Medical Quality Review Committee meetings, Vendor Conferences, Administrative/Rule Making/Disciplinary/Public Hearings, Commission meetings, and Transportation/Public Utility cases. A Vendor’s Certified Shorthand Reporters must be able to read proceedings from stenotype notes when requested during any engagement. Governmental units may request a certified shorthand court reporter to be present to transcribe various hearings/meetings, but not necessarily order a transcript of the proceedings. Vendor’s stenographic notes, audio recordings, and other records of engagements from which the transcripts are made shall become the property of the applicable governmental unit. Court reporting engagements have a minimum two-hour sitting fee. Any in person or virtual court reporting engagement that has been mutually scheduled will be subject to the sitting fee. The sitting fee will only be charged when the engagement has been mutually scheduled and is either canceled or the duration is less than two hours. Court reporting engagements not canceled within an hour prior to the scheduled engagement shall not be invoiced beyond the two-hour minimum sitting fee. If an engagement is cancelled after the transcribing has begun, the Vendor shall immediately cease transcribing the recording and bill the Agency only for the number of pages completed up to the point of notification of cancellation and hours worked or the sitting fee if under two hours. Vendor will establish an account with the Illinois Commerce Commission’s eDocket system whereby transcripts may be uploaded. Vendor must have the ability to combine and separate PDF files to meet uploading file size limits. Unless otherwise requested in writing on the Request for Court Reporting form, the standard format of transcripts shall be: Paging must be in a single series of consecutive numbering regardless of the number of days of the engagement. In cases where engagements span over multiple days, the paging of the transcript must follow consecutively the paging of the last previous day in the same engagement. All transcribed engagements should include a title page with at least the following information: the topic of the engagement, the date, time and place of the engagement, and the list of appearances. If an engagement has been assigned and is called but not heard at the same time and place indicated on the Request for Court Reporting form, a title page must nevertheless be provided that includes at least 1.2.14(B) and a statement detailing what action was taken and why the engagement was not heard or continued. Transcripts must include a word index unless otherwise directed on the Request for Court Reporting form. Transcript page will be on standard 8 ½ x 11 paper. Transcripts will be no more than 11-point font and no less than 9-point font, unless specified otherwise on the Request for Court Reporting form. The margins for the line numbers must be no less than 1.5 inches for the left and no more than ⅜ inches to the right, with text properly hyphenated, when necessary. Upon request, transcripts will be in hard-copy format or electronically utilizing the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) delivered via e-mail, or other electronic devices that can transport information securely. When requested, hard-copy transcripts must be bound in such a manner to facilitate photocopying. The Vendor shall provide, at its own expense, corrected pages of transcripts in which court reporters provided by the Vendor under this Contract have made errors. Any additional copies of transcripts will be provided only with the approval of the governmental unit initially requesting the engagement. Upon request, the Vendor shall provide the following services to meet the needs of a governmental unit: Real-time court reporting: immediate voice to text transcription in hearings and meetings, broadcast captioning, and real time transcription services for people who are deaf and hard of hearing. Video-to-text synchronization: merging of written records of the transcript with the audio and video – the synced text acts as a subtitle to the playing audio. The Vendor may be offered engagements in counties not listed on this solicitation. The Vendor will charge the closest county rate and mileage rate to the engagement location.
